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  • Business Registration

Quick info guide

Business Registration Checklist

🗸 Proposed Business Name(s)
🗸 Nature of Business
🗸 Location of Business
🗸 Phone or Mobile Number
🗸 Full Names of Applicants
🗸 Nationality
🗸 Identification Number
🗸 Age and Sex
🗸 Residential Address


Estimated time to complete

Three (3) working days


Where to register?

Patents and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA)


Contact information

Patents and Companies Registration Agency
Plot No. 8471
PACRA House
Haile Selassie Avenue, Longacres
P.O. Box 32020, Lusaka
Tel: +260 211 255151 / +260 211 255127
Email: pro@pacra.org.zm
Website: https://www.pacra.org.zm

Registering a business in Zambia

The Patents and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA) has the mandate for registering businesses in Zambia. This mandate is drawn from the Companies Act, No.10 of 2017 and the Registration of Business Names Act. Registering a business is important because it gives your investment legal status, which is critical to access services like loans from banks, as well as opportunities such as tenders. This potentially helps your business to become more competitive. Online user registration is provided for, but it requires prior registration with PACRA.

To make registration services more efficient and business-friendly, the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry (MCTI) launched the One Stop Shop for Business Registration (OSSBR) in Lusaka in June 2010. It intends to roll out the OSSBR to other provinces.

Process of registering a business

  • Name Approval – A client can suggest up to maximum of three names for consideration
  • After Name Approval, the client completes the appropriate registration form and pays registration fees
  • The Registrar issues out a certificate as evidence that the business has been registered

Application for a business license

Winding up a company

When a company ceases to do business, it is required by law to notify the Registrar.

Closing a business name

A person wishing to close a business name is required to complete a Notice of Cessation of Business; and upon paying a prescribed fee, the business name is ceased.

Requirements for winding up

  • Copy of Special Resolution by the members;
  • Summary of Company’s Accounts
  • Statutory Declaration by two or more of its Directors showing how its assets have been disposed off and affirming that it has no debts or liabilities;
  • Once the above is done and upon paying the prescribed fee, the Registrar publishes a notice in the Government Gazette that the country will be wound up;
  • Three months after the Notice appears in the Gazette, a company is struck off the company register.