Foundations Act, 2009 (amended through 2024)
Seychelles Foundation Formation
A Foundation is a self-owning legal entity — it has no shareholders and, unlike a trust, holds its own assets in its own name, managed by a council according to its charter. It's governed by the Foundations Act, 2009, as amended through 2024, and is often the preferred structure for clients from civil-law jurisdictions that don't formally recognise trusts.
Think of a foundation as sitting between a trust and a company. Like a trust, it's typically used to hold and protect assets across generations rather than to trade; like a company, it has its own legal personality and can own property, sue and be sued, and enter contracts in its own name. The founder endows it with initial assets and sets its purpose and rules in a charter — after that, the council (similar in role to a board of directors) administers the foundation according to those rules, not according to the founder's ongoing instructions, unless the charter specifically reserves powers to the founder.
This structure resonates particularly with founders from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and other civil-law jurisdictions with their own long-standing foundation traditions (Stiftung, fondation), because the concept translates directly into how local courts, banks and tax authorities already think about ownership — unlike a trust, which can require additional explanation in a civil-law context. It's a natural fit for family wealth planning, holding a family business across generations, or ring-fencing philanthropic funds from a founder's personal estate.
As with our other structures, the beneficial ownership behind a foundation is reported to the FSA and Financial Intelligence Unit under the Beneficial Ownership Act 2020, and is not published — the charter and the council's decisions stay private, with recourse to the Supreme Court of Seychelles available if a councillor's decision is disputed.
Best suited for
- Clients from civil-law jurisdictions seeking a trust-equivalent structure
- Succession planning where a self-owning entity is preferred to a trust relationship
- Holding structures for family wealth, philanthropic purposes, or purpose funds
Self-owning legal entity
Unlike a trust, a foundation owns its own assets outright and has its own legal personality — there is no separate legal owner holding assets 'for' it.
Governed by a council
A council administers the foundation according to its charter and regulations, similar in function to a board of directors, with duties owed to the foundation's purpose and beneficiaries.
Court oversight available
Councillors can apply to the Supreme Court of Seychelles regarding council decisions — a formal oversight mechanism written into the amended Foundations Act.
Confidential charter
As with IBCs and trusts, beneficial ownership information is held by the registered agent and reported to the FSA/FIU — not published on a public register.
Frequently asked
Formation questions, answered directly
Does a foundation have owners or shareholders?
No. A foundation has no shareholders — it owns itself and its assets. It has founders (who establish it), a council (who administer it), and beneficiaries (who may benefit from it), but none of them 'own' the foundation the way a shareholder owns a company. This is a genuinely different legal concept from a company, not just different terminology: once assets are endowed to the foundation, they belong to the foundation itself, and the founder's ongoing control depends entirely on what powers were reserved in the charter at the outset. Some founders choose to retain the right to amend the charter or appoint/remove councillors; others deliberately give those powers up to strengthen the foundation's independence for asset-protection or succession purposes. We'll talk through what level of retained control makes sense for your situation before the charter is drafted, since it's much harder to change after the fact than to get right at formation.
Why choose a foundation over a trust?
The main driver is usually the founder's home legal system. Civil-law jurisdictions (much of continental Europe, Latin America, parts of Asia) often don't formally recognise the trust concept, but do recognise foundations as legal entities — making a foundation more straightforward to explain to local courts, banks or tax authorities in those jurisdictions. Beyond that legal-system fit, some founders simply prefer the governance model: a foundation's council operates more like a board of directors, which can feel more familiar to someone used to running a company than the trustee-beneficiary relationship of a trust. There's no universal answer, and the two structures often end up achieving similar practical outcomes — asset protection, succession planning, keeping ownership out of a founder's direct personal name — so the decision usually comes down to which concept your bank, your home-country advisor, and your own instincts find easier to work with.
Can a foundation run a business?
A foundation is generally structured for holding and succession purposes rather than active trading. If ongoing commercial trading is the goal, an IBC — potentially held by the foundation — is usually the more appropriate vehicle for the trading activity itself. That said, a foundation can hold shares in one or more operating companies, receive dividends or other income from them, and use that income for its stated purpose (supporting beneficiaries, funding a philanthropic purpose, or reinvesting), which is a very common structure in practice. What we'd steer you away from is putting day-to-day trading activity — invoicing customers, signing commercial contracts, taking on operational liability — directly into the foundation itself, since that blurs the line between the foundation's asset-holding purpose and an operating business in a way that can complicate both its governance and its risk profile.