6 min read · Updated 2026-08-23
Seychelles Company Taxation Explained
How the territorial tax system actually works for a Seychelles IBC, what CRS reporting means for you, and what changed with the 2026 EU delisting.
The territorial system, in plain terms
Since the Business Tax (Amendment) Act 2018 took effect on 1 January 2019, Seychelles taxes companies on a territorial basis: income sourced outside Seychelles, earned by a company with no Seychelles-source income, is exempt from Seychelles business tax. This is the mechanism that makes an IBC tax-neutral in Seychelles for genuinely foreign-sourced trading and holding activity — it is not a blanket exemption regardless of where income is earned.
This is not a tool for hiding income from your home tax authority
Seychelles-neutral taxation says nothing about your own tax residency obligations. Seychelles has exchanged financial account information under the OECD Common Reporting Standard (CRS) since 2017, as an early-adopter jurisdiction, and CRS obligations for all financial institutions were reaffirmed and tightened in 2025. If your IBC holds a bank or investment account, that account's details are reported to your jurisdiction of tax residence under CRS. Structuring for legitimate asset protection, succession planning or genuine international trading is what we support — evading a home-country tax obligation is not, and we won't knowingly assist with it.
What the February 2026 EU delisting changes
On 17 February 2026, the Council of the EU removed Seychelles from Annex II of the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, following a 'Largely Compliant' rating in the Global Forum's peer review of exchange of information on request. In practice, this can reduce the additional due diligence some EU-based banks and counterparties apply to Seychelles entities — though individual banks set their own risk policies independent of the EU list, so we'd still recommend confirming account-opening requirements with your specific bank before assuming this removes friction entirely.