EMAIL INSTEAD AN OFFICE – NEW WAY TO ESTABLISH A COMPANY

Russian authorities (including the Federal Tax Service) suggest that a company may be registered without an official postal address, and all communications with the company will be done by email.
Currently a Russian company needs an office (i.e. official postal address) to be registered by authorities. The address of the office is entered into the companies’ register and used as the official way to communicate with the company. The tax authority continuously checks if companies are present in their offices. If a company is not present in the office, it may encounter negative legal consequences (its CEO may be banned to manage, and shareholders may be banned to establish new companies; the company itself may be deleted from the companies’ register).
However, as shown by COVID, many companies do not need an office and employees work normally from home. The only reason to have an office is to have a valid postal address for communication purposes. An “official” email address could perfectly perform this task, and having an office seems to be obsolete for many companies.
That is why Russian authorities suggest that a company may be registered even if it has no office and no postal address. All official communications with be done by email. The official email address will be recorded in the companies’ register.
The respective legal initiative shall be elaborated in March 2021.