Starting a business in El Salvador: foreigner's guide (2026)

The Centro Nacional de Registros launched the Crea Empresa virtual single window, integrating eight agencies (including Ministry of Finance, ISSS, and municipalities) so entrepreneurs can complete incorporation, NIT/NRC issuance, payroll registration, and municipal enrollment in roughly four hours. The platform is accessible globally, eliminating the need for in-person visits.

Legislative Decree No. 905, approved 6 December 2023 and published 13 December 2023, took effect after its 60-day vacatio legis, introducing a new single-shareholder limited-liability company (SAS) with minimum capital of USD 1, fully online incorporation via CNR electronic forms and certified e-signature, and free registration fees for the first year. This is the most significant change to El Salvador's company law in decades.

Approved by the Assembly on 18 April 2023 and promulgated on 4 May 2023 (in force 4 August 2023), Decree 722 grants national and foreign tech companies a 15-year blanket exemption from income, capital-gains, municipal, and import taxes for activities including software, AI, big data, cybersecurity, and hardware manufacturing—substantially reducing the cost of establishing or relocating a tech business to El Salvador.

The Digital Assets Issuance Law established a dedicated licensing and regulatory framework for Digital Asset Service Providers (DASPs) supervised by the newly created Comisión Nacional de Activos Digitales (CNAD). Companies wishing to issue or trade tokenized instruments in El Salvador must register through CNAD, creating a new regulated entry pathway for fintech and crypto-native businesses.

The Secretariat of Innovation of the Presidency launched simple.sv, a unified digital portal cataloguing and enabling online processing of over 2,000 government procedures, including all commercial-registration steps at CNR. The platform collapsed previously fragmented multi-agency queues into a single access point, directly reducing the time and cost burden of starting a business.

This landmark regulatory-reform law required all regulations to produce benefits exceeding their costs, mandated a 20% reduction in business compliance costs, established the Oficina de Mejora Regulatoria (OMR), and created a legal obligation to simplify and digitize government procedures. It provided the statutory backbone for subsequent digital-government reforms—including simple.sv—that streamlined business start-up processes.

Administrative reforms detached the Centro Nacional de Registros from direct ministerial control, granting it operational and financial autonomy as a decentralized public entity with its Executive Director appointed by the President. This restructuring improved the registry's accountability and capacity to invest in modernization initiatives.

Legislative Decree No. 271 (15 February 1973), published in the Official Gazette No. 44, Volume 238 on 5 March 1973, established the formal legal framework for the Commercial Registry—defining mandatory registration requirements for commercial enterprises, corporate incorporation deeds, and commercial acts. It remains the primary statute governing commercial registration in El Salvador and the legal basis for the CNR's Registro de Comercio.

Legislative Decree No. 671 (8 May 1970), published in the Official Gazette on 31 July 1970, established El Salvador's comprehensive commercial code governing all business entities, merchants, commercial acts, and company types including Sociedad Anónima (SA) and Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada (SRL). It set the durable legal architecture within which all subsequent business-formation reforms have operated.