How to Set Up a Company in Argentina (2026 Guide)

Last updated: October 2026. The companies registry for the City of Buenos Aires overhauled its rules this year, and several steps that older guides describe as mandatory no longer are. What changed is summarised at the end.

Incorporating a company in Argentina is a defined process with a defined set of steps, and in 2026 it became a shorter one. Getting through it on schedule is a different problem, and it is the one worth planning for.

If you are a foreign company or a non-resident individual, the process is rarely held up by the registry. It is held up by paperwork produced in your own country, which has to be apostilled there and sworn-translated here before anything can be filed. Almost every delay we see starts abroad, weeks before anything reaches an Argentine desk.

This is how the process works, what it actually costs, which documents you need, and where files stall.

Can a foreign company or individual own an Argentine company?

Yes. Argentina places no general restriction on foreign ownership of a local company. You do not need an Argentine partner, you do not need a minimum local shareholding, and you do not need to be a resident to be a shareholder. A handful of regulated sectors have their own rules, which are outside the scope of this article.

What the law requires is on the management side, not the ownership side. Every Argentine company must have at least one representative domiciled in Argentina, and a registered office in the jurisdiction where it is incorporated. In an S.R.L. the majority of the gerentes must be domiciled in Argentina; in an S.A.S. at least one administrator must be. Whoever administers the company, directors of an S.A., managers of an S.R.L. or administrators of an S.A.S., also has to post a guarantee in favour of the company; since April 2026 this can be satisfied by a sworn declaration, so it no longer necessarily costs anything. All of this can be provided as a service, and none of it requires you to travel.

Three different things people mean by "setting up in Argentina"

Under the Argentine Companies Act (Ley General de Sociedades 19.550, "LGS"), a foreign company has three distinct paths, and they are not interchangeable.

Incorporating a new Argentine company. You create a new local entity, most often an S.R.L., an S.A.S. or an S.A. It has its own legal personality, its own tax ID and its own liability. This is what most foreign clients actually want.

Registering a branch under Article 118 LGS. If your existing foreign company intends to habitually carry out business in Argentina without creating a separate entity, it registers a branch. The branch is not a separate legal person, so the foreign parent remains directly liable for everything it does, which is the main reason it is rarely chosen: in practice almost every foreign group prefers a subsidiary.

Registering under Article 123 LGS to become a shareholder. If your foreign company wants to own shares in an Argentine company, it registers itself locally under Article 123.

Here is the part that has changed, and it matters more than anything else in this article. Until 2026 the Article 123 registration had to be completed before the local company could be incorporated, which meant two sequential filings and made the foreign-parent route by far the slowest way in. General Resolution 4/2026 of the Inspección General de Justicia removed that. The Article 123 registration can now be filed at the same time as the incorporation, where the shareholding appears in the constitutive instrument itself. A branch under Article 118 no longer requires an Article 123 registration on top of it either.

What has not changed is the document load. A corporate shareholder still contributes its bylaws, its certificate of incorporation, a good standing certificate, the corporate resolution approving the investment and evidence of who is authorised to sign, and every one of those has to be apostilled abroad and sworn-translated here. An individual shareholder contributes a passport and a power of attorney. That difference is what drives both the budget and the timeline, almost entirely through one line item, which is translation.

The May 2026 reform lightened the rest of it considerably. It repealed thirty-one articles of the previous rules and consolidated the requirements for Articles 118 and 123 into a single provision. The beneficial-owner sworn statement that had to accompany the financial statements is gone, so is the verification of positive net worth in the parent, so is registration as a "vehicle company", and the restrictions aimed at off-shore entities now apply only to jurisdictions flagged by the FATF. Notarial certification of the signatory's powers can be replaced by a declaration from the company's own officer with a certified signature, and a consolidated text of the bylaws is accepted instead of every successive amendment. What remains is an annual reporting obligation for the registered foreign company, which is part of the recurring compliance we handle.

Choosing the structure: S.R.L., S.A.S. or S.A.

S.R.L. (Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada). The closest equivalent to a limited liability company. Between 2 and 50 quotaholders, liability limited to the capital subscribed, managed by one or more gerentes. There is no statutory minimum capital, though a figure has to be set. Cash contributions must be at least a quarter paid in at incorporation, with the balance within two years; contributions in kind are paid in full at incorporation. Since September 2026 the registry no longer requires that figure to be "adequate" to the stated purpose, which used to be a common source of observations, and where the amount paid in at incorporation does not exceed two monthly minimum wages, roughly USD 500, it can be evidenced by a sworn statement in the incorporation deed itself rather than a bank deposit. For most foreign clients this is the default.

S.A.S. (Sociedad por Acciones Simplificada). Created by Law 27.349 as a faster, digital vehicle. It admits a single shareholder, which is what most foreign groups are looking for when they ask about wholly-owned subsidiaries, and its minimum capital is two monthly minimum wages, about USD 500 at the official rate of early October 2026, around ARS 1,540 to the dollar, paid in under the same rule as the S.R.L., a quarter of cash contributions at incorporation and the balance within two years. Its treatment by the regulator swung considerably over the years, but 2026 moved firmly towards simplification: the registry requirements were reorganised and the corporate purpose may now be stated simply as the carrying out of any lawful activity.

S.A. (Sociedad Anónima). The corporation. Shares are freely transferable, which makes it right if you expect to bring in investors or move ownership. It has a board of one or more directors, carries heavier reporting obligations, and has a statutory minimum capital of ARS 30,000,000 under Decree 209/2024 for companies incorporated from March 2024 onwards, roughly USD 19,500 at that same rate, of which at least a quarter of any cash contribution is paid in at incorporation and the balance within two years. Companies incorporated earlier keep their previous figure. An S.A. can also have a single shareholder, as a sociedad anónima unipersonal, but that variant is a different proposition: the capital has to be paid in full at incorporation, the company needs a statutory auditor, and it falls under the registry's permanent supervision. For a wholly-owned subsidiary the S.A.S. is almost always the better vehicle.

One thing worth saying plainly, because foreign groups ask for it constantly: a company secretary does not exist in Argentine company law, and we do not offer nominee shareholders, which under the current beneficial-ownership rules is a compliance exposure rather than a service. If the issue is the need for more than one shareholder, the answer is a single-shareholder S.A.S. or a second group entity holding a minimal stake.

The chain every foreign document has to travel

Argentina does not take a foreign document at face value. It travels through the same chain: issue, notarize, apostille, sworn translation in Argentina.

Notarization in the country of origin. Signatures certified by a local notary.

Apostille. Argentina is a party to the 1961 Hague Convention, so documents from member states carry an apostille rather than consular legalization. Documents from non-member states go through the Argentine consulate, which takes longer.

Sworn translation into Spanish. Done in Argentina by a traductor público registered with the Colegio de Traductores Públicos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, whose signature is then legalized by that body. A translation done in your own country, however good, is not valid here.

This chain is in the middle of going digital, and it is worth knowing where things stand. The 2026 reforms allow the registry to accept digitally apostilled documents where their integrity, authenticity and traceability can be verified, the registry has stopped requiring paper copies and now returns registered documentation electronically, and sworn translations have been available as digitally signed PDFs with online-verifiable legalization since 2020. How much of that you can actually use on a given file still depends on what your own country issues and on how each document is received in practice, which is still settling. The sensible approach is to assume originals may have to travel, and to ask early whether they need to. Where they do not, you save weeks.

The document checklist, by type of shareholder

Individual shareholders

For each individual who will hold an interest:

Passport. Full copy, certified by a notary in your country, valid and not expiring during the process.
Power of attorney in favour of your Argentine representative, so no shareholder has to travel. It must state the powers granted with enough specificity for the registry, including incorporating the company, appointing management and completing tax registrations.
Proof of address, where required for the tax ID application.

Both the passport copy and the power of attorney need notarization, apostille and sworn translation.

Before anything goes for apostille, check three things. That the full legal name on the passport matches, character for character, the name that will appear in the incorporation documents, because a middle name in one and not the other will hold the file up. That you know which languages the apostille and the notarial wording will be issued in, which is covered below. And that the power of attorney has not been drafted from a generic template, because powers drafted abroad frequently omit authority that Argentine registries and tax authorities require, and the document then has to be reissued and re-apostilled from scratch. Have the draft reviewed on the Argentine side before it is signed. It is the single most useful thing that can happen before an engagement formally starts.

Corporate shareholders

For each corporate shareholder:

Certificate of incorporation or equivalent constitutional document.
Bylaws or articles of association, consolidated current text. Usually the longest document in the set and the one that drives the translation cost.
Certificate of good standing or equivalent evidence the company exists and is in compliance.
Evidence of the current directors or officers, and of the authority of whoever signs.
Corporate resolution of the competent body approving the investment and appointing the representative.
Power of attorney in favour of the Argentine representative.
Passport of the individual signing on behalf of the company.

Every one of these requires notarization, apostille and sworn translation, and each translation carries its own legalization fee. On the resolution and the power of attorney in particular, ask your notary to certify not only the signature but also the signatory's authority to bind the company. A notarial certificate that covers the signer's powers answers in advance the question the Argentine registry is going to ask, and it is far cheaper to have it issued with the document than to obtain it afterwards.

Three things to check before you start. Get a page count of the bylaws to your Argentine advisors early, because translation is quoted by document and length and on a corporate shareholder it is frequently the largest single third-party cost of the whole incorporation. Check the good standing certificate's issue date, because some registries treat these as having a limited useful life. And confirm which body in your company is competent to approve the resolution under your own governance, board or shareholders, because a resolution passed by the wrong body is a defect that surfaces here, late.

A question worth asking before the apostille is issued

Ask which language the apostille stamp and the notarial wording will be in.

This sounds trivial and it is not. A sworn translator in Argentina is registered by language and can only certify the languages he or she is registered for, which for most translators is one. If your document is in English but the apostille or the notarial certification is issued in a third language, you need two sworn translations, one per language, each with its own legalization fee. That is not fatal, but it adds cost and days that nobody budgeted.

The association covers more than thirty languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Russian and Ukrainian, so it is rare that no translator exists at all. When it does happen, with a less common language, the only fix is to go back to the country of origin and have the document reissued. Either way, one email before the document is issued is worth a month afterwards.

The registration process, step by step

Tax ID for the foreign shareholders. Non-resident shareholders need an Argentine tax ID before they appear in the incorporation documents. Until early 2026 non-residents were issued a CDI; General Resolution 5803/2025 of ARCA, the federal tax authority, eliminated the CDI and unified everything under the CUIT as of 2 March 2026. A non-resident applies through a representative or attorney-in-fact domiciled in Argentina. A foreigner who is resident in Argentina but does not yet hold an Argentine identity document is issued a provisional CUIT valid for up to two years. CDIs issued earlier stay valid until the holder changes registered data, at which point they convert.
Power of attorney to your local representative, so the whole process runs without anyone travelling.
Name reservation. Up to three alternatives can be reserved at once, for thirty days.
Drafting and execution of the incorporation instrument, with signatures certified by an Argentine notary, filed together with the Article 123 registration of the foreign parent where there is one.
Professional pre-qualification opinion (dictamen de precalificación), a report signed by a lawyer and, where applicable, an accountant. As of 23 September 2026 this is no longer required for the incorporation itself, but it is still required for the registration of foreign companies under Articles 118, 119 and 123, and for essentially every corporate filing after incorporation, including changes of management, capital variations, changes of registered office, amendments, transfers of quotas and reorganisations.
Publication of the incorporation notice in the Boletín Oficial, as required by section 10 LGS.
Filing with the registry. The Inspección General de Justicia for the City of Buenos Aires, or the corresponding Dirección Provincial de Personas Jurídicas if you incorporate in a province. Requirements are not identical and a jurisdictional change afterwards is a filing of its own.
Post-registration. Registration of the corporate books, tax ID for the company itself, registration with ARCA at national level and with the local revenue authority, electronic invoicing credentials, and opening the bank account.

That last step is the one clients underestimate. A company that is registered but not yet tax-active and without a bank account cannot invoice, cannot hire and cannot pay anyone.

How long it takes

These are indicative and they are not commitments, because registry turnaround is not ours to promise. They run from the day the documentation from abroad is complete, apostilled and translated, and they assume nothing has to be redone.

S.R.L. or S.A.S. with individual shareholders: around two weeks from complete documents.
S.R.L. or S.A.S. with a foreign company as shareholder, Article 123 filed simultaneously: two to four weeks from the moment the parent's documents are in Argentina, translated.
S.A.: the same as an S.R.L., around two weeks.
Branch under Article 118: three to four weeks.
CUIT for the company: one to two weeks from registration.
Tax activation and electronic invoicing: one to two weeks from the CUIT.
Bank account: four to twelve weeks, and that one depends entirely on the bank.

The clock starts when the documentation from abroad is complete and correct. Getting it there is the part we handle with you, and it is where most of the value of having advisors sits, so it is worth starting that conversation before you commission a single document.

What it costs

Most of this quote is predictable, and one item is not. We deal with that by drawing the line in the same place every time.

Our professional fee for a standard S.R.L. or S.A.S. is a single all-inclusive figure, quoted in writing before you commit to anything. It covers our work and the third-party costs that go with it: the registry fee, publication in the official gazette, notarial certification of signatures, registration of the corporate and accounting books, and the administrators' guarantee where a bond is used. You are not going to receive a series of small invoices for items you did not know existed. If your shareholder is a company, its Article 123 registration is quoted the same way, as a closed figure on top. An S.A., a branch under Article 118, and incorporating in a province rather than the City of Buenos Aires are quoted separately.

Sworn translation is the one thing quoted separately, because it is the one thing that depends on your documents rather than on us, and two things move it.

The first is how much there is to translate. Two passports and two powers of attorney, which is what an incorporation with individual shareholders needs, sit at the bottom. A corporate shareholder's bylaws, incorporation and good standing certificates, board resolutions and power of attorney sit at the top, and a long constitutional document can push past it.

The second is the language. Sworn translators in Argentina are registered by language, and the rate is not the same across all of them: English, Portuguese, Italian and French are the most commonly quoted, while Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew and the Nordic and Eastern European languages carry a higher rate simply because fewer registered translators work in them. If your apostille or notarial wording is issued in a different language from the document itself, you need one sworn translation for each, which is the most common reason a quote comes in above what the client expected.

This is why we ask for a page count of your bylaws in the first conversation. We get a firm translation quote before you commit to anything, so the number is known at the start rather than discovered halfway through. The apostille itself is paid in your own country and we have no visibility on it.

Our quotes are in US dollars, exclusive of VAT, which does not apply to services exported to a non-resident, and they are confirmed in writing before any engagement begins.

After incorporation: the part that keeps running

Incorporating is the finite part. Keeping the company in good standing is the recurring one, and it is where foreign-owned companies most often drift into trouble, usually because a filing everyone assumed was covered turned out to be in nobody's scope.

An Argentine company has monthly and annual tax filings, statutory accounting records, annual financial statements, a meeting to approve them, and corporate filings with the registry. It must maintain a registered office and a local representative at all times. Payroll, if you hire, brings its own registrations, monthly obligations and employer contributions, on top of the statutory thirteenth salary, holidays and severance; Argentine labour law is a subject of its own and we will cover it in a separate article.

Two 2026 changes help here. Corporate meetings can now be held remotely unless the bylaws expressly prohibit it, and directors, managers and administrators can accept office with an electronic or digital signature and register an electronic domicile, which removes a recurring friction for a foreign-owned company. Separately, the amnesty for companies with overdue accounting filings runs to 31 December 2026, which gives a company that has fallen behind a window to regularise.

A company that stops filing does not fail loudly. It fails quietly, and you find out when a compliance certificate comes back observed at the exact moment you need it for a bank, an investor or a sale.

Four things worth getting right at the start

Working from a guide written before 2026. Several steps that older material describes as mandatory no longer apply, and one of them, the sequential Article 123, used to add weeks.

Not checking the language of the apostille. Covered above. One email.

Choosing the province on cost alone. Requirements and criteria differ between the IGJ and each provincial registry, and moving jurisdiction afterwards is a filing of its own.

Treating registration as the finish line. Without tax registration, corporate books and a bank account, a registered company cannot yet do business.

What changed in 2026

The Inspección General de Justicia issued eleven general resolutions during the year, almost all pointing the same way: fewer documents, fewer intermediate steps, and a fully digital process. The ones that matter to a foreign investor are these.

General Resolution 4/2026, in force since 27 May. Reformed the regime for foreign companies. Article 123 can now be filed simultaneously with the incorporation, Article 118 no longer requires an Article 123 as well, digitally apostilled documentation may be accepted where integrity, authenticity and traceability can be verified, consolidated bylaws are accepted in place of successive amendments, and a long list of supporting documents was repealed.

General Resolution 11/2026, in force since 23 September. Simplified incorporation. It removed the pre-qualification opinion as a requirement for incorporating a company, relaxed the drafting of the corporate purpose so unrelated activities can be listed without describing each one, dropped the requirement that capital be adequate to the purpose, allowed small paid-in amounts to be evidenced by a sworn statement instead of a bank deposit, allowed reservation of up to three names for thirty days, and introduced rules for contributions in virtual assets. The dispensation is narrower than the headlines suggested: it covers incorporation and a short list of judicial and precautionary filings, and expressly leaves foreign-company registrations and post-incorporation filings where they were.

General Resolutions 3, 5 and 7 of 2026. Remote meetings unless the bylaws prohibit them, electronic and digital signature for accepting corporate office, electronic domicile for directors, the end of paper copies, electronic protocolisation, registered documentation returned electronically rather than collected in person, and a new online platform for filing and tracking that is being rolled out one procedure at a time.

Taken together, a company can be incorporated and kept in good standing in Buenos Aires with less paperwork and less physical presence than at any point in the last decade, and none of that presence has to be yours. What has not changed, and what still decides how long your file takes, is everything that happens in your own country before the Argentine side can begin.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to travel to Argentina to set up a company?

No. The whole process can be completed through a power of attorney granted in your own country and apostilled there.

Do I need an Argentine partner or a local shareholder?

No. 100% foreign ownership is permitted.

Do I need a resident director?

Every company must have at least one representative domiciled in Argentina. In an S.R.L. the majority of the managers must be; in an S.A.S. at least one administrator must be. This is routinely provided as a service.

Can a single shareholder own the whole company?

Yes. The practical vehicle is the S.A.S. A single-shareholder S.A. also exists, but it requires the capital to be paid in full at incorporation, a statutory auditor, and it is under permanent registry supervision, so it is rarely the right choice for a subsidiary. An S.R.L. needs at least two quotaholders.

Does the foreign parent still have to register before the local company is incorporated?

No. Since May 2026 the Article 123 registration can be filed at the same time as the incorporation where the shareholding appears in the constitutive instrument.

Is the tax ID for a non-resident still called a CDI?

No. The CDI was eliminated in March 2026 and replaced by the CUIT for everyone, including non-residents.

Can I use a translation done in my own country?

No. It has to be done in Argentina by a sworn translator registered with the translators' association, whose signature is then legalized by that body. The translation itself can be fully digital.

Are digital apostilles accepted?

The rules allow it where integrity, authenticity and traceability can be verified, and practice is catching up with the rules. Whether your own country issues one that can be verified, and whether a given document can go through without the original, is worth asking early rather than assuming.

How much capital do I have to put in?

It depends on the structure. An S.R.L. has no statutory minimum, but a capital figure has to be set. An S.A.S. has a legal minimum of two monthly minimum wages, which at current values is about ARS 770,000, roughly USD 500 at the official rate of early October 2026. An S.A. has a statutory minimum of ARS 30,000,000 for companies incorporated from March 2024 onwards. In all three, cash contributions must be at least a quarter paid in at incorporation with the balance within two years, and contributions in kind are paid in full at incorporation. The one exception is the single-shareholder S.A., where the whole capital must be paid in at incorporation.

Setting up in Argentina is a manageable process, and in 2026 it became a noticeably lighter one. It is simply unforgiving of paperwork that is not exactly right, and that is a problem best solved before anything is filed rather than after.

If you are considering it, we will look at your specific case, tell you which of the three routes applies, review your documents before you commission or apostille anything, and give you a closed figure before you commit. The first consultation is free.

Leandro Agustín Sofía Liuzzi is an Argentine corporate lawyer (CPACF T° 141 F° 71) and the founder of SetUp Argentina, where he advises international companies on entering and operating in the Argentine market. This article is general information, not legal advice for a specific matter, and reflects the rules in force in the City of Buenos Aires as at October 2026.