COMPANIES with foreign equity seeking to incorporate in the Philippines may now register their businesses with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in just one day.
In a statement on Wednesday, the SEC said it has expanded the coverage of the One Day Submission and Electronic Registration of Companies (OneSEC) Zuper Easy Registration Online facility to include corporations with foreign equity as part of efforts to further streamline the registration process.
“Streamlining the company registration process for foreign entities is a crucial component of our thrust to improve the ease of doing business in the country,” SEC Chairperson Francisco Ed. Lim said.
“By expanding the coverage of OneSEC to foreign entities, we want to send a strong signal to the international business community that the Philippines is open for business, and hopefully encourage them to set up shop here,” he added.
The corporate regulator said it registered a total of 145 foreign corporations in the first half of 2025, a figure expected to rise with the implementation of the faster registration process.
Launched in 2021, OneSEC is a subsystem of the Electronic Simplified Processing of Application for Registration of Company (eSPARC) that uses pre-filled application forms to accelerate processing.
The SEC said the system allows applicants to complete registration in as fast as one minute and 14 seconds, from the start of the application to the issuance of a digital certificate of incorporation.
One-person corporations and regular corporations with two to 15 incorporators, directors, and stockholders are eligible to register via the “pass-through” system.
In August, the SEC expanded the industries eligible to use its one-day registration system, raising the number to 81 from 33 previously. The wider coverage led to a 190% jump in registrations through the OneSEC platform, which reached 2,938 in July from 1,014 in May.
The additional industries included sectors such as computer programming, customs brokerage, deep sea commercial fishing, property management, drugstores, and radio broadcasting. — Alexandria Grace C. Magno
