Register a Company Online in Nepal: OCR CAMIS Step-by-Step (Name Reservation to Incorporation)

Company incorporation in Nepal is handled by the Office of the Company Registrar (OCR), a government office under the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies based at Tripureshwor, Kathmandu. The OCR registers and regulates companies under the Companies Act, 2063 (2006) — the statute that defines private companies, public companies and not-for-distribution (not-for-profit) companies.

CAMIS — the Company Administration and Management Information System — is the OCR's digital platform, reached at camis.ocr.gov.np. It has progressively replaced the older counter-based process so that the core incorporation journey, from proposing a name through to issuing the registration certificate, can be completed online without visiting the office. The same portal is later used for post-incorporation filings such as annual returns and changes to company particulars.

Before any company action, an applicant registers as a portal user. On camis.ocr.gov.np you select the option to create a user account and supply your personal details — full name, address, nationality and an identity reference (citizenship details for Nepali nationals, or passport details for foreigners) — together with a working email address and phone number used for verification and system notices.

The account is the single login through which you propose names, submit the incorporation file, receive the Registrar's queries, make payment and download certificates. Keeping the registered email and phone current matters, because CAMIS communicates approvals, rejections and fee notices through these channels rather than by post.

The first company-level step is name reservation. Through the name-check / name-reservation section of CAMIS you propose your intended company name, and applicants are commonly advised to enter the name in both English and Nepali. The system lets you check against existing and previously reserved names, and the Registrar then verifies that the proposed name is not identical or confusingly similar to a registered company and does not use prohibited or restricted words under the Companies Act, 2063.

Submitting several name options improves the chance that one is accepted on the first pass, since duplication and similarity are the usual grounds for rejection. Name handling carries a small statutory fee (an availability check and a reservation fee), payable online.

Once the Registrar approves a proposed name, CAMIS issues a name reservation that holds the name for the applicant for 90 days. This window is the period within which the rest of incorporation — uploading constitutional documents, clearing any queries and paying the fee — must be completed.

If the company is not incorporated within the 90-day validity, the reservation lapses and the name returns to the available pool, where another applicant may take it. In that case the name has to be proposed and reserved again. Treating the 90 days as a hard deadline, and preparing the MoA/AoA in parallel, is the practical way to avoid losing a reserved name.

With a live name reservation, the applicant builds the incorporation file in CAMIS. The two core constitutional documents are the Memorandum of Association (MoA) and the Articles of Association (AoA). The MoA states the company's name, registered office, objectives and capital structure (authorised, issued and paid-up shares); the AoA sets the internal governance rules — share transfers, appointment of directors, conduct of meetings and distribution of profits. The OCR provides standard templates that applicants can adapt.

Alongside the MoA and AoA, the file typically includes identity documents of the shareholders and directors (citizenship for Nepalis or passport for foreigners) and, where there is more than one promoter, a consensus agreement among shareholders. Documents are uploaded as scanned files in the format CAMIS accepts. Foreign-investment companies have an additional layer: prior approval from the relevant authority for foreign direct investment must be in place before incorporation.

Company type drives the capital and membership rules. Under the Companies Act, 2063, a private company can be formed with a single shareholder, and the shareholder ceiling — originally fifty under Section 9 — was raised to 101 by amendment, with employee-shareholders excluded from the count. A public company requires a minimum of seven shareholders with no upper limit, and Section 4 sets a minimum paid-up capital of ten million rupees (one crore) for a public company. A private limited company has no comparably high statutory minimum, so promoters set a modest authorised capital suited to the business.

The OCR registration fee is not a flat amount: it rises in slabs according to the company's authorised capital, so a small private company pays a low base fee while companies with large authorised capital pay progressively more, with an incremental rate applied above the top slab. Because exact fee amounts are periodically revised, the current schedule should be confirmed on the OCR website rather than assumed; the durable point is that the fee tracks authorised capital.

After the file is submitted, an OCR officer reviews the application and documents. If something is incomplete or non-compliant, CAMIS returns the file with the Registrar's remarks for the applicant to correct and resubmit. When the documents are in order, the portal issues a fee notice for the registration charge, which is paid online — for example through digital wallets or bank channels supported by the system.

On successful payment the system generates the Company Registration Certificate, which can be downloaded from the portal; once the file is clean and the fee is paid, issuance can be completed quickly, often the same day. Incorporation, however, is only the first stage of becoming operational: a new company still has to obtain a Permanent Account Number (PAN), and VAT registration where applicable, from the Inland Revenue Department, and complete any local-ward and sector-specific licensing before trading.