Overview
Identifiers
Collect two identifiers from each business customer in Papua New Guinea and submit them as strings on the application body.
Tax ID: Alphanumeric; issued via Form TIN-1 (companies). Required before opening a business bank account. IRC issues a TIN Certificate upon registration.
Registration number: Assigned at incorporation; visible on Certificate of Incorporation and IPA entity search. Format not publicly standardised.
Sector regulators
BPNG · SCPNG · IRC
Legal structures
How documents combine
For each evidence area, this table shows whether the listed documents are alternatives (any one of) or a bundle (all required). The artifact-by-artifact lookup follows below.Documents to collect
The physical documents you’ll collect from your customer, with the evidence area each one proves. One document can prove multiple areas — for example, Brazil’s Cartão CNPJ covers both tax and business-registration proof, so it appears once with both areas listed.Collection notes
- Legal Registration: Issued by IPA Companies Office; downloadable via ipa.gov.pg; confirms registration number and date. Foreign companies: Certificate of Registration as Foreign Company + IPA Foreign Enterprise Certificate.
- Constitutive Documents: Optional under Companies Act 1997 s.30; company may operate under default statutory rules if no constitution adopted. On re-registration (Companies Amendment Act 2022), filing a constitution is required. Collect constitution or statutory declaration that none adopted.
- Tax Registration: Issued by IRC; required for bank account opening; no VAT/GST regime — TIN is the single tax identifier.
- Operating Permit: Issued by provincial government or urban/local-level authority; format and name vary by province. No single national general trading permit.
- Sector-Specific License: Collect relevant sector licence certificate; verify licence status on BPNG or SCPNG public registers.
- Governance Records: Annual return lists all current directors with addresses; filed with IPA annually. Also visible via IPA entity search.
- Signing Authority: Board resolution signed by directors; POA should be notarised. For cross-border use, apostille is available — PNG is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention.
- Address: Conduit universal policy: lease (no time bound) OR utility bill OR bank statement, with utility/bank dated within 90 days. Same evidence satisfies both registered-address and operating-address checks.
- Good Standing: Issued by the IPA Companies Office under s398(2) Companies Act 1997. Available in short form (current information only) or long form (current + historical). Request a copy dated within 30 days for banking; 60-90 days for foreign qualification. Available only for entities registered or renewed since 1 December 2022 in the new IPA registry.
Person roles
When you submit a person on the application body, set theirrole to one of Conduit’s canonical BusinessPersonRole values. Use this table to map a local corporate-governance title onto the right canonical role.
Notes
- The Company Constitution is optional under the Companies Act 1997; a company may operate under default statutory rules. On re-registration under the 2022 amendments (re-registration deadline was extended to 2026-04-30), companies must file or confirm no constitution exists. Confirm re-registration status on ipa.gov.pg before accepting legacy constitutional documents.
- Foreign companies must hold both a Certificate of Registration as Foreign Company (Companies Act 1997 Part XVI) and an IPA Foreign Enterprise Certificate (Investment Promotion Act 1992). Both are required for KYB — missing either is a red flag.
- The IPA registry portal (ipa.gov.pg) is the sole online search tool; there is no equivalent to a Companies House API. Public searches show registration number, status, and directors/shareholders but may lag recent filings; always request a fresh official extract for onboarding.