An amendment to Accounting Records (Maintenance) Act in Belize has been gazetted on 28 August 2023.

In this amendment, all Belize company are now required to maintain the accounting records within Belize either at their registered office or office of their registered agent in Belize. All Belize company must provide the accounting records to the registered agent on or before 31 December 2023 to comply with this new amendment.

1. Keeping of Accounting Records at Registered Office
   
   In accordance with the Section 2 of Accounting Records (Maintenance) Act, the “Accounting Records” includes financial statements, general and subsidiary ledgers, sales slips, contracts and invoices, and records and documentation relating to:
   

   (1)	An entity’s assets and liabilities;
   (2)	All sums of money received and expended and the matters in respect of which the receipt and expenditure take place;
   (3)	All sales and purchases; and
   (4)	All financial transactions.

   
   
2. Penalty on non-compliance
   
   These accounting records shall be maintained and retained for a period of not less than 5 years. Subject to this amendment, the company must deliver their accounting records for the past 5 years to its registered agent and kept them at the registered office in Belize.
   
   The amendment also requires the registered agent to report the list of non-compliant entity with the Financial Services Commission and cease to act as the registered agent of those companies.
   
   If the company fails to comply with or contravenes any provisions of the Accounting Records (Maintenance) Act, an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars and the authority may revoke its registration in Belize.
   
   
3. Fee
   
   Clients should start collecting all accounting documents, including but not limited to bank statements, invoices and contracts, for the period from 1 January 2018 until now, and deliver them to us on or before 31 November 2023 so as to enable Kaizen to deliver the documents to the registered agent.
   
   Our fee for maintenance of the annual accounting records is USD250 (including the initial filing of accounting documents for the past 5 years). The fee of subsequent filings is depending on the volume of documents to be maintained at the registered office starting from the year of 2024.
   
   Due to the time limitation, we recommend you collect all the accounting records and send to Kaizen immediately in order to avoid registered agent to cease their service due to non-compliance.
   

For further details about the accounting records keeping, we will keep clients informed upon receiving any updates from the Financial Services Commission.