Published May 28, 2026 · Updated August 14, 2026 with a complete document checklist, name reservation guidance, a pre-submission review process, and a FAQ section.
Here's the direct answer: every OCR company registration application needs citizenship certificates or passports for all shareholders and directors, passport-size photos, a proposed company name with backups, registered office address details, a statement of business objectives and share structure, National ID numbers for each shareholder and director, and a signed Memorandum of Association (MOA) and Articles of Association (AOA) that match your exact company name — plus foreign investment approval and local representative authorization if any shareholding is foreign. Company registration in Nepal is document-driven: OCR doesn't assess your business idea, it assesses your paperwork, and even experienced founders trip up on requirements that seem minor until they cause a rejection. The sections below cover exactly what to prepare and the specific errors that cause the most delays.
What's in this guide
- Documents every applicant needs
- Name reservation: get this right first
- The MOA and AOA
- Additional requirements for foreign investment
- Do requirements differ by entity type?
- Document format: scanning, signing, and notarization
- A worked example: a two-shareholder company
- The specific errors that cause rejections
- Before you upload anything: a pre-submission checklist
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Frequently asked questions
Documents every applicant needs
At minimum, every OCR application needs the following, regardless of your specific business type:
- Citizenship certificate or passport for every shareholder and director.
- Passport-size photos of all shareholders and directors.
- Proposed company name, in English and Nepali, with two or three backup options in case your first choice is already taken.
- Registered office address details for where the company will formally operate.
- Proposed business objectives and share structure — a clear statement of what the company will do and how ownership is divided.
- National ID numbers for every shareholder and director.
- Signed MOA and AOA matching your exact company name — not a draft, and not one that references a different name than what OCR has on file.
- Foreign investment approval, if any shareholding is foreign — see the dedicated section below.
Gathering all of this before you start the online submission, rather than partway through, is what keeps a filing moving instead of stalling on a missing document days into the process.
Name reservation: get this right first
Name reservation happens before anything else. You submit your proposed company name — in English and Nepali — with two or three backup options, and OCR checks it against the existing company registry through CAMIS, its online portal. An approved name is typically reserved for a limited window, which matters more than it sounds: it's worth having your MOA and AOA drafting largely ready to go once the name clears, rather than letting the reservation lapse while you're still drafting from scratch. Letting an approved reservation expire costs you the name and forces you to restart the reservation step, adding avoidable delay to the front of your timeline.
The MOA and AOA
The Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association are the core legal documents defining your company's objectives, capital structure, and internal governance rules. These need to be drafted specifically to match your actual shareholding and business plans — a generic template copied from another company's filing is one of the more common causes of OCR queries, since inconsistencies between the stated objectives and the rest of the application draw scrutiny rather than speeding things along.
Beyond matching your actual business plans, the MOA and AOA need to be internally consistent with every other document in your filing. The company name on the MOA needs to match the application form exactly, share structure described in the AOA needs to match what's stated elsewhere in the submission, and both documents need to be properly signed before upload — an unsigned document is treated as incomplete, not as a minor formality to be resolved later.
Additional requirements for foreign investment
If there's any foreign shareholding involved, expect additional layers of documentation: foreign investment approval where applicable, authorization for a local representative if the foreign promoter isn't resident in Nepal, and generally closer documentation review throughout. This is the single biggest source of delays for foreign-backed applications — missing even one supporting paper here can add weeks to the timeline, since the review process for foreign-invested filings is inherently more thorough than a wholly domestic one.
Foreign-invested companies also need consent to carry out business in Nepal before standard OCR registration can proceed, plus documentation of the license or approval authorizing the foreign party to invest, and the investment needs to be separately recorded with Nepal Rastra Bank — a step that's easy to miss but matters significantly later if you ever want to repatriate profits or capital. For the complete process specific to foreign and NRN investors, see our foreign investment registration guide.
Do requirements differ by entity type?
The core document set above applies broadly, but the details scale with what you're registering. A Private Limited company follows the standard OCR checklist described here. A Public Limited company, needing a minimum of 7 shareholders with no upper limit, carries additional disclosure documentation reflecting its higher minimum capital and ability to raise public capital. A Sole Proprietorship, by contrast, doesn't go through OCR at all — it's registered locally through your Ward office and PAN registration, with a lighter document set that doesn't include an MOA or AOA. If you're not certain which category applies to your planned business, it's worth confirming before you start gathering documents for the wrong process — see our comparison of Sole Proprietorship and Private Limited for how the two differ.
Document format: scanning, signing, and notarization
Registration in 2026 runs through CAMIS, OCR's online portal, which means every document in your filing is submitted digitally — but "digital" doesn't mean the underlying document standards get any looser. A scanned document that's technically present but illegible, cropped, or missing a page gets treated functionally the same as a missing document. Keep scans clear, complete, and properly oriented before uploading, and double-check that multi-page documents like the MOA and AOA are uploaded in full rather than as a partial excerpt.
Signatures matter just as much in digital form as on paper — a document that's otherwise perfect but missing a required signature is treated the same as a missing document entirely, not as a minor oversight to be resolved later in the review. Separately, notarization and stamp duty are part of the cost structure behind a standard filing: for a Private Limited company at a modest capital tier, total costs — including government fees, stamp duty, and notarization — commonly total NPR 15,000 to 25,000, before any professional service fee. This matters for document preparation specifically because a rejected filing can mean redoing notarization or stamp duty on corrected paperwork — effectively paying part of that cost twice. Getting the document set right on the first submission is nearly always cheaper than filing at the lowest possible cost and risking a rejection-and-resubmission cycle.
A worked example: a two-shareholder company
To make the checklist concrete, here's what a straightforward Private Limited filing with two Nepali shareholders (one of whom also serves as director) typically involves in practice. Each shareholder provides their citizenship certificate, a recent passport-size photo, and their National ID number. The founders jointly settle on a company name with two backup options and submit that for reservation first, before drafting begins in earnest. Once the name is approved, the MOA and AOA are drafted to reflect the actual two-person shareholding split, the company's specific business objectives, and its registered office address — not a generic template borrowed from an unrelated filing. Every one of those documents is then cross-checked against every other one: names spelled identically, National ID numbers correctly transcribed, and the company name appearing exactly the same way on the application form as on the MOA. Only once that review pass is complete does the full set get uploaded together through CAMIS.
Add a foreign shareholder to that same scenario, and the checklist above still applies in full, but with an additional layer sitting on top: foreign investment approval, local representative authorization if that shareholder isn't resident in Nepal, and Nepal Rastra Bank recording of the investment — none of which a wholly domestic two-shareholder filing needs to worry about.
The specific errors that cause rejections
OCR's rejection patterns are fairly consistent, and none of them are complex legal problems — they're checklist problems, which is exactly why they're so avoidable with a careful review before submission.
- Company names that don't match exactly between the MOA, the AOA, and the application form — including spacing, capitalization, and punctuation differences that seem trivial but aren't treated that way.
- Missing National ID numbers for any shareholder or director — an easy detail to overlook if you're focused on the larger founding documents.
- Documents uploaded unsigned — a signature isn't optional on the MOA or AOA, and an unsigned upload is treated as an incomplete submission.
- A director's name spelled differently across their citizenship document and the MOA — even a single-character mismatch is enough to trigger a query.
- Missing foreign investment documentation on filings with any foreign shareholding, which as noted above is the single biggest source of delay for that category of application.
Before you upload anything: a pre-submission checklist
A short review pass before submission catches most of the errors above. Work through this list document by document rather than skimming the whole set at once.
- Cross-check every name across the application form, MOA, AOA, and every shareholder/director's citizenship document or passport, for exact character-by-character consistency.
- Confirm every National ID number is present and correctly transcribed for each shareholder and director.
- Confirm both the MOA and AOA are signed, not just drafted — an unsigned document is functionally the same as a missing one.
- Check that your business objectives and share structure in the MOA/AOA match what's stated elsewhere in the application, with no contradictions between documents.
- Verify your name reservation is still active before final submission, since a lapsed reservation forces you to restart that step.
- Confirm any foreign investment documentation is complete, if applicable, before submitting rather than after a query comes back.
A single query from OCR on a submitted filing adds processing time you didn't need to spend — every round of back-and-forth pushes your certificate of incorporation further out. See our full registration guide for the complete process end to end, or let our registration team handle document preparation and review before you ever submit.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Copying MOA/AOA language from another company's filing instead of drafting it to match your actual objectives and shareholding — this is one of the more common causes of OCR queries.
- Letting an approved name reservation lapse by not having your MOA/AOA drafting ready to follow it — the reservation window is limited, and letting it expire costs you the name.
- Assuming a passport photo or citizenship copy is "close enough" when it's outdated, low-resolution, or doesn't clearly match the person's current legal name.
- Treating foreign investment documentation as an afterthought rather than preparing it in parallel with the standard document set — this is where foreign-backed filings lose the most time.
- Submitting before every document has been cross-checked against every other document — a single inconsistency, however minor, is often enough to trigger a query and add delay.
- Uploading a low-quality scan to save time, when a legible, complete, correctly oriented scan is what actually gets a document treated as present rather than effectively missing.
- Assuming a Sole Proprietorship's lighter document requirements apply to a Private Limited filing, or vice versa — confirm which process actually applies to your planned structure before gathering documents for the wrong one.
None of these mistakes require a legal background to avoid — they require a careful, methodical read-through of your own document set before you submit it, ideally by someone other than the person who drafted it, since a second set of eyes tends to catch inconsistencies the drafter has stopped noticing.
Once you have your documents gathered, our free Document Suite can help you merge, convert, or password-protect the resulting PDFs.
Frequently asked questions
What documents does every shareholder and director need to provide?
A citizenship certificate or passport, a passport-size photo, and their National ID number. For foreign shareholders or directors, additional foreign investment documentation applies.
Can I use a generic MOA/AOA template?
Not safely. The MOA and AOA need to be drafted to match your actual shareholding, capital, and business objectives — a generic template copied from another filing is one of the more common causes of OCR queries.
How long is a name reservation valid before I need to submit the rest of my documents?
An approved name is typically reserved for a limited window. Have your MOA and AOA drafting largely ready to go once the name clears, rather than letting the reservation lapse while you're still drafting.
What extra documents are needed if a shareholder is a foreign national?
Foreign investment approval where applicable, authorization for a local representative if the foreign promoter isn't resident in Nepal, consent to carry out business in Nepal, and documentation recording the investment with Nepal Rastra Bank.
Does a Sole Proprietorship need the same documents as a Private Limited company?
No. A Sole Proprietorship registers locally through the Ward office and PAN rather than through OCR, and doesn't require an MOA or AOA at all.
What's the single most common reason OCR queries a filing?
Inconsistency — a company name, a director's name, or another detail that doesn't match exactly across the MOA, AOA, and application form. These are checklist problems, not complex legal issues, and are avoidable with a careful cross-check before submission.
Do scanned documents need to meet a specific quality standard?
There's no published technical specification, but a scan that's illegible, cropped, or incomplete is treated functionally the same as a missing document. Keep every upload clear, complete, and properly oriented before submitting.
What happens if OCR queries my filing after submission?
You'll typically need to correct and resubmit the flagged document, which adds processing time to your timeline. If the issue involves notarization or stamp duty on a corrected document, it can also mean paying part of that cost again — which is why a careful cross-check before the initial submission is worth the extra time upfront.
Can I prepare my documents myself, or do I need professional help?
Many founders do prepare a straightforward domestic filing themselves, provided they work through the checklist carefully. Foreign investment filings, or any case involving more complex shareholding, carry enough additional documentation that professional help usually pays for itself in avoided delay.
Bottom line
Nearly every delay in Nepal's company registration process traces back to a document problem, not a legal one — a name that doesn't match, a missing signature, a National ID number left blank. Preparing the full checklist above before you start your CAMIS submission, and cross-checking every document against every other one, is the single most effective thing you can do to avoid a query and get your certificate of incorporation on the first pass. If you'd rather have this reviewed by someone who does it daily, our company registration team handles document preparation and submission end to end.
