The annual franchise tax

Non-profit organizations, cooperatives and civil companies do not pay it. Older guides say B/. 250: that was the first-year amount under laws that no longer apply.

Source: Tax Code, article 318-A, as amended by Law 28 of 2012, Official Gazette 27029-C

The first payment is made with the registration fees, when the company is recorded. Dates such as June 30 or the first quarter are not in the law.

• By July 15, if the articles were recorded in the Public Registry between January and June.
• By January 15, if they were recorded between July and December.
• It is paid through the company’s legal representative or its resident agent.

Source: Tax Code, article 318-A, as amended by Law 49 of 2009 and Law 52 of 2016

• A one-time surcharge of B/. 50 for each year or part of a year late.
• While it is unpaid, the Public Registry records no corporate act and issues no certificates of the company, except those an authority or a third party needs to assert its rights.
• Two periods unpaid, in a row or not, add a B/. 300 fine and a marginal note of default, lifted when everything owed is paid.

Source: Tax Code, article 318-A, paragraphs 1 and 3, as amended by Law 49 of 2009, Law 52 of 2016 and Law 28 of 2012

After three consecutive years unpaid, the Public Registry suspends the company’s corporate rights on the order of the General Directorate of Revenue. A company is also suspended if it goes more than 90 calendar days without a resident agent.

While suspended, the company cannot start lawsuits, do business, dispose of its assets, make claims or take any corporate action that binds it. It can still ask to be reactivated, defend itself in suits brought against it, and continue the ones it started before.

Source: Tax Code, article 318-A, paragraphs 2 and 3, as amended by Law 52 of 2016 and Law 254 of 2021

A suspended company has one year from the recording of the suspension to reactivate. The request goes through its resident agent and can come from any governing body, shareholder or interested third party. It pays a B/. 1,000 reactivation fine to the authority that ordered the suspension and cures the cause, and then recovers its full capacity.

Some sites still say two years. That was the 2016 rule, changed in 2021.

Source: Tax Code, article 318-A, paragraphs 4 and 5, as amended by Law 254 of 2021

If the year passes without reactivation, the Public Registry tells the authority that ordered the suspension, that authority orders the dissolution, and the Registry records it with all its legal effects.

Source: Tax Code, article 318-A, paragraph 6, as amended by Law 254 of 2021

• The official notice and figures of the 2026 mass dissolution of companies that went years without paying. We have not read the circular, so we publish no numbers.
• How to check whether a company is on a list of companies in default. The DGI publishes resolutions with such lists, but we have not found an official search.

• How a Panamanian company is taxed
• Closing a company
• The beneficial owner registry