PRIVATE COMPANIES
Isle of Man Private Limited Companies are incorporated under the Companies Acts 1931 to 1993. A private company limited by shares is required to have at least one member, who can be an individual or a company, and it must be stated in the Memorandum of Association that the company is private.

Annual returns must be made to the Registrar, and details of the shareholders are held on the public files; but nominee shareholders can be used. A minimum of two directors are required, and they cannot be companies.

An Isle of Man company can be incorporated within 7-14 working days (depending on name approval) and ready made (shelf) companies are available for immediate use.

The Company Limited by Guarantee, and its sibling, the Company Limited by Guarantee and having Shares, have existed since the earliest days of Company Law over 135 years ago.
They are essentially mutual companies, and as such have historically been used essentially for charitable and non-profit purposes. In the last thirty years, they have been increasingly used for private family foundations instead of discretionary trusts, since they are readily intelligible to persons from a non-equitable legal background, and avoid most of the problems associated with trusts.
In addition, they have been used for proprietary and members' clubs in the international leisure and timeshare resort industry, where they meet all the requirements of modern EU (and Spanish) law, as well as for other social organisations. They have also been used for tax planning, making use of the extraordinary flexibility in relation to ownership and capital that such companies can provide. The Isle of Man is one of the leading jurisdictions for this form of company, not because it is unique to the Isle of Man, but because it was in the Isle of Man that all the development work has been done in the last three decades.