Lukashenko signs bill on entrepreneurial activity into law

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has signed the bill on entrepreneurial activity into law, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian head of state.
 
The law establishes an updated entrepreneurship architecture and provides for two categories of entrepreneurial activity: legal entities and individuals.
 
Small organizations (with up to 100 employees), medium-sized (up to 250 employees) and large (over 250 employees) companies are classified as legal entities. The category of individuals includes artisans, owners of farmsteads, self-employed, and individual entrepreneurs.

The types of activities which individual entrepreneurs will be able to carry out will be determined by the government by 1 July. For types of activities which will not be included in the list, the registration of new individual entrepreneurs will cease from 1 October.

The law establishes the obligation of transition for existing individual entrepreneurs into legal entities by 1 January 2026. Such entrepreneurs will be offered a simplified procedure of transiting to commercial organizations with continuity of all rights and obligations to the budget and counterparties.
 
The law provides for new types of financial support, including budgetary funds to reimburse a part of capital expenditures when implementing investment projects with loans from the Development Bank of Belarus.
 
The document also expands the right for medium-sized businesses to receive state financial support. Previously, this instrument was available only for small businesses.