Financial Services, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Taxation

Among all applicants, 39,085 were legal entities, 32,745 were individuals, and 2,868 were individual merchants.

Of these, 37,622 applications of legal entities, 31,477 applications of individuals, and 2,792 applications of individual merchants were approved, while 1,192 applications of legal entities, 607 applications of individuals, and 48 applications of individual merchants were rejected.

At the beginning of February this year, there were 49,313 business operators registered in Latvia as payers of the micro enterprise tax, but 22,578 business operators had lost their status of micro enterprise tax payers.

The micro enterprise tax at 9% of turnover was introduced in Latvia in September 2010. Starting from 2017, a 5% micro enterprise tax will be charged on small businesses generating up to EUR 7,000 in annual turnover, micro enterprises with EUR 7,000-100,000 in annual turnover will have to pay a 5% tax for the first three years of their operation but, starting from the fourth year of operation, their tax rate will go up to 8%. Micro enterprises are allowed to have no more than five employees.