Invest Bangladesh (Formerly BIDA): Registration, One Stop Service and What the 2026 Act Changed

In this guide: What changed in 2026, and what did not · Who must register, and who need not · Fees and processing time · Documents and the One Stop Service · What registration unlocks · Points the new Act leaves open

The short answer

If you are setting up a factory or other industrial undertaking outside an EPZ or hi-tech park, register the project with Invest Bangladesh after the company is incorporated: apply on the One Stop Service portal with the incorporation certificate, Memorandum and Articles, trade licence, TIN, land deed or lease, the encashment certificate for foreign equity, RJSC Forms VI and XII, and a ministry no-objection certificate if the sector is controlled; pay the fee on project cost and collect the registration letter. If you are a trading, service or commercial company, you may skip registration, but you will register anyway the day you need a work permit or a visa recommendation for a foreign director or employee, because those services are only given to a registered entity. If you are a foreign company without a local company, you apply here for permission to open a liaison, branch or project office instead. Registration is not a licence to operate; it is the gateway to the services above and to the incentives written into the industrial policy, and the trade licence, BIN, IRC and sector licences still have to be obtained from their own authorities. Everything below is the detail.

What changed in 2026, and what did not

Parliament passed the Invest Bangladesh Act 2026 on 15 July 2026 and it was brought into force by gazette in the second half of August; Invest Bangladesh began operating under that name on 23 August 2026. The Act merges three bodies — BIDA, BEZA and the PPP Authority — into a single apex agency under the Prime Minister’s Office, and repeals the four statutes they ran on: the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority Act 2016, the Bangladesh Economic Zones Act 2010, the Public Private Partnership Act 2015 and the One Stop Service Act 2018. The stated design is one registration, one digital platform (the existing OSS portal, to be folded into the BanglaBiz system over the next few years), statutory deadlines for visas, work permits and clearances, and a power to suspend or cancel registrations and permits for breach.

Three bodies were not merged: BEPZA, which runs the eight export processing zones; the Hi-Tech Park Authority; and the Maheshkhali Integrated Development Authority. An enterprise inside an EPZ or hi-tech park still registers with, and gets its work permits from, that authority. Economic zones under the former BEZA are now administered by Invest Bangladesh. What the Act says about continuity — whether BIDA registrations, office permissions, work permits and the 2023 Guidelines survive by a savings clause or must be re-issued — had not been published in a form we could verify when this guide was written; the official website carries the old BIDA service pages and fee tables under the new name, existing permits are being renewed in the ordinary way, and Bangladesh Bank’s September 2026 circulars refer to the “Invest Bangladesh Authority” under the Invest Bangladesh Act 2026. We treat the pre-merger procedures as continuing until a notification says otherwise, and will update this page when the gazetted text is available.

Who must register, and who need not

Registration carries no foreign-ownership test: a local project pays the same fee and files the same papers. For a foreign or joint-venture project in a controlled sector under the National Industrial Policy 2022 (banking and finance, insurance, power, telecommunications, aviation, ports, extraction of natural resources, chemicals and explosives and the rest of the list), the no-objection certificate of the line ministry is filed with the application, and registration is not granted without it. The four reserved sectors (arms, nuclear power, security printing and minting, reserved-forest extraction) are not registrable at all.

Fees and processing time

“Project cost” is the total fixed and working capital in the project profile, which is why the profile should be drafted with the fee bands in mind and should match the capital the company will actually raise; a profile that promises Tk 60 crore and a company that brings in Tk 2 crore will be asked about it at the first work-permit renewal.

Documents and the One Stop Service

1. Account on the One Stop Service portal (ossbida.gov.bd at the time of writing, being migrated to the Invest Bangladesh platform) in the company’s name, with the authorised signatory’s details.
2. Project profile: products or services, capacity, location, project cost split into land, building, machinery and working capital, financing plan (equity and loans, local and foreign), employment plan showing local and foreign staff, and the implementation schedule.
3. Company papers: certificate of incorporation, Memorandum and Articles, Form XII (directors) and Form VI (registered office), trade licence, TIN, and board resolution authorising the application.
4. Land: deed, lease or allotment letter for the project site; a rent agreement for a rented premises.
5. Foreign equity: encashment certificate for the share money remitted, and the joint-venture agreement where there is a local partner.
6. Sector: ministry no-objection certificate for a controlled sector; environmental clearance category where the Department of Environment requires it.
7. Fee paid online; the registration letter is downloaded from the portal.

The portal is simple when the papers are complete. Files stall on a project cost that does not reconcile with the financing plan, on a trade licence whose business description does not match the project, and on a lease in a director’s personal name. Once registered, changes to capital, shareholding, products or address are notified by the Tk 1,000 amendment, and the registration should be kept current because the work-permit desk compares it with the application in front of it.

What registration unlocks

• Visa recommendations and work permits for foreign directors and employees, within the local-to-foreign staff ratios (10:1 at the start of an industrial project and 20:1 in operation; 5:1 for commercial offices, as the published FAQ puts it), on proof that the US$50,000 initial inward remittance has arrived; our work permit guide covers the process.
• Foreign loans: a private industrial enterprise borrowing abroad (supplier’s credit, term loans, bonds) needs Invest Bangladesh’s prior authorisation under Bangladesh Bank’s consolidated loan circular (FEPD-1 Circular 32 of 2 September 2026, para 28), historically given through a scrutiny committee chaired by the Bangladesh Bank Governor; see our foreign loan guide.
• Royalty, technical know-how and technical assistance fees above the bank-remittable thresholds need Invest Bangladesh approval, now an online service with a seven-working-day standard.
• Incentives under the industrial policy and the Finance Acts: tax holidays for listed sectors and locations, concessional duty on capital machinery, bonded warehouse facilities, and access to the utility-connection and land services the OSS offers. Note that a tax holiday is granted by the National Board of Revenue on its own application, and registration is a precondition, not the grant.
• Standing: banks, the Department of Environment, utility companies and the Chief Controller of Imports and Exports ask for the registration letter as part of their own files.

Registration does not replace the trade licence, the BIN, the IRC and ERC, the factory licence under the Labour Act, the fire licence or the environmental clearance. It is one paper among several, and for an industrial project it is the first one the others ask for.

Points the new Act leaves open

We flag four matters for anyone relying on this guide in late 2026. First, the savings clause: we have not seen the gazetted text confirming that BIDA registrations, office permissions and the 2023 Guidelines continue; practice says they do. Second, the economic zones: whether work permits and visa recommendations for zone enterprises now issue from Invest Bangladesh directly or through the former BEZA office, and whether the separate BEZA OSS remains live. Third, the scrutiny committee for foreign loans: Bangladesh Bank’s September 2026 circular still routes private loans through Invest Bangladesh, but the committee’s composition under the new Act has not been notified. Fourth, the statutory deadlines the Act promises for visas, work permits and clearances: once the rules fix them, the “stated time” column above will change. Each will be updated here as the notifications appear; until then, build a margin into any timetable that depends on them.