Lukashenko comments on changes in rules for individual entrepreneurs

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko commented on the changes in the work of individual entrepreneurs as he talked to residents of the town of Kostyukovichi on 30 April, BelTA has learned.

"We have streamlined this area. The relevant decisions have been made: you are an individual entrepreneur when you get registered on the list of individual entrepreneurs and carry out the permitted type of activities. Because everyone has become individual entrepreneurs, and there is no one left to work. Things must be orderly. That doesn't mean we're going to tighten the reins. No. But Things must be orderly," the head of state said. As BelTA reported earlier, the president has recently signed the bill on entrepreneurial activity into law.

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.