What is a Shell Company? Overview, How It's Used & Examples

1. What is a Shell Company?

The companies with no assets or actual business are called Shell companies. The name given to shell companies is a bit confusing. Generally, it is referred to as a shell company that does not carry out any significant business, often entirely inactive.

To some extent, a shell company only exists on paper. While some think of a shell company as an illegal term designed to hide assets or escape taxation, it is not entirely true. There are a bunch of legal reasons for setting up a shell company.

It is not necessarily an empty office with no assets or furniture. A shell company can also be a legal business to hold the property or protect the owner's identity. This is why a shell company is called a holding company or a parent company.

2. How are Shell Companies Created?

There is not only one way to create a shell company. Corporations that want to launch new shell companies often use a registered agent in the country where their company will have its legal headquarters. If we take the United States, shell corporations must register with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In most countries, the agent must register his name, owner's name, or shareholder director. The cost of shell companies' creation and legal registration varies from country to country, from as low as a few thousand dollars to as high as several hundred thousand dollars.

Although meaning "hollow," there are many great things that a shell company can do. They can apply for open banks and brokerage accounts. They can perform transactions globally. They can do business with real estate or other companies. In addition, shell companies earn royalties on the copyright they own.

3. Working with Shell Companies

This is also a common question related to Shell companies, "how shell companies work?" Simply put, the shell companies' work is to take them as a holding company. 

How can a holding company be like a shell organization? The shell companies are set up to hold assets. So, when you create a shell company, you essentially set up a holding company. However, there is one significant difference between a shell company vs. a holding company.

A holding company is responsible for holding assets in the form of stocks and shares from existing companies. On the other hand, shell companies are created to hold assets, such as real estate. They are typically defined as inactive companies used as storage/vehicles to hold financial assets.

3.1. Example of Shell Company

The most common example is investing in real estate via a shell company. One main reason to invest in a shell company in real estate is to hide your identity, which can be an advantage for you.

For instance, if you want to invest in real estate to earn some extra but do not wish to let others know about your association with the property, you can choose to invest through a shell company.  

4. Purpose of Shell Companies

Corporations use shell companies widely for legitimate reasons. Shell companies exist for many reasons-

4.1. Shell Companies Provide Tax Benefits

Many major corporations and wealthy people may use shell corporations, which operate in a legal grey area, to dodge taxes.

To take advantage of less expensive or more tax permissive tax regimes in different countries, many companies have found ways to transfer their profits to offshore shell companies. In addition, American companies prefer countries with inexpensive labor for setting up shell companies, where they have already started to outsource some of their operations.

Apart from the corporations, many wealthy individuals also use shell companies domiciled worldwide. It helps them hide their wealth and earnings from the governments of the nations in which they earn.

The widespread employment of shell companies to avoid taxes was legally highlighted after the publication of the Panama Papers in 2026. In the leak, there are 11.5 million documents that showed how the individual used 214,488 offshore shell companies to escape taxes in their home countries and caused a global scandal. Then-President Barack Obama said at the time, "It is not that they are breaking the laws. But, unfortunately, the laws are so poorly designed that they allow people, if they have enough lawyers and accountants, to wiggle out of responsibilities that ordinary citizens have to abide by."

  4.2. Less Risk and More Opportunity

Avoiding tax is not the only reason a corporation would create a shell company. It might set up a shell company for the reasons- of operating in a country while managing its other operations from the political, legal, and financial risks. In this way, if anything goes wrong in the country where it operates, the holding company can limit its exposure by only existing offshore, at least on paper.

The shell company can also create more business opportunities. A corporation may create a shell company in another country to access other areas. For example, a business might set up a shell company in Switzerland to connect with the local business community and information that can lead to new business opportunities in Western Europe or Latin America.

5. Shell Companies as SPACs

While shell companies got into the news about questionable tax-avoidance schemes or the Panama Papers scandal, they have again come up recently in the headlines for less nefarious reasons. This has to do with the use of shell companies in SPACs, special purpose acquisition companies.

There are approximately 500 shell companies that fall under the SPACs category by some estimates. These are exclusively formed companies to boost capital through an initial public offering (IPO), which will buy a company already in operation. SPACs can be taken as "blank check companies." These companies have existed for decades but have grown popular in the last few years.

These shell companies issue an IPO. A trust holds the money until the SPAC management team opts for a company and purchases it. Suppose the SPAC cannot purchase a company or companies according to its likes within a reset deadline (often twenty-four months). In that case, managers are responsible for liquidating the SPAC and returning the money to the investors.

6. Uses of Shell Companies

6.1. Legal Uses: Most asked question, are shell companies legal? A shell company is mostly used as a legal way to hide the true ownership of a company. There are several examples of legal usage of shell companies, including-

• Fundraising for New Startups

• Asset Transfers

• Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions

6.2. Illegal Uses: Are shell companies illegal? It could be, few uses of illegal shell companies are-

• Tax Evasion

• Money Laundering

• Disguise Business Ownership

 Legal and Illegal Uses of Shell Companies:

7. Bottomline

Shell companies are legitimate businesses. People set up shell companies to operate assets without attracting unnecessary attention. With $1000, anyone can go online and find a company to help them create their own shell company abroad. It might be a good option for some people who work or live outside the U.S.