🇲🇭How to verify a supplier in Marshall Islands

Registry

RMI Registrar of Corporations (International Registries, Inc.)

Company ID

entity number

Cost

Free basic lookup

Active status

An entity in the IRI registry is an OFFSHORE company that does not trade physically on the islands; a real local supplier is a different thing and cannot be confirmed here, because the Marshall Islands has NO online domestic company register (verify a local firm by phoning or visiting the Ministry of Finance in Majuro).

• The Marshall Islands uses the US dollar. There is no VAT and no traditional corporate income tax; instead a Gross Revenue Tax applies (about 80 dollars on the first 10,000 dollars of gross revenue, then 3 percent above that), so there is no VAT number to check.
• A non-citizen must first obtain a Foreign Investment Business License (FIBL) and may not compete with protected citizen-owned businesses, then add a local municipal licence (for example from the Majuro Atoll Local Government), a Ministry of Finance GRT number and social-security registration with MISSA.
• Genuine domestic production is limited to copra processing (the state-owned Tobolar), construction materials, and traditional amimono handicrafts (pandanus mats, Kili bags, baskets and shell jewellery woven by outer-island family networks). A firm claiming to manufacture branded goods in the RMI is almost certainly an offshore IRI shell with the real production in Asia or the US.

Before you sign: five asks no registry can answer

The register proves the company exists and who signs. It says nothing about whether the supplier survives a bad quarter, a fire or a key person leaving. Serious suppliers answer these five asks without friction; hesitation on any of them is information too.

• Business continuity: what happens to your order if their plant loses power, a strike hits or their systems go down? Ask for the plan, not a reassurance.
• Liability insurance: is product or professional liability insured, with which insurer and to what ceiling? A certificate of insurance is a one-page email for a real firm.
• Exit terms: how do you terminate if it goes wrong, what notice and fees apply, and how do you get your tooling, molds or data back?
• Support in numbers: ask for response and resolution times as figures, not adjectives. A supplier who commits to hours in writing has a support process; one who writes fast support does not.
• Named people: who exactly runs production and who owns your account? Continuity of a named team matters more than a polished sales deck, and employee-review sites often show whether that team stays.

General commercial hygiene, not legal advice.