Draft law on startups

DRAFT LAW ON STARTUPS

The draft law “On some additions and changes to the law no. 25/2022, “On the support and development of startups”” has been submitted at the Assembly of the Republic of Albania. Referring to the proposed amendments, the draft law aims at changing the mechanism of providing support measures for initiatives in the local ecosystem of startups, facilitating and simplifying the procedures, as well as the creation and development of startups and activities for mobile digital workers in Albania, proposing a stimulus package to them.

More precisely, the amendments pertaining to the activity of the digital mobile digital workers provide for:

• reformulation of the purpose and object of the law, by including and regulating the activity of the

mobile digital worker;

• reformulation of the “digital mobile workers” definition;

• incentivizing measures for the activity of the digital mobile worker in the territory of the Republic of Albania:

exclusion of the digital mobile worker as a “tax resident” in the Albanian territory, for a period of 12 months
despite the provision of the law on income tax, a non-resident entity shall not be deemed as establishing a permanent headquarter in the Republic of Albania just because it receives services form a digital mobile worker or just because of hiring a digital mobile worker;
the activity of the digital mobile worker shall not be deemed as establishing an immobile premise of business, and shall not be considered as acting in the capacity of an independent agent of a nonresident entity in the Republic of Albania, provided that the digital mobile works has no authority to conclude contracts on behalf of the non-resident entity or is not engaged in any activity not related to his role as digital mobile worker.
the legal obligation to obtain the unique permit as digital mobile worker, in accordance with the legislation on foreigners.

Regarding the scheme for providing incentivizing measures to initiatives in the startup ecosystem, the amendments consist of:

announcing the winning applicants after reviewing the application by order of the minister responsible for entrepreneurship (currently the winners selected by the evaluation commission are announced by decision of the Council of Ministers);
review of requests and complaints of startups and startup facilitators by an evaluation commission and an appeals commission (in the first call the review of appeals was carried out by the evaluation commission, chaired by the ministry responsible forentrepreneurship);
the disbursement of grants from the technical secretariat of the National Economic Council (currently the disbursement is carried out by the Albanian Investment Development Agency);
the establishment of a special structure (STARTUP ALBANIA) for reviewing the documentary practice for the implementation of the winning grants and for monitoring the implementation of the grants.

Additionally, referring to the proposed amendments STARTUP ALBANIA:

shall be responsible for proposing to the minister responsible for entrepreneurship the announcement of the call for applications from startups and startup facilitators, as well as the publication of this call on the official website;
shall act as the technical secretariat of the Council of startups, supporting the latter in fulfilling its legal duties (currently this role is exercised by the cabinet of the minister responsible for entrepreneurship);
shall also assist the minister responsible for entrepreneurship in the exercise of legal duties entrusted to the latter (currently the minister responsible for entrepreneurship is assisted by the technical secretariat of the National Economic Council);
shall administer the registry of startups and facilitators (currently administered by the minister responsible for entrepreneurship);
shall provide one-stop-shop service for supporting the development and growth of startups.
the duration of the incubation period and the status as a startup will be renewable (currently it is provided only the option of incubation and maintaining the status as a startup for 24 months).

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