Mauritius family offices need an entity, not an office

The Financial Services (Family Office) Rules 2026 require a Mauritius family office licence application to be made by or through a corporation, a term that excludes a natural person. They also set no office, staffing or spending test. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) made the Rules on 21 May 2026 as Government Notice No. 62 of 2026. They came into operation on 1 June 2026, and rule 17 applies them to all new applications from that date. Anyone already holding a licence may continue under the 2020 Rules only up to 31 December 2026, which is 67 days from today. ENS, in commentary on the Legal 500 site, reads this as meaning a licence "may only be held by a corporation". For anyone holding a licence personally, the cost of moving into an entity is being priced as paperwork. It is better priced as a restructuring.

What the Rules say about who can hold the licence

Rule 2 defines a "corporation" in five limbs: a company incorporated or registered in Mauritius (including by continuation), a société or partnership registered in Mauritius, a trust governed by Mauritian law or the law of another jurisdiction the Commission determines, a foundation registered under Mauritian law, or any other body of persons acceptable to the Commission. A natural person appears nowhere in that list.

Rule 4(5) then requires that an application for a Family Office licence be made "by or through a corporation" with relevant experience in wealth management, private banking, investment management or another field the Commission considers appropriate. Rule 4(6) lets the application go through a management company instead. A management company is the holder of a management licence under section 77 of the Financial Services Act.

Our reading is that an individual can no longer be the applicant. We have not checked this against the text of the 2020 Rules, which Government Notice No. 63 of 2026 revoked from 1 June 2026. The ENS commentary says the 2020 Rules let a "person" with the requisite experience apply, which is consistent with that reading but is secondary. Rule 4(5) is drafted for applications, and rule 17 says the Rules apply to new applications. Whether it reaches an existing personal holder through rule 16(b) is an inference, not something the text states. Anyone with a licence held in a personal name should put the question to the FSC in writing.

The Rules say what existing holders must do, but not how. Rule 16 gives any holder of a single or multiple licence issued before commencement two obligations: continue under the 2020 Rules "up to 31 December 2026", and "ensure compliance with the current Rules after 31 December 2026". The notice contains no mechanism for transferring a licence between holders and no savings clause beyond that date. Whether a restructuring is a variation, a transfer or a fresh application is a matter for the FSC, and the instrument does not decide it.

What the Rules do not ask for

Read for what it omits, the instrument is short on substance requirements. There is no minimum number of staff, no local office, no resident director, and no minimum annual spend in Mauritius. This describes the Rules alone. We have not reviewed other Mauritian tax or licensing rules that a structure beneath the licence might trigger.

The nearest things to a substance test are three. Rule 6 requires an agent approved by the Commission, who is either a management company or a senior officer of the Family Office. Rule 10 requires a risk management system updated yearly. Rule 13 requires cybersecurity measures "proportionate to the nature, scale, and complexity" of operations. Proportionality is a judgement, not a number. The Commission may issue guidelines under rule 3(3), and none had been located when this was written.

The numeric tests are about assets, not presence:

• A single family office must hold net assets under management or administration of at least USD 5 million "at all times" (rule 5(3)(a)).
• A multiple family office needs USD 25 million in aggregate and USD 5 million per family, also at all times (rule 5(3)(b)).
• A multiple family office must keep fully paid stated unimpaired capital of at least USD 50,000 (rule 7(1)) and carry the insurance listed in rule 8.
• Every licensee files an annual compliance statement within six months of its financial year end (rule 9).

Net asset value is struck at fair market value, or book value where fair value cannot reasonably be determined (rule 5(3)(c)). The worked example below shows why "at all times" matters.

Hong Kong's current regime is a different kind of test. The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) guidance on family-owned investment holding vehicles requires specified assets of at least HK$240 million managed by an eligible single family office. It also requires at least two full-time employees in Hong Kong and at least HK$2 million of operating expenditure incurred there. The concession applies from the year of assessment beginning on or after 1 April 2022, following an amendment ordinance that came into operation on 19 May 2023.

That regime is under revision. The Hong Kong government gazetted the Inland Revenue (Amendment) (Preferential Tax Regimes for Funds, Family-owned Investment Holding Vehicles and Carried Interest) Bill 2026 on 12 June 2026. Its press release says the Bill expands qualifying investments and removes the 5 per cent threshold for incidental transactions. The release does not mention the staff or spending tests, so we treat them as unchanged for now. We could not confirm whether the Bill has been enacted as of 25 October 2026.

The comparison needs care. Hong Kong's tests attach to a tax concession, while the Mauritian Rules govern a licence. They answer different questions, and a family choosing between them is comparing a regulatory permission with a tax outcome. Mauritius would still need its own tax analysis for the structure beneath the licence.

A worked example of the asset floor

Take a multiple family office serving five families, each with USD 6 million under administration. The aggregate is USD 30 million and every family clears the USD 5 million floor. Then one family withdraws USD 1.5 million for a property purchase. Its balance falls to USD 4.5 million, below the per-family minimum in rule 5(3)(b), and the aggregate falls to USD 28.5 million. On a plain reading, the licensee is out of compliance on a single withdrawal, because the test applies at all times and not at a year-end date. The Rules contain no cure period for this test.

Now compare the Hong Kong floor. At roughly HK$7.8 to the US dollar, HK$240 million is about USD 31 million, so roughly six times the Mauritian single-office floor, before any staff cost. The exchange rate is illustrative and not a figure from either regime. Two full-time employees and HK$2 million of local spend add a cost a Mauritian licensee is not required to carry. That gap is the commercial argument for Mauritius, and it is real. It is also an argument about thresholds, not about quality of supervision.

Why the cost of moving is underpriced

A licence held through an entity needs an entity. A company, société, partnership, trust or foundation has to be formed or continued, and it has to meet the experience limb in rule 4(5) or work through a management company under rule 4(6). It then needs an approved agent under rule 6, a risk management system under rule 10, and cybersecurity measures under rule 13. The annual statement of compliance in the Second Schedule is signed by a director of the licensee, so the new holder needs one.

The source-of-funds confirmation in rule 4(7) is the item to price first. An applicant must give the Commission a signed confirmation that source of funds and source of wealth have been verified on the beneficial owner and that no funds of the Family Office are connected to proceeds of crime, corruption or terrorist financing. That is drafted for applicants. If the FSC treats a move into an entity as a new application, an existing holder re-runs that verification at the point of greatest time pressure. We have no evidence of how the FSC will treat it, and found no published fee schedule for a transition.

The honest budget therefore has three parts: the entity, the people and processes it needs, and the risk that the FSC treats the move as a new application with its own timeline. A holder who starts in November is relying on the regulator's processing time as well as their own. Rule 16 offers no extension.

What remains unsettled

Mauritius's 2026/27 Budget is reported to propose a separate Private Wealth Management Licence. We found no primary text, commencement date or scope for it, so we say nothing further. The 31 December 2026 date does not wait for it.

Two other points are our reading and not settled law. First, I read the "at all times" asset floor as applying to existing licensees after 31 December 2026 under rule 16(b). Second, I cannot tell whether the absence of a substance test is deliberate, so a guideline under rule 3(3) could add one. Anyone planning a move on the strength of a light-substance Mauritius should get advice from a qualified Mauritian practitioner and written FSC confirmation before the end of the year.