Cook Islands
| Pros |
|---|
| Absence of capital gains, wealth, or inheritance taxes for residents and international business entities. |
| World-class asset protection legislation offering robust legal shields against foreign court judgments and creditors. |
| High level of personal safety and low crime rates within a peaceful, secluded Pacific environment. |
| Cons |
|---|
| Geographic isolation leading to high costs for imported goods and limited international transport connectivity. |
| Restrictive land ownership laws preventing foreigners from purchasing freehold property, requiring long-term leases instead. |
| Limited local banking infrastructure and heavy dependence on external financial systems for international transactions. |
Long story short: The country sells the world a bulletproof tax haven for offshore trusts, but open a real shop in Avarua and the state forces a majority Cook Islander partner into your capital.
Past that hurdle, things run smoothly: corruption is basically nil, officials are approachable, personal tax is reasonable, and there's no capital gains tax. The one snag: local banks, cautious and slow, weighed down by an offshore reputation that spooks international correspondent banks.
Besides that: you can't buy land, only lease it for 60 years. Imports are pricey, cost of living high, but Rarotonga feels rock solid safe, with lagoons and fresh fish to die for.
Will your income be taxed?
Long story short: NO.
Cook Islands doesn't tax personal income, and nobody comes sniffing around when you settle in. No withholding, no tax return, no centre-of-vital-interests trap waiting to snap shut.
Earn what you want: the taxman here simply doesn't know your name.
Will your wealth be taxed?
Long story short: NO.
Cook Islands keeps its hands off what you hold. No capital gains tax, no annual wealth grab, no inheritance regime.
Your portfolio compounds in peace and leaves the way it came in; nobody's standing at the door with their palm out.
Easy to run a company there?
Long story short: YES.
Cook Islands runs no corporate income tax and no criminal liability for misuse of corporate assets: fiscally and legally featherweight.
The catch: registries are public, so your name as shareholder is one search away for any curious stranger. They won't tax you, they won't prosecute you. They'll just put you in the shop window.
A good fit for a holding?
Long story short: NO.
Cook Islands has no treaty network at all, which buries the holding question, full stop.
Every dividend in or out eats the statutory withholding at full rate, and no domestic regime can patch a hole that sits on the source side. Don't park a holding here.
| Country | Status | Dividends | Interest | Royalties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| ∅ // no treaties match | ||||
Easy to come and go?
Long story short: SOME.
Cook Islands taxes your worldwide income while you're resident, but at least the exit is free: no exit tax on the way out.
Leaving costs you paperwork, not money; your unrealised gains walk out the door with you, untouched.
Is your money watched?
Long story short: PARTLY.
Cook Islands has signed most of the standard exchange frameworks and runs a public corporate registry. Your accounts get reported to your home tax office, and your shareholdings sit in the shop window.
Watched on both axes: not wall-to-wall, but don't come here for discretion.
Is it blacklisted?
Long story short: SOMEWHAT.
Cook Islands is flagged by a few national tax administrations (drawn from FR/ES/PT/BR) and sits outside the FATF club.
The friction is selective: anti-abuse rules fire on specific corridors, and counterparties ask more questions than usual. Neither the FATF nor the EU has it on their lists, which keeps the damage contained: a nuisance, not a scarlet letter.
Do you feel free there?
Long story short:
Not enough data to tell how free you'd actually feel in Cook Islands.
Connected to the world?
Long story short: COMPLETELY CUT OFF.
Cook Islands is unplugged from the global money grid: 2/11 of the services we track work here. No Stripe, no Amazon, and almost nothing around them either.
Whatever your plan is, the payment layer gets built from scratch, with local banks and local rules. Come for other reasons; connectivity isn't one of them.
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Picked by similarity of strategic profile to Cook Islands. No editorial ranking — neighbours in the same scoring space.