On November 23 the President of the Republic of Belarus has signed Decree No. 7 “On the Development of Entrepreneurship”. The document significantly simplifies business activities in Belarus. Below you can find main innovations for business introduced by the document.

No existing taxes shall be increased and no new taxes shall be introduced until 2020 (the existing taxes can be indexed);
The notification procedure for the commencement of certain commercial activities was introduced. It is not required to pass administrative procedures for inclusion in various registries, databases, data banks, etc. It is enough to send a notice to the local executive committee about the start of the activity included in the list approved by the Decree. These are hotel services, transportation of passengers and cargo (except for transportation for own needs and transportation in regular traffic), retail and wholesale trade, tourist services, clothing, furniture, construction materials and products, website development, computer repair etc.
NB: State registration remains.

General requirements to the enterprises (sanitary, ecological, veterinary, fire-prevention) are approved. The Decree unified all the requirements that were previously contained in separate instructions, orders, technical regulatory legal acts. Now entrepreneurs will find all the legislative requirements in one document. Technical acts will be of a recommendatory nature for business.
Certain construction activities can be carried out without a certificate of compliance. This is functions of the customer in most projects, the development of pre-project (pre-investment) documentation. In addition, the Council of Ministers is instructed to reduce the list of construction activities that can only be performed with certificate of compliance.
The list of products with mandatory certification is reduced. The technical regulations of the Republic of Belarus will be developed only in relation to products that are subject to certification (declaration of conformity) in accordance with the legislation of the EEU. If there is an EEU technical regulation for a particular product, Belarusian technical regulation shall not be developed. This will help to continue the unification of the Belarusian system of conformity confirmation and the unified system of the EEU.

Additionally:
• Working hours are set freely by entrepreneurs without any additional procedures, except 23.00 to 7.00;
• Business entities are entitled not to use seals if they are not required to do so in accordance with international treaties of the Republic of Belarus;
• Shareholders, owners, head of a legal entity bear subsidiary liability for the obligations of the organization in bankruptcy only if bankruptcy was caused by their guilty actions;
• It is possible to employ foreign workers - winners of contests that received awards in the sphere of their professional activities without obtaining special permits.
The mentioned provisions of the decree enter into force three months after the official publication, on February 26, 2018.

Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus No. 7 dated 23.11.2017 “On the Development of Entrepreneurship”.