The Securities and Exchange Commission was established on October 26, 1936 under Commonwealth Act No. 83, making it one of the oldest regulatory bodies in the Philippine government — created just two years after its U.S. counterpart. It operates under the Department of Finance and currently supervises more than 600,000 active corporations, partnerships, and associations.

For any Philippine startup, SEC registration is the mandatory first legal step before operating as a corporation — it verifies and reserves the business name, issues the Articles of Incorporation, and assigns the entity legal personality. Minimum capital rules require at least 25% of authorized capital to be subscribed and 25% of that subscription actually paid in, with a PHP 5,000 floor for standard stock corporations.

The SEC has digitized much of this process through its SEC ZERO and eSPARC online platforms, cutting what used to take weeks of in-person filing down to as little as one day for simple domestic corporations.

🇵🇭 Philippine Example

Under SEC ZERO, a straightforward domestic stock corporation with authorized capital of PHP 1 million or less can be approved in as little as one business day — a real, currently-operating fast-track registration path most new Philippine startups now use.

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