{"id":569577,"date":"2026-05-06T17:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/569577\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T17:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:09:11","slug":"lifeline-launched-for-small-businesses-to-become-reality-the-royal-gazette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/569577\/","title":{"rendered":"Lifeline launched for small businesses to become reality – The Royal Gazette"},"content":{"rendered":"

Created: May 06, 2026 07:56 AM<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Blueprint: Jason Hayward, Minister of Economy and Labour, with Erica Smith, executive director of the Bermuda Economic Development Corporation (Photograph by Blaire Simmons)<\/p>\n

A \u201cone-stop business hub\u201d catering to entrepreneurs and small enterprises will be delivered in 18 months\u2019 time as the Government seeks to do away with a punishing and expensive wait of up to 12 weeks to incorporate.<\/p>\n

Jason Hayward, the Minister of Economy and Labour, said 82 per cent of entrepreneurs in Bermuda had opted to remain unincorporated \u2014 leaving them on the hook for liabilities and unable to access government support.<\/p>\n

The Government will also open new possibilities for financing, including the crowdfunding option seen elsewhere in the world, while bringing down costs from the thousands required at present to get their new business on the books.<\/p>\n

Mr Hayward said: \u201cRight now, incorporation costs exceed $6,000 for small businesses. In other jurisdictions, they can register their businesses for underneath $100.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat just shows you the disparity in Bermuda\u2019s economy. If we\u2019re serious about supporting them, we can\u2019t create barriers at the first step.\u201d<\/p>\n

His remarks came at the unveiling of the National Entrepreneurship Strategy, a blueprint<\/a> for building small businesses in the works since last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Bermuda Economic Development Corporation was allocated $2.2 million<\/a> to support the work, with the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Ltd taken on to develop it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Bermuda Economic Development Corporation (File photograph)<\/p>\n

Erica Smith, executive director of the BEDC, said the top-ranking impediment to getting a small business off the ground was \u201cfirst and foremost, access to funding\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cWe have very little variety of funding. Currently, most funding in Bermuda is debt finance. There\u2019s a little bit of equity, but in other ecosystems there\u2019s a range \u2014 debt, equity, crowdfunding and peer lending, as well as grants and mixed hybrids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bermuda\u2019s charities have legislation to support their fundraising, Ms Smith said, but businesses lack similar options to engage in crowdfunding through \u201cpromoting your business, business venture, product or service directly to the public\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are platforms that exist outside Bermuda that allow people to do that \u2014 Kickstarter is one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Smith said the strategy aimed to \u201cremove the red tape around starting a business \u2014 hence the one-stop hub concept\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said the \u201cvast majority\u201d of the island\u2019s small operations amounted to sole-proprietor entities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are businesses that don\u2019t have a formal business structure, so they\u2019re not LLCs, incorporated businesses \u2014 one of the reasons why that happens is because it\u2019s an expensive, time-consuming process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The casual arrangement leaves them \u201cliable for any issues that happen with regard to their business \u2014 they have no formal separation between themselves and their business\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Erica Smith, executive director of the Bermuda Economic Development Corporation (Photograph by Blaire Simmons)<\/p>\n

Mr Hayward clarified that the \u201chub\u201d envisaged would go through the BEDC itself, meaning people with business plans could use the facility\u2019s various satellite offices to register and then have the requisite details \u201cpassed on to all other relevant agencies as well\u201d.<\/p>\n

Calling entrepreneurship \u201ca national asset\u201d, Mr Hayward said as many as one in four Bermudians has aspirations of starting a business \u201cin the coming years\u201d.<\/p>\n

At present, the BEDC has 2,700 entrepreneurs registered on its books.<\/p>\n

The strategy, nearly 50 pages long, lays out a five-year plan in three phases. The first is \u201cto remove barriers quickly\u201d, the document states, followed by investing in capabilities and diversifying new markets.<\/p>\n

Mr Hayward said: \u201cSuccess will mean more businesses starting and surviving, more Bermudians choosing entrepreneurship and more local companies competing globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 To read the strategy in full, see Related Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Created: May 06, 2026 07:56 AM Blueprint: Jason Hayward, Minister of Economy and Labour, with Erica Smith, executive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[84,4203,195010,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-569577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-jason-hayward","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}