The Securities and Exchange Commission wants to let companies start operating as soon as they secure their SEC registration or primary licence, without waiting for every other government permit to clear first.
The proposal, which the commission calls a “One Business Start Date,” was announced on Monday as part of a next wave of reforms aimed at closing the gap between when a company is registered and when it can actually begin trading. Under the plan, a business could pursue its remaining permits in parallel rather than lining them up one after another before opening its doors.
“Ease of doing business is still very high in our agenda,” SEC Chair Francis Lim told reporters, adding that the commission would keep automating and digitising its processes to cut regulatory friction. The regulator has already set internal deadlines for how long its own approvals should take.
The pitch is straightforward: time. For a new company, the stretch between registration and first sale is dead weight, with costs running before any revenue comes in. Letting operations begin earlier, while other clearances are processed alongside, shortens that gap.
There is a balance to strike, since permits usually exist for a reason, and running them in parallel shifts some checks to after a business is already active. But as a signal of intent, the proposal fits a longer push to make the country an easier place to start and run a company, and to move more of that process online.
