Belarus High Tech Park (HTP)<\/strong> is a virtual regime. It was established by Presidential Decree in 2005 and substantially expanded in 2017 under the Digital Economy Development Decree. \u201cVirtual\u201d matters: there is no campus you move into. Any registered Belarusian legal entity conducting eligible IT activities can apply to become an HTP resident and operate from anywhere in the country. The park currently hosts over 1,000 resident companies and approximately 65,000 professionals. Residency is granted by the HTP Supervisory Board after review of a business plan and resident contract.<\/p>\n\n Armenia’s Engineering City<\/strong> is the inverse of HTP: a place you can actually walk into. The campus covers about seven acres on Bagrevand Street, in Yerevan’s Nor Nork district, and it opened in 2018 as a joint project between the Armenian government, the World Bank, and a consortium of private companies. The masterplan calls for roughly 22 buildings dedicated to engineering firms, plus an accelerator, shared laboratories, prototyping and testing facilities, and a national supercomputing center that started operating in 2024. The work going on inside is mostly hardware. Automotive electronics, biomedical instrumentation, robotics, semiconductor and chip design, embedded systems \u2014 the kind of disciplines that need lab access and physical prototyping space, not just a laptop and a Slack channel.<\/p>\n\n The two are often discussed in the same breath because both target tech. But Belarus HTP is a tax-and-legal wrapper that follows the company. Armenia\u2019s Engineering City is a building cluster you physically move into \u2014 and Armenia\u2019s broader IT tax regime (the 1% turnover system) sits separately from it.<\/p>\n\n That distinction shapes everything below.<\/p>\n\n This is usually where the choice gets made. Headline rates look alike. Mechanics diverge.<\/p>\n\n Belarus HTP.<\/strong> A single 1% tax on gross revenue from approved activities. One quarterly payment replaces corporate profit tax and VAT on qualifying income. Software and IT exports sit at 0% VAT. Qualified activities sit at 0% corporate profit tax versus the standard 20%. Payroll is the under-discussed piece: social contributions are calculated on the national average wage rather than the employee’s actual pay. On a team of senior developers earning $4,000 to $8,000 a month, the saving from that one rule usually exceeds the saving from the headline rate itself. Dividend withholding is 9% for resident shareholders and 5% or lower for non-residents under treaty.<\/p>\n\n Armenia.<\/strong> A 1% turnover tax for companies on the High-Tech Registry, in force through 31 December 2031. The bar is high: 90% of revenue must come from government-defined high-tech activity, and tax compliance has to be clean. Companies that don’t qualify pay 18% corporate income tax and 20% VAT, with some compensating benefits \u2014 a 200% R&D salary deduction (capped at 50% of taxable income), a 60% PIT refund on qualifying foreign-hire wages, and a 10% PIT rate for certified researchers. Dividends to residents are withheld at 5%.<\/p>\n\n Same headline rate, very different machinery. Belarus packs profit tax, export VAT, and the payroll mechanic into one regime that residents settle with a single quarterly payment. Armenia is a stack of separate incentives, each with its own eligibility test, evidence trail, and annual renewal. Both work. Belarus asks for less ongoing maintenance.<\/p>\n\n Belarus HTP<\/strong> covers a wide list of activities updated regularly by the HTP Administration: custom software development, SaaS and cloud products, mobile applications, cybersecurity, AI and machine learning, gaming, blockchain and digital asset operations (including a separately regulated cryptocurrency mining framework), e-commerce platforms, AdTech and MarTech, and IoT and embedded systems where software is the substantial component. Fintech, crypto, and gaming companies are particularly well represented. A legal entity has to be registered in Belarus to qualify \u2014 sole traders are not eligible.<\/p>\n\n Armenia\u2019s Engineering City<\/strong> is narrower by design. The campus is explicitly built for hardware-led engineering: chip design, robotics, semiconductors, biomedical instrumentation, automotive electronics, microwave and high-frequency systems. Shared labs and prototyping facilities are the draw \u2014 a SaaS company has no operational reason to be there. Pure software companies in Armenia typically operate from anywhere in Yerevan and access the 1% turnover regime through the High-Tech Registry, not through Engineering City residency.<\/p>\n\n In other words: if the work involves bending metal, etching silicon, or running spectrum-analyzer time, Armenia\u2019s Engineering City offers infrastructure that\u2019s hard to replicate. If the work is code, the HTP regime is the more comprehensive package \u2014 and the broader Armenian regime is a closer competitor than the campus itself.<\/p>\n\n Belarus has a tech workforce of around 100,000 developers, with strong concentrations in fintech, gaming, enterprise software, and outsourcing. Senior developer salaries land roughly 40\u201360% below comparable US and Western European rates, and HTP residents can engage foreign IT specialists without standard work permits \u2014 only a notification to the migration department. Companies hiring locally without setting up a Belarusian entity at all can use an Employer of Record arrangement<\/a> to onboard staff in weeks rather than months.<\/p>\n\n Armenia\u2019s tech sector is smaller but growing fast \u2014 the IT industry expanded by over 30% in 2023 and now represents around 3.2% of GDP. Yerevan hosts a tight, well-networked community with strong roots in the National Polytechnic University and Engineering Association programs. Hardware and chip-design talent is a national specialty going back to Soviet-era electronics manufacturing. Salary expectations are broadly competitive: junior developers around $800\u2013$1,500\/month, mid-level $1,500\u2013$3,000, senior specialists $3,000\u2013$5,000 and up.<\/p>\n\n For pure-play software companies, Belarus has more breadth and depth of supply. For hardware and chip design, Armenia\u2019s talent pool punches above its size \u2014 and Engineering City was built specifically to make that talent more accessible to international counterparties.<\/p>\n Belarus HTP<\/strong> requires a registered legal entity (LLC, JLLC, or equivalent). Company registration itself runs about a week. The HTP application \u2014 including business plan preparation, submission, and Supervisory Board review \u2014 typically takes another four to eight weeks. The business plan is the technically demanding part: it has to demonstrate eligible activity in precise legal terms and align declared revenue with the resident\u2019s actual operating model. Writing an HTP business plan<\/a> is a discipline of its own, with predictable rejection patterns and a defined house style the Administration expects to see. Ongoing compliance includes annual confirmation of eligible activity, financial reporting to the HTP Administration, and adherence to HTP-specific labour and IP rules. Loss of residency is consequential \u2014 tax authorities can reassess prior periods under the standard regime.<\/p>\n\n Armenia.<\/strong> Company registration is faster on paper \u2014 often 1\u20132 business days. Joining the High-Tech Registry to access the 1% turnover regime is a separate step that requires demonstrating that 90% of revenue qualifies as high-tech activity, and the status has to be renewed annually. Companies operating from Engineering City sign their own occupancy arrangements with the campus management, separate from any tax registration.<\/p>\n\n Both jurisdictions require ongoing operational infrastructure that founders typically underestimate at the entry stage \u2014 banking, payroll, currency control, statutory accounting, audit, HR compliance. In Belarus particularly, banking onboarding and currency control documentation are more involved than they were five years ago, though workable for every legitimate use case. The recurring tax filing mechanics for IT companies in Belarus<\/a> play out very differently month to month than the headline rates suggest, and that\u2019s where most of the operational time actually goes.<\/p>\n\n The choice usually decides itself once you map your business model against three questions.<\/p>\n\n Is your product hardware-led or software-led?<\/strong> Hardware, robotics, chip design, and biomedical instrumentation get genuine infrastructure value from Engineering City \u2014 shared labs, prototyping, supercomputing access. Pure software companies don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n How much of your revenue cleanly qualifies as eligible IT activity?<\/strong> Belarus HTP\u2019s unified 1% regime applies across the qualifying activities declared in your business plan and covers profit tax and VAT in one payment. Armenia\u2019s 1% turnover regime requires that at least 90% of revenue come from high-tech activity in any given year \u2014 companies with diversified or consulting-adjacent revenue can fall out of the threshold and back into the general 18% CIT + 20% VAT system without much warning.<\/p>\n\n What does your payroll profile look like?<\/strong> A team built around senior engineers earning $5,000\u2013$10,000\/month is where Belarus HTP\u2019s payroll mechanic \u2014 social contributions calculated against the national average wage \u2014 produces savings that can quietly exceed the income tax difference. Armenia\u2019s 200% R&D salary deduction works in the opposite direction: it benefits companies that are profitable enough to use the full deduction without bumping against the 50% taxable income cap.<\/p>\n\n Most founders who reach the conclusion that Belarus is the right jurisdiction want a single point of contact through the full setup rather than coordinating multiple specialists. Our integrated engagement covers entity formation, HTP accreditation and business plan preparation<\/a>, banking, accounting, recruitment, and ongoing compliance \u2014 all under one contract and one project manager. The time from a first call to a written proposal is typically one or two working days.<\/p>\n No, and this question comes up on almost every first call we take. HTP residency is granted to Belarusian legal entities, not to foreign ones operating remotely. The path most of our international clients follow is a wholly-owned LLC (or a joint LLC if there’s more than one shareholder), and the company has to be properly registered and operational before the HTP Administration will accept the application. A separate question is whether you actually need HTP at all. If the goal is hiring two or three people in Belarus and the tax regime isn’t really the point, you can use an EOR setup instead. No entity required on your side, but no HTP benefits either.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t The two arrangements are not equivalent, and conflating them is a frequent source of confusion in initial discussions. Engineering City is a physical complex in Yerevan that provides offices, shared laboratories, and prototyping facilities to resident companies. It does not itself confer tax benefits. Armenia’s IT-sector tax incentives \u2014 including the 1% turnover tax available to High-Tech Registry members, the 200% R&D salary deduction, and the 60% reimbursement of personal income tax on qualifying foreign-hire wages \u2014 are administered through Armenia’s national tax legislation and accessed through registration on the High-Tech Registry. A company can occupy space on the Engineering City campus without qualifying for any of those incentives, and a company can qualify for all of them without ever taking space on the campus.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t In Belarus, company registration runs about a week and HTP accreditation a further four to eight weeks, depending on the complexity of the business plan. Operations can begin during the application period. In Armenia, company registration is typically 1\u20132 business days, and registration on the High-Tech Registry to access the 1% turnover rate is a separate procedure that runs in parallel.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t Yes. Many companies do \u2014 particularly those whose activities don\u2019t cleanly qualify as eligible IT under Decree No. 8, or those running small early-stage teams where the compliance overhead of residency outweighs the tax benefit. The standard CIT and VAT regime applies in that case, and an EOR or PEO arrangement can cover hiring without an entity at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t Loss of residency \u2014 voluntary or for non-compliance \u2014 terminates preferential tax treatment from the date of exclusion, and tax authorities may reassess prior periods under the standard regime. That\u2019s why ongoing compliance support is treated as commercially critical rather than optional. Our <\/span>management services for HTP residents<\/span><\/a> cover this end-to-end so the residency is actively maintained rather than reactively defended.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t Tax and financial regime<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\nEligibility and scope<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
Talent<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
Setup, compliance, and operations<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
Which one fits<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
FAQ<\/h2>\n