Do you need a registered business to sell online in North Macedonia?

Publishing a product on Instagram is easy. Building a sales process in which the customer knows who the seller is, the payment is tied to the correct order, funds reach the correct business and the required records are handled properly is a different task. That is where the question of business registration becomes important.

The answer depends on the actual activity and cannot be reduced to one sentence for every case. For professional ecommerce, merchant onboarding and card payments through Kordiva, however, the seller must be a verifiable registered business. This guide is not legal or tax advice; confirm your specific obligations with qualified advisers and the relevant authorities.

The short answer: Kordiva merchant access requires a registered business

Kordiva works with registered legal entities and registered sole traders, including DOOEL, DOO and TP structures, that can be identified, verified and connected to a business bank account. An unregistered individual cannot use another person's business details or a fictional company to bypass payment verification.

If you are still validating an idea, you can research demand, products and pricing first. Registration becomes critical when real selling needs to operate as a business process with a clear merchant, payments, payouts, refunds, documentation and customer responsibility.

Why is the business verified?

Payment infrastructure cannot rely on an email address and password alone. It needs to establish who operates the company, what it sells, who is authorised to represent it, where funds should be paid and who is responsible when an order, refund or dispute requires action.

DOOEL, DOO or sole trader: which form do you need?

Kordiva does not choose a legal form for you. These structures have different legal, tax, ownership and accounting consequences. What matters to the platform is that the business genuinely exists, the onboarding information is accurate and the person configuring the account is authorised to represent it.

What if you are currently an individual?

Do not use a fictional company, another person's business information or a foreign address to pass payment verification. A better sequence is to define what you sell, determine the appropriate legal status, register with accurate information and only then configure the store and payment flow.

How Stripe onboarding works through Kordiva

For supported businesses, Kordiva initiates and connects the Stripe Connect onboarding flow to the Kordiva account and store. The merchant provides the company, associated-person, business-activity and bank information required during Stripe onboarding.

Stripe performs its own review and decides whether the account meets Stripe's requirements. Kordiva cannot guarantee Stripe approval. Separately, Kordiva applies its own compliance and risk policy and does not accept organizations, products or business models that fall outside the platform's permitted profile.

What do you need beyond registration?

Registration establishes the merchant identity. A store that can actually operate also needs an accurate catalogue, pricing, images, inventory, delivery and return policies, contact details, a business bank account and a clear process for what happens after an order arrives.

What the complete Kordiva process looks like

This is the difference between having a website and having a commerce system. Kordiva can provide a complete Next.js store, a checkout link for a customer coming from Facebook, Instagram, Viber or WhatsApp, or an API commerce layer behind an existing frontend. Those paths can converge on the same order, payment and operational workflow.

Kordiva is also developing the local operational layer for Macedonian businesses, including local business-document and e-Invoice integrations as the official systems become available. Payment technology does not replace tax, accounting or consumer-protection obligations.