Services: four ways to enter Mercado Libre
They differ in whose company imports and sells the goods, and in what stays your property. Everything around it — logistics, warehousing, sales, marketing, trademark — is identical across all four.
Partnership
Your own company
Subsidiary
Company network
Comparison
| Partnership | Your own company | Subsidiary | Company network | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whose company sells | Ours | Yours | Your subsidiary | Yours, plus the holding company |
| Own legal entity required | no | yes, we open it | yes, from the parent | yes, several |
| Time to first sales | 1–2 weeks after the goods arrive | about 2 months to register, plus shipping time | about 2 months to register, plus shipping time | priced against the structure |
| How the cost is calculated | fixed fee to bring the batch in + share of profit | registration + monthly support | against the structure | custom |
| Who pays local taxes | we do, deducted from the profit | your company | the subsidiary | the group's companies |
| Whose reputation and history | our account | yours | yours | yours |
| Tax reclaim on import | through our company | your company | the subsidiary | the group's companies |
| CFC obligations in Russia | none arise | they arise | they arise | assessed case by case |
| Who it suits | testing the market | ongoing operation | you already have a foreign legal entity | companies in two or more countries |
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Additional services
They plug into any of the four structures and are billed separately.
Marketing
On-platform advertising, external traffic, influencers, collaborations, and events. Our marketing resources are inside the team, not subcontracted.
Learn more →
Trademark registration
Support through to the certificate. We register it in the name of a team member and transfer it to you on your arrival — the transfer procedure is in the contract.
Learn more →
CFC rules: when a controlled foreign company appears and when it does not
This is the question worth closing before the contract, not after the first payout. The answer depends on the structure you pick.
No obligations arise
The company in the country of sale is ours. No foreign company appears in your hands — which means no notification of participation in a foreign organization and no controlled foreign company reporting. You work under a contract with us and receive money from us. That is exactly why most people start with partnership.
Obligations do arise
Here the company is registered in your name or inside your structure. If you remain a tax resident of your country, a procedure kicks in that has to be followed: notifying the tax authority of your participation in a foreign organization, and then filing CFC reports. It is not a ban and it is not a catch — it is simply the consequence of you now holding a foreign asset. We say so before the contract, not after.
Assessed case by case
In a group of several companies, the set of obligations depends on the ownership structure and on who is resident where. This is exactly the case where the structure is built together with a tax adviser, not from a template off a website.
All foreign-trade payments run through us: we pay for logistics and customs, collect and repatriate the marketplace revenue, and hand you the profit — in US dollars, SWIFT transfer or crypto (USDT), as agreed. Cross-border payments for goods, freight, and customs are on us: you do not open accounts abroad and do not deal with payment routing.
Disclaimer. This is not tax advice and we do not replace a tax adviser. The specific set of obligations, deadlines, and amounts is calculated for your situation — we introduce you to an adviser at the stage of choosing the structure.
Not sure which structure is yours?
Describe the product and your plans — we will propose an option and explain why that one.
How to choose your route into Mercado Libre
The structure you pick decides three things: how much money you need up front, how quickly sales begin, and what is still yours a year from now. The difference between the options is not the scope of services — logistics, warehousing, sales, and marketing we run identically in all four — but whose company acts as the importer and as the seller on the marketplace.
Partnership is the fastest and cheapest way in: our company imports and sells the goods, and you need no legal entity, bank account, or accounting abroad. A fixed fee to bring the test batch in plus a share of net profit, with sales starting 1–2 weeks after the goods reach the warehouse. There is one downside: the seller account and its reputation accumulate on our company, not yours.
Your own company solves that: the legal entity is registered in your name remotely, through a consular power of attorney, and stays your asset along with the reputation, the sales history, and the right to reclaim taxes on import. It takes longer — around two months for registration, the bank account, and marketplace onboarding — and costs more to maintain because of the monthly accounting. A subsidiary fits if you already have a legal entity abroad, and a network with a holding company makes sense once trading companies operate in two or more countries.
Moving between structures is planned for in advance: the typical path is partnership, then your own company, then neighboring countries. The handover of sales, of the account, and of the trademark is written into the contract before work begins, so that "taking the business over" never turns into a negotiation from scratch.