Nongor: the guide for firms and investors

Nongor is a private platform accredited to operate on the government one-stop service (OSS) run by the Invest Bangladesh Authority. It prepares, tracks and documents; the licences, registrations and tax numbers come from the government. Nongor gives no legal or tax advice, never holds client money, and never lobbies. Your general counsel can read the plain-terms page at nongor.link/legal/plain-terms in two minutes.

1. Sign up with a company email. Choose I work from abroad (contracting) or I am bringing a factory (investing).
2. Enter the entity: legal name, country, registration number, website. Upload the registration certificate.
3. The first director or officer verifies personally (passport, selfie). Additional signatories are invited from Settings and verify the same way.
4. For L2, upload the beneficial-ownership declaration and the signatory letter (templates provided). Nongor runs the registry check.

1. Find an expert in the left menu. Filter by field (WASH, gender, M&E, health, climate, water engineering, film and field production, and more), district, level and month.
2. Open a profile. Credentials are labelled verified (confirmed with the issuing institution) or declared (stated by the expert). Past clients appear only with written consent. The ledger shows completed Nongor contracts and on-time rate.
3. Press Enquire. Describe the work, dates and country of the contracting entity. The expert replies within 3 working days; their day rate becomes visible to you then.
4. Draft the contract in the deal room: milestones, deliverables, acceptance criteria, expenses. Withholding is fixed at 15% for a resident individual and shown in the net-to-expert box.
5. Sign. Wire the milestone amount to the escrow account named in the deal room (partner bank, three-party letter). The milestone shows funded when the bank confirms, usually 1 to 3 days for a SWIFT wire.
6. Accept or object within 5 days of each delivery. On acceptance Nongor instructs release; the bank withholds 15%, deducts the 4% fee and pays the expert.
7. Download the release pack: invoice, withholding certificate (within 24 hours), escrow statement, expert verification record.

Costs to you

A foreign firm paid by a client in Bangladesh is a non-resident company: 10% withholding on the fee, no Bangladeshi tax without a permanent establishment. If your country has a treaty (44 do), an NBR certificate reduces the rate. Where the client requires a Bangladeshi lead, propose a consortium with a verified local partner from the Partners page; the partner leads, you are paid as a sub-contractor under the same escrow.

• Treaty certificate. Apply through Nongor on the day of signing. NBR has no service standard Gap 7; expect 2 to 4 weeks. The bank withholds at the full rate until the certificate is on file and refunds the difference on the next release.
• Expenses. Marked as expenses inside a milestone; released without the platform fee.
• Field team. Enumerators, translators and crews hired through the expert market run as sub-milestones under the same contract.
• Permanent establishment. A project office or staff on the ground for months can create one. Nongor flags the risk in the deal room and refers you to a partner law firm; it does not advise.
• Repatriation pack. Invoice, certificate, escrow statement, bank advice for every release; year-end pack in January.

The investor lane is in concept stage. What it does today: keeps one file of every document, tracks every approval clock against the target the government OSS publishes, puts verified partners (law, EPC, bank, engineering) in front of you, and gives you a Know Your Approvals map with both the target timing and today's actual. The engagement fee is fixed and quoted after a scoping call; nothing is charged before.

The approvals map, 100% foreign-owned, EPZ example

1. Book a scoping call from the investor home. Bring the investment size, sector, site preference and staffing plan.
2. Verify the company to L2 (chapter 2). L3 follows during the engagement.
3. Receive the approvals map, the partner shortlist and a fixed-fee quote within 10 working days.
4. Engage. Every document goes in the file; every clock is visible to you and your board.
5. Operate: payroll, tax calendar, dividend repatriation after audit (FE Circular 37 rules), all tracked in the same account.

• KYC standard. Levels L0 to L3 as documented; screening against OFAC, UN, EU, UK and BFIU lists; repeated every 90 days and at every release; two-person rule on L2 and L3 grants.
• Client money. Never on Nongor's books. Escrow or retention accounts at partner AD banks under a three-party letter, until Bangladesh Bank issues a platform-escrow guideline Gap 6.
• Data. Hosted in Singapore (AWS ap-southeast-1). Identity documents retained 5 years after the last transaction; contracts and certificates 6 years. Your documents are visible to the verification vendor and the approving officer only. Full policy at nongor.link/legal/privacy, written to the Bangladesh Personal Data Protection Ordinance 2025, PIPEDA and GDPR.
• Audit trail. Every state change in your contracts is logged append-only: who, what, before, after, reason. Exportable on request.
• Disputes. 15-day window in the deal room, then an officer's recommended split, then arbitration in Dhaka under BIAC rules in English unless the contract chose another seat.
• Sanctions and prohibited use. No goods trade, crypto, gambling, arms, or any counterparty on the screening lists.