Technical article

The Cook Islands: A Law Firm Says Exempt, a Government Note Says Some Income Is Taxable

So the tax on a trust run from the Cook Islands may differ from the exemption claimed for its foreign parties.

By Neil Solomon · 3 min read

Imagine a family reading about the Cook Islands for the first time. One page, from a trustee, says the trust, its trustee, its beneficiaries, its protector and its settlor are free of all local tax and duty. Another, from the government, says some trust income is taxable. They ask which one to believe.

Here is what each source says, and how to read them.

The two do not necessarily contradict each other. They may be describing different parts of the picture. The trustee article speaks of an international trust and its parties. The government note speaks of trustee income and of residents' income. It goes to trusts that are run and administered locally. So the tax on a trust run from the Cook Islands may differ from the exemption claimed for its foreign parties.

The question then moves from "which source" to "which part". A family might ask: is the trustee a Cook Islands company or person, and is its income from this trust part of its taxable income? Is any beneficiary a resident of the Cook Islands? Is the trust registered as an international trust?

What is registered. International trusts are registered by a licensed trustee company. Only the trustee name, the trust name and the date of the deed are filed. The deed itself is not. That comes from the 1998 article, so it may have moved since.

What it costs. One published trustee page, updated in September 2026, puts trustee fees at about US$5,000 a year, or about US$7,000 as a flat figure. That fee covers registration renewals, regulator filings, and the account-information filings. This is one trustee's own figure (tier C).

What it reports. The Cook Islands signed the account-information exchange agreement on 29 October 2015, with a first exchange by September 2018 (tier A). The trustee page says trustees handle the filings.

You might say: "A government note is only a note. The law firm knows the trust business." Both points have weight. A trustee company has seen many trusts, and its article is tier C because it also describes its own service. A bill note is tier A as an official document, and it describes a bill and not the law as passed. The difference in dates also matters. Seventeen years is long enough for a tax rule to change.

You could set the two next to each other in a short note for the family file. Write the date and author of each claim, then the question it answers, then the part of the trust it covers.

The matter touches the settlor, who relies on the exemption, and the trustee, whose own income may be the one taxed. It touches the heirs too, since a tax in the trust lowers what reaches them. It also touches the papers: the family file may show which source said what, and when.

Where you have read two sources that disagree about a place, how did you decide what to carry forward? Share it here. Someone with the same two pages open may find the method useful.

Figures are estimates for planning, based on public data. Date read: October 2026.