Founding a Company in Germany in 2026 Apparently Takes Three Months

Founding a Company in Germany in 2026 Apparently Takes Three Months(eidel.io)

3 points by olieidel 133 days ago | 4 comments

KomoD 133 days ago |

Do you need to incorporate in Germany? If not, there are some friendlier countries like Estonia.

I also know that here in Sweden it can take a bit of time, but there are companies that sell dormant companies that they transfer to you, which is a much faster process.

olieidel 133 days ago | |

In most developed countries, you should incorporate at your place of residence. That's because incorporating in a foreign country will introduce tax issues regarding the so-called "permanent establishment".

As an example, if you'd be living in Germany and choose to incorporate in Estonia, then it's likely that your Estonian company has a permanent establishment in Germany, because you (as an owner and managing director) are performing work there. This leads to your company having to file for Estonian and (!) German taxes, which quickly becomes a headache.. and potentially expensive, as you'd need to rely on international tax advisors if you run into problems.

But even besides that, the main problem is that you still are hit with German bureaucracy, even if you incorporate in Estonia - you have to file for German taxes, potentially register your Estonian company (= its permanent establishment in Germany) in the German corporate tax registry, etc.

I've looked into this fairly in-depth and also discussed it with people in the Estonian e-Residency team. They largely confirmed my analysis, which I wrote up here [1].

The conclusion, unfortunately, seems to be that incorporating in another country (e.g. Estonia) only is viable if a) you're not living in a developed country which follows up on tax payers and where their businesses are located, b) you're actually living in Estonia or c) you have a sufficient budget for actually setting up a (physical) establishment there so that you don't run into the dual-permanent-establishment problem.

[1] https://eidel.io/estonias-e-residency-is-awesome-and-sucks-t...

cjbenedikt 133 days ago |

You can start a so called €1 limited liability company in less than 10 days all over the EU incl. Germany.

olieidel 133 days ago | |

That won't work, for multiple reasons:

- I assume you're referring to founding a UG with 1€ in Germany. If you truly found it with 1€, it'll technically be bankrupt shortly after founding it because the founding costs are around 1k€ (notary etc.), and you haven't made any revenue yet. It's generally recommended to found with at least 2-3k€.

- 10 days is not a reasonable timeframe for founding a German UG. Optimistic timeline: Instant notary appointment, 14 days for corporate registry, instant bank account, 14 days for tax ID. Total of 28 days.