EU Company Formation Bureaucracy

If you are bootstrapping, or just founding a small side business, it doesn't have to be so complicated. There is a special provision for small businesses [1]. As long as you expect to stay under 50000 € in sales in a given year, you can be treated as a private person - meaning you don't have to pay VAT to the government for sold goods, but you do have to pay it to vendors like regular customers. Once you've grown enough, you can register as a company. Note also that parts of the c

As a dual citizen of the US and an EU country, I have first hand experience with both systems. In the US if you want to start a new company you can basically start selling or offering your service and then sort out legal, accounting and registration later. In most countries in the EU you start by hiring a lawyer and accountant and then wait for months for various permits and registration before you can get anything meaningful done. This is the fundamental difference IMO, the barrier to getting s

Register a company in Estonia or Netherlands and do business in EU through there.

I investigated that, and if you din't live in Estonia you need to go there to finalize some paper work. You are still liable for taxes in Germany, as you are a tax resident. That alone makes you tax advisor more expensive, findibg one that knows his way aroubd German corporations is easy enough, that's bread and butter. International taxation is different, and thus nore expensive. In the end, Estonia is just not worth it IMHO.Also, most start-ups don't need to be registered as

It's actually much easier to start a company in "tax-friendly" states of USA where you don't have to reside in order to start a company and don't have to pay taxes until you hit $1M revenue, like DL or NV. You can do it comfortably from within EU never setting your foot on the other side of Atlantic, via US Embassy and some US bank subsidiary.

Other countries (e.g. Spain and Germany) have a lot more bureaucracy and fees around starting a company.

This is too general. EU is many countries. Starting a business in Sweden is insanely easy for example...

Come form a company in Finland instead! We're quite a bit better on the margin in this regard.Okay, alright, there are a lot of EU countries that are quite a bit better in this regard. More generally: Do your research, shop around, and move to opportunity!

Go with Germany. Ask the local IHK and equivalents of WTSH to introduce "de minimis" grants and partnership opportunities to you. The tax gifts and free introductions will be worth much more than the slight inconvenience of having to pay €80 and spending an evening to visit the notary office.I've been running mid sized privately owned companies in Germany for 13 years now. It was a learning curve, but by now I fully understand why there's so much "Mittelstand" wh

At some point wouldn’t it just be simpler to set up your company in the first place in some other EU country with less onerous laws?