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Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

paolino.me

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Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#581

Post by rmoriz »

ulf-77723 wrote: post #578
rob74 wrote: post #165

> Which leaves the only real question. Why 25,000 at all? It is my company and my risk. If I want to start with nothing, that is my call, not a toll the state collects before it will let me try. And the cheap door has a price of its own: to some clients, “UG” reads as “not serious,” and they would rather deal with a GmbH. The structure built to let me in quietly marks me for using it. The 25,000 is there to make sure…

Actually only half of the 25k is needed to start the GmbH

Only if you have more than one Gesellschafter

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#582

Post by ccozan »

notanormalnerd wrote: post #452
rob74 wrote: post #165

> Which leaves the only real question. Why 25,000 at all? It is my company and my risk. If I want to start with nothing, that is my call, not a toll the state collects before it will let me try. And the cheap door has a price of its own: to some clients, “UG” reads as “not serious,” and they would rather deal with a GmbH. The structure built to let me in quietly marks me for using it. The 25,000 is there to make sure…

I just did a quick check: The 25.000€ hasn't been raised since the early 1980s. (50.000 DM back then) So to have the same liability today, you would have to put down 65.000€. So it has gotten increasingly cheaper to start a GmbH in Germany.

This is a very insigthful comment! I also checked and the notary fee I paid 10+ years ago is the same as I paid this year ( for a GmbH founding ).

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#583

Post by 9dev »

tchalla wrote: post #534
9dev wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that so? In Germany for example, you have a legal right to return anything you purchased via a remote means of communication - so e.g., the internet, or a phone call - free of charge, within two weeks, and it must be simple to do so; if a vendor tries to obfuscate how to cancel a purchase contract, you can simply write them an email.

What happens after 2 weeks?

You loose the right to change your mind and return the goods without any reason given, but of course you still have warranty of 6 months; if anything breaks with the product in that time, you can request the seller to make up by offering a repair, replacement, or refund (whatever they deem most appropriate), and while the seller can contest that, they are obliged to prove it’s your fault, not theirs. After that timeframe, this obligation reverses.

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#584

Post by dcrazy »

markvdb wrote: post #210
zero_k wrote: post #111

My friend bought an apartment. In February. Still in processing at the Amt (bureau). It's nightmare fuel. They are sending physical letters, and are hand-matching payments from banks. Apparently, they couldn't match a 53 EUR transfer last week, so a ~400k EUR payment is stalling. The issue is, the people holding the stamps (and believe me, they ARE stamps, with ink and all) are in charge, and are VERY reluctant to gi…

3 to 4 months is standard procedure in Belgium.

This is shocking to me. 30 days from offer to close is on the long end of normal for residential real estate transactions in the U.S.

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#585

Post by ccozan »

thomas_witt wrote: post #495
rob74 wrote: post #165

> Which leaves the only real question. Why 25,000 at all? It is my company and my risk. If I want to start with nothing, that is my call, not a toll the state collects before it will let me try. And the cheap door has a price of its own: to some clients, “UG” reads as “not serious,” and they would rather deal with a GmbH. The structure built to let me in quietly marks me for using it. The 25,000 is there to make sure…

The 25kEUR requirement has been lowered a few years ago to €12,5k as required paid-in capital.

yes but you are still liable for the full 25.000 euros.

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#587

Post by markvdb »

fakedang wrote: post #550
quentindanjou wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Unless you have hundreds of thousands of dollars that you can invest in the company that has not even been created, you would not be able to get a visa and your company would not be able to exist. Unless you are a startup with large investors, that route is closed.

Who said anything about getting a visa? The entire point of my idea was about skipping German bureaucracy. The only US bureaucracy is the IRS, and 2 forms for offshore LLCs at that. Getting a visa actually defeats the purpose of the Wyoming LLC, since you'd have to pay federal taxes as a US resident. But with the Wyoming LLC being pass-through with the added benefit of zero liability (same arrangement as OP), you'd o…

You mean German CIT and German PIT I assume. How happy would the US IRS be with that?

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#588

Post by 9dev »

frugalmail wrote: post #508
9dev wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my point. In Germany I can order from the smallest of webshops without even reading their return policy, because I am guaranteed favourable terms by law.

So the person that wants to sell that ultra-unique item that isn't produced by mega-corp, and the person that wants to buy that ultra-unique item despite unfavorable return policies never gets their needs met.

Why would that be the case? Maybe you’re thinking of customised or commissioned items, which are an exception explicitly called out in the law and require a defect by the seller to return (so you can’t just return eg a painting made for you on a whim, but if it arrives damaged, you can)

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#589

Post by tchalla »

9dev wrote: post #583
tchalla wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens after 2 weeks?

You loose the right to change your mind and return the goods without any reason given, but of course you still have warranty of 6 months; if anything breaks with the product in that time, you can request the seller to make up by offering a repair, replacement, or refund (whatever they deem most appropriate), and while the seller can contest that, they are obliged to prove it’s your fault, not theirs. After that timef…

How easy is it to enforce that warranty?

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#590

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

Zak wrote: post #538
nekusar wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats cause the software and computing industry early on, disclaimed all liability. "Computers are hard, yo!". It devalues the profession. And I thought no liability was bad enough... But no. Now its LLMs and " for entertainment purposes only". I take it management and leadership also read that, and don't give one fuck.

The ability to build reliable software has existed for a long time. Commercial airlines make heavy use of it, and serious failures are vanishingly rare. The problem is building software to those standards of reliability is expensive and slow. Consumer software never justifies it. Business software rarely does. If you want me to accept liability for the consequences of bugs in code I write, I'm giving you a schedule f…

>Commercial airlines make heavy use of it, and serious failures are vanishingly rare.

Is this a joke? There's a major outage effecting flights at least yearly. The Delta one is from May...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Southwest_Airlines_schedu... [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2026/05/0...

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