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At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

nytimes.com

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Re: At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

#41

Post by iagorodriguez »

I am a spaniard. I currently run a business on ruby on rails-ember.js development based on Madrid and I also lived in San Francisco and Chile for a year in both cases. So, I will share my experience in three basic elements: life quality, tech community, business management.

First, about Madrid. Madrid is a really beautiful and nice for living city. You can work hard and enjoy the life at the same time. You dont need that much money to make a decent living (1 - 1.5k€/month). There is a decent community for developers. Moreover, the developers technical level is good or pretty good. Finally, starting a business and managing the business is hard. It is hard because you start paying those 300€ month that sometimes are a big wall. Also, there is a lot of paperwork: taxes every 3 months, hiring someone is the hell, requesting money requires more money in prints than the amount requested.

Chile: The quality of life in Chile is not as good as I expected. The people here is pretty familiar (closed circles) so engaging with new friends is not as easy as in Madrid or SFO. There is a lack of cultural life in the city.

The tech community in Santiago is growing fast but still small compared with Madrid and thousand miles away from SFO. The tech quality is also mid-low.

The management of business on the other hand is very easy. The main problem is when you come here without a link to Startup Chile Program because being a non-tourist here is really complicated. You need a kind of id number - RUT that cant be get until you 5 months after you arrive if everything goes right. You cant have a telephone number, internet or bank account without this number.

SFO is the heaven and the hell at the same time. Lots of interesting people around from everywhere. I was living on hacker community that made my living fun and interesting. The main probloem is the cost of living in the city. And this is a HUGE issue in the midterm for the tech community in SFO. It is too expensive. The community in SFO, no words, just amazing. (I dont say anything about creating/managing business because i have no experience).

Hope this small and partial insights help anyone :)

Re: At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

#42

Post by surfearth »

According to the World Bank's 2015 Doing Business report, Spain ranks 74 of 189 countries for starting a business. That doesn't sound like startup heaven, but on the bright side it improved 41 spots from being ranked 115 in 2014.

The data at the bottom of this link provides some good data on the time, cost and number of steps required to start a company in Spain: http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/spain/

Re: At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

#43

Post by iribe »

iagorodriguez wrote: post #41

I am a spaniard. I currently run a business on ruby on rails-ember.js development based on Madrid and I also lived in San Francisco and Chile for a year in both cases. So, I will share my experience in three basic elements: life quality, tech community, business management. First, about Madrid. Madrid is a really beautiful and nice for living city. You can work hard and enjoy the life at the same time. You dont need…

The high COL in the SF bay area has become a significant liability because people like you realize it's way too expensive here. It's affecting everyone from startups to really large companies who prefer to hire in the SF bay area, but cannot do so.

Re: At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

#44

Post by tim333 »

Symbiote wrote: post #29
danielrhodes wrote: post #8

I recall reading an article a few years ago where an entrepreneur was sued by the Spanish government after his company went under. Spain is, as is the rest of Europe, quite hostile to entrepreneurship. It seems like Spain is trying to attract people from outside rather than deal with the problems inside. If they could make it super easy to start a company, relax red tape for businesses under a certain size, and encou…

If you would like to register a business in the UK, go here: https://www.gov.uk/register-a-company-online It says it takes 48 hours and costs £15. You must be at least 16, and you'll need an address -- it could be a rented post box so long as it's a full address. As far as I can see, you don't need to be resident in the UK.

Indeed but bear in mind you are then obliged to submit annual tax returns for the company for which an accountant would charge you £300+

Re: At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

#45

Post by scalesolved »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #37
scalesolved wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the tax situation work with having a LTD in the UK and residing in Spain?

You would normally have to make payments into the Spanish social security scheme. The rules are actually quite complicated but if you live and work in Spain that's where you have to contribute to social security. Owning a UK limited company does not change that.

But would you have to pay tax on your limited company's turnover both in the UK and then subsequently in Spain?

Re: At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

#47

Post by fauigerzigerk »

scalesolved wrote: post #45
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would normally have to make payments into the Spanish social security scheme. The rules are actually quite complicated but if you live and work in Spain that's where you have to contribute to social security. Owning a UK limited company does not change that.

But would you have to pay tax on your limited company's turnover both in the UK and then subsequently in Spain?

No, the company would have to pay taxes (corporation tax, VAT, etc) only in the UK, and if you personally get something out of the company, like a salary or a share of the profits, then you have to pay income tax or capital gains tax and social security contributions in the country you live in (i.e. Spain).

There is some double taxation of course because the company first pays corporation tax on its profits and then you pay income tax or capital gains tax on any profits you take out of the company. But that is the same regardless of where you live. One way to mitigate this is for your company to pay you a salary.

Re: At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

#48

Post by Hoffmannnn »

The article goes into a lot of good detail about how much easier it is to get a visa & temporary residence. Let's assume that there was no uncertainty there, and you could instead get permanent residence and/or citizenship... After going through all that, what have you gained?

Why go there in the first place? It didn't look like the government was offering any sort of funding or tax relief for somebody who decides to start their business in Spain instead of anywhere else.

Re: At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

#49

Post by junto »

onlito wrote: post #38
lemming wrote: post #11

I lived in Spain for 9 years and ran a company there for 7 of those - I would never do it again. Even with competent professional legal & accounting assistance it's a bureaucratic nightmare by the standards of most other places I've been. It's also not particularly cheap - contrary to what the article says, Berlin in my experience is much cheaper. That said, it's a nice place to live, especially Barcelona, and that h…

I agree with you, the bureaucracy is tough in Spain especially with accountants who don't really know the rules either. I don't think it's less bureaucratic then Germany though, Germany is only more predictable. Absolutely true what you say about hiring, people from abroad love coming to Barcelona & there are extremely skilled local people ready to work their butt off if you give them a chance. Also there are very at…

I'd like to echo the Germany bureaucracy comments but also add that while it I'd true that Germany has lots of it, and sometimes it seems crazy that one department of governent won't talk to the other on your behalf, the vast majority of the rules I've come across seem to be perfectly logical when I've taken a step back and looked at them properly. German bureaucracy is about closing loopholes. They don't like them. Spanish and British bureaucracy often seems to be there for no reason that I can fathom!

Re: At Spain’s Door, a Welcome Mat for Entrepreneurs

#50

Post by danielrhodes »

skrebbel wrote: post #17
danielrhodes wrote: post #8

I recall reading an article a few years ago where an entrepreneur was sued by the Spanish government after his company went under. Spain is, as is the rest of Europe, quite hostile to entrepreneurship. It seems like Spain is trying to attract people from outside rather than deal with the problems inside. If they could make it super easy to start a company, relax red tape for businesses under a certain size, and encou…

> as is the rest of Europe This, as everything, wildly varies among European countries. There's plenty European countries where it's easier to start a business than in many a US state. There's also plenty where you don't even want to think about it (Serbia, anyone?). Don't forget that Europe has about as many countries as the US has states.

Absolutely and that was a generalization.
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