What Is EU Inc? Everything You Need to Know

On March 18, 2026, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stood in the Berlaymont building in Brussels and announced EU Inc: a new harmonised corporate legal regime that lets any founder register a company valid across all 27 EU member states in under 48 hours, for less than €100, without a lawyer, notary, or minimum share capital.

If that sounds too good to be true for anyone who has ever tried incorporating in Germany or France, keep reading. Here is exactly what EU Inc is, how it works, who can use it, and what the current status of the proposal actually means for your plans.

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What is EU Inc?

EU Inc is a new pan-European company form. A single legal structure, created by EU regulation, that sits alongside the existing 27 national company systems without replacing any of them.

It is, in effect, a 28th option. You can still register a GmbH in Germany, a BV in the Netherlands, or an SAS in France. But from 2027–2028 you will also be able to register an "EU Inc" that is directly recognised in every EU country under a single set of rules.

The name itself is the official branding chosen by the Commission. It was announced as part of the broader Competitiveness Compass package, the EU's push to reduce regulatory fragmentation within the single market and stop losing startups to Delaware, Singapore, and London. The goal is blunt: make it as easy to start a company in Europe as it is anywhere else in the world.

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How EU Inc works

Registration in 48 hours

Forty-eight hours from submission to registered company. That is not a best-case estimate; it is the target built into the regulatory framework.

For context, registering a GmbH in Germany currently takes two to six weeks. The process involves a notary appointment (mandatory), articles of association drafted in German, a business bank account opened before registration, and a trip to the local Handelsregister. Even Estonia, the fastest existing option, takes one to three business days. EU Inc is designed to undercut all of them.

Registration happens entirely online through an EU-wide digital interface that connects to national company registers. You do not travel anywhere. You do not print anything. You submit once.

Cost under €100

The registration fee is set below €100. To put a number on what that replaces: notary fees alone for a standard GmbH formation in Germany typically run €500–1,500, before accounting for legal advice and the €25,000 minimum share capital requirement. A Dutch BV costs roughly €400–700 in notary fees. Even the leanest existing option, Estonia's e-Residency + OÜ route at €265 in state fees, involves service provider fees that push total first-year costs well above €1,000.

EU Inc's sub-€100 figure covers the state registration fee. That is a rounding error, not a strategic constraint.

No minimum share capital

EU Inc requires no minimum share capital. Zero. Not the €25,000 of a German GmbH, not the €0.01 of an Estonian OÜ. You do not need to deposit anything into a company account to get registered. This removes one of the most persistent friction points for first-time founders who are bootstrapping and don't have capital sitting around to lock up in a corporate account.

No bank account, lawyer, or notary required

These three gatekeepers are explicitly removed from the registration process. No notary appointment. No mandatory legal review. No requirement to open a corporate bank account before you can receive your registration number.

This does not mean you will never need these things. Running a business still involves banking, contracts, and sometimes legal advice. But they are no longer prerequisites to getting a company on the register. In many EU jurisdictions today, you cannot even begin the formation process without a notary booking, which itself can take weeks.

Tax ID and VAT number without extra paperwork

Once registered, you obtain your tax identification number and VAT number without resubmitting paperwork. The EU-wide registration interface passes the necessary data to the relevant tax authorities automatically.

Anyone who has tried registering for VAT in France will appreciate what that solves. Currently, VAT registration is a separate national process that can take weeks (sometimes months) and requires duplicating information you already provided during company formation. EU Inc collapses those steps.

Digital by default throughout the lifecycle

EU Inc is not just digital at registration. It is digital throughout the company lifecycle. Filing annual accounts, updating company details, making corporate changes — all of this happens online through the same integrated infrastructure. No paper filings, no certified translations, no trips to municipal offices.

For founders who have dealt with existing systems, the contrast is striking. Germany's Handelsregister still requires paper submissions for certain corporate filings, and France's Greffe du Tribunal de Commerce has a well-earned reputation for slow processing that persists despite recent digitisation efforts.

Even in countries that have partially digitised, annual accounts often need to be printed, signed, and physically delivered to a municipal office, turning a five-minute administrative task into a multi-day errand.

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Key features at a glance

• 48-hour registration — target turnaround from submission to registered entity
• Under €100 — total registration cost, including government fees
• No minimum share capital — start with whatever capital your business actually needs
• No notary, no lawyer, no bank account required — for registration
• Fully online — single submission through an EU-wide digital interface
• Automatic tax ID and VAT number — no resubmission of paperwork
• Direct regulation — applies uniformly across all 27 member states
• Digital throughout — company lifecycle managed online, not in filing cabinets
• Optional — sits alongside national forms, does not replace them

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Who can register an EU Inc?

Any founder, anywhere in the world

EU Inc is available to any founder: EU citizens, non-EU citizens, and residents of countries outside Europe. No citizenship requirement. No residency requirement.

This is a meaningful departure from how some existing EU business-friendly structures work in practice. On paper, most EU countries let anyone incorporate. In reality, the practical requirements (opening a local bank account, providing a local address, satisfying know-your-customer checks designed for domestic residents) create barriers that range from inconvenient to impassable for a founder in Lagos, Karachi, or Bogota.

Not limited to startups

The announcement emphasises innovative companies and SMEs, but the legal form is not restricted by size, sector, or stage. A freelancer setting up their first legal entity has the same access as a Series A startup. An established business looking to set up a European subsidiary can use it too.

The framing around startups and SMEs reflects the primary pain point EU Inc is designed to solve, not a legal restriction on who can use it.

Any sector

No sector restrictions are specified. Professional services, e-commerce, software, manufacturing, consulting: all are eligible under the current framework.

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EU Inc vs. national company forms

It's an addition, not a replacement

EU Inc does not eliminate or compete with existing national company forms. A Dutch BV, a Spanish SL, a Polish sp. z o.o.: all of these continue to exist exactly as they do today. EU Inc is an additional option.

Founders who have built relationships with local advisors, who operate in sectors with specific national regulatory requirements, or who prefer the familiarity of a domestic legal structure can ignore EU Inc entirely. Nothing changes for them.

The "28th regime" concept

The Commission refers to EU Inc as the "28th regime," the 28th company option in a union of 27 member states. This framing is deliberate. It signals that the EU is not trying to harmonise or eliminate the existing 27 national systems, which would require unanimous political agreement that is effectively impossible. Instead, it is layering a new option on top.

The practical implication: when you compare EU Inc to a GmbH or a BV, you are not comparing a European standard to a national standard. You are comparing two parallel options, each with its own legal character. EU Inc will be governed by EU regulation. A GmbH will continue to be governed by German law. If disputes arise, the applicable legal framework differs.

When national forms still make sense

For some founders, the national form will remain the better choice:

• Domestic-only operations. If you are operating exclusively in one country with no cross-border ambitions, a national form keeps things simple and familiar to local counterparties: your accountant, your bank, your clients.
• Heavily regulated sectors. Banking, insurance, certain professional services carry national licensing requirements that may make a national company form the more practical foundation, at least until case law around EU Inc develops.
• Counterparty comfort. If your investors, customers, or partners are uncomfortable with a newer, less-tested structure, the familiarity of a GmbH or BV carries real practical weight in the early years. A German Mittelstand supplier may not care that your entity is valid across 27 countries if they've never heard of it.

EU Inc is most compelling for founders who want EU-wide reach from day one, who operate across borders, or who currently face the cost and friction of multiple national registrations.

Why EU Inc when the SE already exists?

A fair question. Doesn't the EU already have a pan-European company form?

Yes: the Societas Europaea (SE), introduced in 2004. But the SE was designed for large multinationals, not startups or SMEs. It requires a minimum share capital of €120,000 and must be formed by merging existing companies from at least two member states, or by converting a national public company. It carries significant administrative overhead.

For a solo founder or a seed-stage startup, the SE is practically inaccessible. Notable SE companies include Airbus, Allianz, and BASF — not exactly the profile of someone reading this guide.

There is also the European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG), but it is limited to joint ventures between existing companies and cannot operate as a standalone business.

EU Inc fills the gap: a pan-European company form with no minimum capital, no notary, and no merger requirement, designed from the ground up for SMEs and founders who want EU-wide legal presence without the infrastructure of a multinational.

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Taxation: the head office tax system

The HOT system

Tax is where EU Inc gets more nuanced, and it pays to understand the mechanics before you choose a member state for registration.

EU Inc is complemented by the Head Office Tax (HOT) system, which lets SMEs apply their home country's tax rules across their EU operations. The idea is to reduce the compliance burden of managing different tax regimes in different countries. Instead of calculating tax liability separately under German rules, French rules, and Polish rules for operations in each, an SME using HOT can apply one set of rules: those of the member state where its head office is located.

Tax compliance costs for cross-border SMEs are disproportionately high relative to their size. A French branch of an Estonian company currently faces separate French tax filings on top of Estonian ones, each with its own calendar, its own forms, its own professional fees. HOT is designed to collapse that into a single rulebook.

BEFIT framework

HOT operates within the broader BEFIT (Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation) framework that the Commission has been developing since 2023. BEFIT aims to create a common rulebook for corporate income tax across the EU. HOT is the SME-focused layer of that effort, a practical on-ramp for smaller businesses that do not have a dedicated tax department.

What HOT does not do

HOT is not a tax rate harmonisation measure. This trips people up, so let's be clear.

It does not set a common corporate tax rate. Each member state still sets its own rate; Ireland keeps its 12.5%, Germany keeps its roughly 30% effective rate. What HOT addresses is the rules for calculating taxable income: what counts as a deductible expense, how depreciation works, how losses are carried forward. Not the percentage applied to the result.

A note on OECD Pillar Two

The OECD Pillar Two rules establish a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% for multinational groups with annual revenues above €750 million. For the typical EU Inc user, a startup or SME well below that threshold, Pillar Two does not apply directly.

However, it has already had a practical effect on EU tax rates. Cyprus raised its corporate tax rate from 12.5% to 15% to align with the global minimum. Hungary, previously at 9%, faces pressure to follow. Founders choosing a member state for EU Inc registration should use current rates, not historical ones.

Details still being finalised

The specific mechanics of how HOT interacts with EU Inc are still being worked through at the legislative level: which member state's rules apply in which circumstances, how disputes between tax authorities are resolved, and what thresholds define SME eligibility for HOT. The broad framework is clear, but many operational details are not yet published. For a detailed breakdown of the tax implications, see the EU Inc tax question nobody is answering.

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Timeline and current status

Where things stand now

As of March 19, 2026, EU Inc is a legislative proposal from the European Commission. The Commission has the power to propose regulations, but a regulation does not come into force until it is agreed by both the European Parliament and the Council of the EU (which represents member state governments).

That process takes time. The Commission's target is to complete the legislative process by the end of 2026. If that timeline holds, implementation (the technical infrastructure, national register connections, and digital interfaces) would follow in 2027–2028. For a deeper analysis of whether EU Inc will actually pass, see our honest assessment of EU Inc's chances.

What "proposal" means in practice

Being at the proposal stage means the exact text of the regulation can change. Parliament and Council will each have their positions. There will be negotiations (called trilogue, where the Commission, Parliament, and Council hammer out a compromise text). The final regulation may differ from what was announced in March 2026.

The core architecture (48-hour registration, sub-€100 cost, no minimum capital, digital-first) is unlikely to change dramatically. These are the political selling points that make the proposal marketable. The technical details in the annexes, the transition provisions, the exact scope of HOT — that is where the negotiating happens.

You cannot register an EU Inc yet

There is no EU Inc registration available today. The infrastructure does not exist. Anyone offering to register an "EU Inc" for you right now is misrepresenting what they are selling. Full stop.

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What this means for founders

If you need to incorporate now

If you need a European company today, EU Inc is not an option. Your choices are the existing national forms or the service providers that handle the paperwork for you.

For cross-border operations from a low-friction jurisdiction, Estonia's e-Residency programme combined with an OÜ remains the closest existing parallel: a real company, fully digital management, and a network of service providers (Xolo, Enty, 1Office) that handle the formation, accounting, and compliance side. None of these providers are selling you an EU Inc. They are selling you an Estonian or other national company with professional management. That is a legitimate and well-tested path.

If you need to incorporate before EU Inc launches, see our guide on what to do today.

If you can wait

If your timeline is flexible and your main reason for incorporating is EU-wide reach without complexity, waiting for EU Inc may be worth it. You get a purpose-built structure with built-in cross-border recognition, a cleaner regulatory framework, and (if HOT delivers on its promise) simplified tax compliance across every market you operate in.

The caveat: "waiting" assumes the legislative timeline holds. Regulations can stall. If your business needs a legal entity to invoice clients, sign contracts, or receive payments, waiting 18 months on a legislative proposal is not a strategy.

How to prepare

No specific preparation is required to register an EU Inc, since the process is designed to be accessible without prior setup. But you can use the time before 2027–2028 productively:

• Clarify which EU member state you want as your head office (relevant for the HOT system and your effective tax rate)
• Understand the tax rates and incentives in your candidate countries, since HOT applies your home country's calculation rules but each country still sets its own rate
• Follow the legislative process through the European Parliament and Council, where the specific operational details will be settled
• If you are currently running a business through a national form and considering switching, consult an advisor once the final regulation text is published — the transition mechanics have not been specified yet

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Current formation services: what's available today

While EU Inc moves through the legislative process, several existing services solve the same underlying problem: getting a European company registered quickly, digitally, and without drowning in national bureaucracy. They deserve attention on their own terms, not just as placeholders.

Xolo (Estonia-based) is the market leader for location-independent founders. They handle the full OÜ formation, provide integrated banking through partner banks, and manage ongoing accounting and compliance. Xolo Leap serves 150,000+ Xolopreneurs. Their sweet spot is the solo founder or small team billing EU and international clients who wants to think about their business, not Estonian tax filings.

Enty provides a similar EU-based formation and compliance stack focused on Estonian OÜ companies. They appeal to founders who want a cost-effective alternative to Xolo, with formation from €350 and monthly plans from €22/mo (billed yearly).

1Office covers Estonia, Finland, and other Nordic markets with a more hands-on, concierge-style approach to formation and compliance. Useful if you want human support rather than a self-serve platform.

These are national companies formed in specific jurisdictions. They do not carry automatic cross-border recognition across all 27 member states, which is precisely the gap EU Inc is designed to fill. But they are available today, battle-tested, and for many founders they are the right move right now.

The real question is what happens when EU Inc launches. Some founders will migrate. Others will keep their Estonian OÜ or Dutch BV because it works and they have no reason to switch. The service providers themselves will almost certainly adapt; Xolo has already signalled interest in the EU Inc framework.

For a detailed comparison of how these providers stack up, see our formation service comparison.

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The bottom line

EU Inc is the most significant reform to European company law in a generation. The specifics (sub-€100, 48-hour registration, no minimum capital, no notary) are not aspirational targets from a policy paper. They are core commitments baked into the regulation as proposed.

What EU Inc is not, as of March 2026, is available. The proposal still needs to clear Parliament and Council, and then the digital infrastructure needs to be built. Realistic window: 2027–2028.

When EU Inc does launch, it will remove friction that has been baked into European company formation for decades. Until then, the tools that exist today are more than good enough to get started.

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This article is based on the European Commission announcement of March 18, 2026. Details of the regulation will evolve as the legislative process progresses through the European Parliament and Council. We update our guides as official information is published. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice.