EU Inc is 2 years away — here's what to do today

EU Inc was announced in March 2026. The Commission set an ambitious timeline, but any EU regulation still has to clear the Council and Parliament, get published, and survive an implementation period before founders can actually use it. Best case: late 2027. More realistically, 2028.

That is 18 months to two years from now.

If you need an EU company today to invoice clients, run payroll, open a business bank account, or pass procurement checks with enterprise buyers, you cannot afford to wait. But if you're pre-revenue with no compliance pressure, incorporating now may just burn cash you don't need to spend yet.

This article gives you a concrete recommendation based on where you actually are. Three founder profiles, real numbers, and the switching cost if you incorporate now and migrate to EU Inc later.

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The cost of waiting

Before looking at individual profiles, the cost of "waiting" deserves specific numbers.

Without an EU legal entity, you cannot:

• Obtain an EU VAT number. Your B2B clients can't apply the reverse charge mechanism. They pay you gross, and you absorb the VAT complexity on your end.
• Hire EU employees properly. No payroll, no compliant contracts, no social security contributions. Paying someone as a "contractor" when they're effectively an employee is a legal risk in most EU jurisdictions, and employment authorities in Germany, France, and the Netherlands actively investigate it.
• Open a business bank account with an EU IBAN in your company name.
• Bid on enterprise or government contracts that require a registered EU entity as a prerequisite.

The revenue impact is concrete, not theoretical. A freelance developer billing two German enterprise clients €5,000/month each handles €180,000 in invoicing over 18 months without a proper entity. Even if those clients pay on time and nobody raises a flag, you're building revenue on a structure you'll have to unwind.

Every contract. Every invoice. Potentially every banking arrangement. All of it migrates once you do incorporate, and the later you do it, the more there is to untangle.

None of this matters if you have zero revenue and zero employees. The cost of waiting is only real when you're actively running a business.

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Profile A: Solo freelancer, €40K/yr revenue

Situation: You're a developer billing two German enterprise clients €5,000/month each, a UX consultant invoicing a Dutch SaaS company for €3,500/month, or a marketing strategist with three retainer clients across the EU. You work alone. You need clean invoices and a VAT number.

Founders who go through the Estonian OÜ process frequently report that the formation itself is straightforward. The surprise comes after: annual reporting requirements, the need for a qualified accountant who understands the 0%/24% distribution tax system, and the requirement to maintain a functional relationship with a contact person in Estonia. Those are the parts that catch people off guard.

What it costs

The most straightforward path for a solo EU freelancer is an Estonian OÜ through a formation service. Unicount charges €296 for formation and €29/month for registered address, banking liaison, and accounting support. Over a full year: €296 + (€29 × 12) = €644. That works out to €54/month.

For €54 a month you get a fully legal EU company with a VAT number, proper invoicing, and compliant bookkeeping.

Why not wait

At €3,300/month in revenue, every month without an entity means invoicing informally, dealing with VAT complications, and presenting clients with your personal name instead of a company. Corporate procurement teams at companies like SAP, Philips, or Booking.com often won't pay individuals at all. The alternative is a longer vendor onboarding that eats two to three weeks and knocks your effective rate.

Eighteen months of those headaches costs far more than €638.

The switching question

When EU Inc eventually launches, closing an Estonian OÜ is a standard winding-up process. Through the same providers that opened it, expect roughly €300–500 in fees and three to six months of processing time. Opening an EU Inc should cost under €100 based on the Commission's specifications. Total switching cost: approximately €500–600.

Less than two months of service fees. And you'll have had 18+ months of clean, professional operations in return.

Bottom line: Incorporate now. An Estonian OÜ via Unicount gets you a legal EU company for €638 in the first year. The switching cost to EU Inc later is trivial.

See the provider comparison for current pricing across Unicount, Xolo, Enty, and others.

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Profile B: SaaS startup, €200K revenue, 2 employees

Situation: You've built a project management tool pulling in €16K/month from 40 paying teams across the EU. You have a full-time developer in Berlin and a customer success hire in Lisbon. You need payroll, employment contracts, and a corporate structure that won't fall apart under scrutiny.

Two realistic options

Estonia via Xolo: €295 formation + €99/month = €1,483 for the first year. Xolo is one of the more mature providers for Estonian OÜ formation and includes payroll support. The entity itself is solid. The complication is that if your developer sits in Berlin, an Estonian company doesn't automatically make their employment legal in Germany. You'll likely need a local subsidiary or an Employer of Record arrangement in each country where you have staff.

Ireland via Companio: €899 formation + €79/month = €1,847 for the first year. More expensive, but Ireland carries real advantages for a growing startup. English is the operating language. Banking relationships are straightforward. US and UK investors recognise Irish companies without needing a five-minute explanation of what Estonia is. And the legal and accounting infrastructure for tech companies runs deep; Dublin has entire law firms that do nothing but serve startups.

Opening a business bank account for an Estonian OÜ typically means using Wise Business, which can be done remotely in days, or LHV Bank, which accepts e-resident applications online but requires an in-person visit to a branch in Estonia to finalise the account. Irish banking is a different story: traditional Irish banks (AIB, Bank of Ireland) generally require an in-person visit to a branch, Irish proof of address, and processing times of four to eight weeks.

This banking gap is one of the most underreported practical differences between the two jurisdictions. The banking guide covers the full picture.

The jurisdiction question

The temptation at this stage is to optimise for tax. Estonia's distributed profit model is genuinely attractive: zero corporate tax until you take money out. But if your developer works from a flat in Kreuzberg five days a week, the German Finanzamt may view your Estonian company as having a permanent establishment in Germany. That triggers German corporate tax obligations regardless of where the company is registered. The tax benefit evaporates.

A common structure for this profile: Estonian holding company combined with a German GmbH or Dutch BV as an operating subsidiary where the team physically sits. Legal and widely used, but it adds real administrative overhead. The holding structures guide walks through the mechanics. Before committing, talk to a cross-border tax accountant, not your formation service's support chat.

Why not wait

You have employees. Payroll, contracts, and social security contributions aren't optional. Every month of informal arrangements compounds risk: contractors who are effectively employees, payments without proper payroll records, missing social contributions.

A single labour dispute or tax audit makes the cost of proper incorporation look negligible.

EU Inc won't resolve the employee jurisdiction question anyway. Where your people physically sit will still determine which employment law applies, regardless of where your company is registered.

Bottom line: Incorporate now. Choose jurisdiction based on where your team is located and where your investors will come from, not where the headline tax rate looks best. The cost calculator compares first-year costs across Ireland, Estonia, and the Netherlands.

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Profile C: Pre-revenue, building product, no clients yet

Situation: You're a developer spending evenings and weekends building an invoicing tool for EU freelancers. No paying customers. No employees. You're three months into an MVP and still figuring out whether anyone will pay for it.

The cost of incorporating early

Any formation cost right now is cash out the door with nothing coming in. An Estonian OÜ via Unicount runs €638 in the first year. That's €638 you could spend on a domain, hosting, a design contractor, or simply extending your runway by another month.

The real comparison isn't "Estonian OÜ vs. EU Inc." It's "€638 now for a company you don't need yet vs. ~€100 in 18 months for an EU Inc when you actually do." If you have no clients and no employees, there's no legal or commercial reason to incorporate today.

There is a middle path, though. Some founders want the structure in place early — to protect a name, park IP, or simply have the option ready. Dalanta, a small Tallinn-based compliance provider, offers a registered address and authorised contact person for €124/year (roughly €10/month). If you incorporate early but stay dormant, that's the cheapest way to hold a legally compliant Estonian OÜ. You handle your own accounting, or keep activity low enough that there's almost nothing to account for.

What to do instead

Not incorporating doesn't mean doing nothing. Four concrete steps, all free or nearly free, that leave you ready to move fast when the time comes.

Apply for e-Residency now. The application costs €150 and processing takes six to eight weeks. You may not need it at all if EU Inc doesn't require Estonian e-Residency. But if the fastest path to EU Inc runs through Estonia's digital infrastructure (plausible, given Estonia's role in the EU digital identity ecosystem), having your card already in hand saves you two months of delay. It's also the cheapest way to get inside the Estonian government's digital system and see firsthand how it works.

The country selector breaks down which jurisdictions have digital identity infrastructure and what it actually gets you.

Open a Wise account. Free. Takes about ten minutes. Gives you a multi-currency account with IBAN and routing details in EUR, GBP, and USD. You can receive test payments from early users or pilot clients personally while you validate the business. Not a substitute for a proper company, so don't use it to invoice once you have real recurring clients. But for the validation phase, it removes the banking obstacle entirely.

Research jurisdictions. Once you know where your customers are and whether you'll need to hire, the choice of incorporation country gets much clearer. Use the country selector to compare Estonia, Ireland, the Netherlands, and others across the dimensions that actually matter: tax treatment, banking access, investor recognition, and team location.

Validate before you commit to structure. The worst outcome is incorporating, paying monthly service fees for a year, then concluding the market doesn't want what you're building. A company is easy to open and moderately annoying to close. Get customers first, then get a company.

This is a common pattern in founder communities. Someone registers an Estonian OÜ six months before landing their first client, then spends €600-800 on accounting fees and compliance costs for a dormant company before deciding to shut it down. The state dissolution process itself costs time and money. The lesson most founders draw: don't incorporate until you have either a signed contract or a clear timeline to first revenue.

Bottom line: Wait. Apply for e-Residency and open a Wise account so you're ready to move in days, not weeks. Commit to a structure once you have paying clients or employees.

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Will you be stuck with whatever you incorporate now?

This is the question founders worry about most. Short answer: no. You are not locked in.

Closing an Estonian OÜ, an Irish Ltd, or a Dutch BV is a standard administrative process. Three to six months from decision to completion. Through most formation providers, €300–500 in fees. Your bookkeeping needs to be current and any outstanding taxes settled, but there's no penalty for shutting down a company you no longer need.

Opening an EU Inc, once available, should cost under €100 and complete within 48 hours based on the Commission's published specifications.

Total migration cost (close your current entity, open EU Inc) lands in the €400-600 range plus your time. For a business generating €40,000 or more per year, that is a rounding error, not a strategic constraint.

Xolo, Enty, and several other formation providers have already indicated they plan to offer EU Inc formation and migration support. If your current provider builds a migration path, the administrative burden drops further.

The real risk runs the other direction: not incorporating now, losing 18 months of professional operations, and then scrambling to migrate client relationships, contracts, and banking all at once when EU Inc finally launches.

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Decision flowchart

Three questions. That's all you need.

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What this guide does not cover

This article focuses on the timing decision and the three most common founder situations. It does not cover:

• Tax optimisation strategies across EU jurisdictions (the right answer depends on your nationality, tax residency, and business model; no article can substitute for a qualified advisor)
• Holding company structures
• VAT registration specifics by country
• Employee vs. contractor classification rules by jurisdiction

For those topics, the pillar guide on what EU Inc actually is is the starting point. Speaking with a tax or employment lawyer who knows your target jurisdictions is the right next step.

The cost of a one-hour consultation with a specialist is almost always less than the cost of getting the structure wrong.

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The bottom line

This comes down to one question: are you running a real business today?

If you're billing clients or managing employees, the cost of not having a proper entity is already compounding every month. Incorporate now, choose a jurisdiction that fits where your team actually sits, and treat the eventual EU Inc migration as a small administrative task. Not a pivot. Not a strategic decision. Paperwork.

If you're pre-revenue and still figuring out whether anyone will pay, the math favours waiting. Spend €150 on e-Residency, open a free Wise account, and use the next 18 months to validate. When your first paying client signs, you'll know exactly what structure you need and be ready to move in days.

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This article is based on formation service pricing and EU regulatory timelines as of March 2026. Pricing and processing times change — verify current rates with providers before committing. This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute tax or legal advice.