Form a company

1. Go to Establish › Company Formation and select Form new entity.
2. Work through the four steps: Country, Entity form, Structure and Review. Select Continue to move on and Back to change an earlier answer. While Continue is unavailable, the note beside it says what's missing.

Members of your workspace can start a formation, but a member with the DPO role can't open Establish. To begin from a common set-up instead, see Start from a playbook.

Where do you want to form? offers the ten jurisdictions we form in directly. Each card shows the Time to form, the setup fee it starts from (Setup from), the minimum capital of the recommended form, and a Remote signing tag where the deed can be signed without travelling. The wizard notes that anywhere else is an Enterprise engagement.

Which entity form? then shows each form the country offers, with its minimum capital, pros, trade-offs and what it's best for. The one we recommend for most customers is tagged Recommended. Picking a different country clears the form you'd chosen.

On Name and ownership, enter the Company name without the entity form, which the wizard adds: Acme Europe in the Netherlands reads as Acme Europe B.V. Then choose who owns it:

• Standalone: owned directly by you or your founders, who are listed as shareholders.
• Subsidiary: owned by a company you already have, the usual shape when a non-EU business lands in the EU. It needs apostilled corporate documents from the parent.

For a subsidiary, name the parent under Parent company. Pick an existing one from Parent, or choose Add a new parent company… and enter its Parent company name, Jurisdiction and Legal form. With no parent on file yet, the wizard asks for those three straight away. We ask for certified copies of the parent's articles and its beneficial-owner declarations once the file is open.

Review and start sums up your formation: the proposed name, jurisdiction, entity form, minimum capital, ownership, time to form and setup fee. Government fees, notary disbursements and translations are charged at cost on top of the setup fee.

It lists what follows, in order: a kick-off call, KYC and documents, the articles of association, the notarial deed and the registrations. Under Signing, it says whether the deed can be signed remotely or has to be signed in person, in which case we book the notary appointment.

Under Optional services, switch on any of the virtual address, Initial bank account application, Nominee director and Annual filings management that you'd like alongside the formation. Nothing is ordered or charged now: we go through each one with you on the kick-off call. See Ask for a virtual address, bank account, nominee director or annual filings.

Select Start formation to submit.

The company appears on the Entities tab as In formation, with its first stage, Formation request, already marked done. Our operations team is emailed, and the request is recorded in your workspace's Notifications. To follow it from there, see Track your company formation.

The Templates tab lists formation playbooks: common set-ups, each with an indicative timeline and fee.

• Use playbook → opens the wizard at Name and ownership, with the country and entity form already chosen. Select Back to change them.
• Open wizard → opens the wizard at its first step, for a playbook that spans more than one country.
• Contact sales → opens an email to our sales team about an Enterprise playbook, which is scoped and priced with you rather than through the wizard.