EU Inc. the employment committee gave its opinionBelgium: no minimum capitalBulgaria: start a ООД with €1Croatia: formed fully onlineCyprus: no minimum capitalCzechia: start an s.r.o. with CZK 1Estonia: start an OÜ with €0.01Finland: no minimum capitalFrance: start an SAS with €1Germany: €25 000 minimum capital for a GmbHGreece: no minimum capitalHungary: no notary neededIreland: no minimum capitalItaly: start an s.r.l. with €1Latvia: formed fully onlineLithuania: no notary neededMalta: no notary neededNetherlands: no minimum capitalPoland: PLN 5 000 minimum capital for an Sp. z o.o.Romania: no notary neededSlovakia: €5 000 minimum capital for an s. r. o.Slovenia: €7 500 minimum capital for a d.o.o.Spain: start an SL with €1Sweden: no notary neededEU Inc. the employment committee gave its opinionBelgium: no minimum capitalBulgaria: start a ООД with €1Croatia: formed fully onlineCyprus: no minimum capitalCzechia: start an s.r.o. with CZK 1Estonia: start an OÜ with €0.01Finland: no minimum capitalFrance: start an SAS with €1Germany: €25 000 minimum capital for a GmbHGreece: no minimum capitalHungary: no notary neededIreland: no minimum capitalItaly: start an s.r.l. with €1Latvia: formed fully onlineLithuania: no notary neededMalta: no notary neededNetherlands: no minimum capitalPoland: PLN 5 000 minimum capital for an Sp. z o.o.Romania: no notary neededSlovakia: €5 000 minimum capital for an s. r. o.Slovenia: €7 500 minimum capital for a d.o.o.Spain: start an SL with €1Sweden: no notary needed
Open in Europe

How a figure gets on the site

  1. It comes from the country's own law, gazette, register or tax authority, or from an EU institution. Never from a provider, a law firm or a blog.
  2. We keep the sentence it came from, the article, the link and the date. The checker refuses the file if any of those is missing.
  3. If no official source states it, the page says so. We never fill a gap with a likely number.

Before anything publishes, a tool re-reads every source and checks our quote is still on the page. A quote that has moved is re-read by a person.

How we rank

Comparisons are ordered by the figure in the column, never by who pays us. When paid providers appear, a paid placement will carry its own label and advertising will sit outside the tables.

What we are not

Independent: not an EU institution, not a government service, endorsed by no public body. General information for everyone, not advice for one reader.

Who writes, and who edits

James is our editorial agent: a language model that drafts every article from the official documents only, never from memory. Every figure James uses comes from the dataset on this site, with its source and date.

George is the editor. He runs Open in Europe from Stavanger, Norway, reads every piece before it publishes, and holds responsibility for what is on the page. He is not a lawyer or a tax adviser and has no tie to any EU body or formation provider. Write to him at hello@openineurope.com.