

Beware of the pain when setting up a company in German - geff82

I was raised in Germany, live next to Frankfurt. My wife and I decided to set up our incorporated consultancy company here. What we are going through might not be the same for you, but it could be similar.
First: be warned. If you want to serve Europe, think twice if you absolutely need to have a German presence.
It&#x27;s been 9 months now that we are working to set up a functional company. 
1.) It took about 3 months until the company registration went through. You have to spend a few hundred Euro at a notary to register it.
2.) Renting office space was the only quick and easy thing
3.) It took 4 months until we got connected to the internet. Telekom cancelled the contract because &quot;all lines are full and we can&#x27;t connect you&quot;. I heard about &quot;no connection available&quot; several times from others. O2 didn&#x27;t cancel our contract, but was ready to wait for 4 months until they could lease a line from Telekom.
4.) That doesn&#x27;t mean that we have Internet now. The specialized router was sent by DHL, which is on strike indefinitely.
5.) Since the beginning of 2014, strikes are a major problem in this country when travelling. Lufthansa and the Deutsche Bahn (trains) are guaranteed to strike when you need them most. Be aware that instead of your fast connection to Berlin from Frankfurt, you end up spending hours in busses to get to the destination. Last year, getting to my main client was a weekly struggle as I could not always go by car.
6.) To be able to write invoices, you need a tax number. After 5 months of waiting (wait time after we officially set up business in our Town, after the official registration of the company itself) the financial authorities finally sent us the questionnaire (after asking 2 times) that will eventually lead to a tax number (I guess one more month). However, this is only the German tax number. If you want to do business with the rest of the EU, you need a VAT-ID which will take another month after we got our national number.
======
geff82
My parents used to say "everything is a bit complicated here, but once you
have all the papers, everything is smooth". No more. This country is declining
while thinking they are the greatest.

(and all this is before the final hassle with filing taxes every month/year...
errors here land you in court faster than you can see. This year, for my
freelancer business I clicked one wrong checkbox (the numbers where right, I
paid the right amount of taxes, I just made a little mistake) so they
instantly visited me one morning to my surprise to check my books.

If you need a business friendly environment, go elsewhere.

~~~
Gnarl
Wow. But hey, on the other side, you could view it as a quality-stamp on the
people who've gotten through that kind of hassle. The Germans obviously mean
business. Achtung!

------
BjoernKW
Yes, it can be a royal pain in the ass at times but my advice is: Suck it up
and get your act together! If you really mean business and if your business is
going to be anything but a hobby those notary costs are going to be
vanishingly low.

Telecommunication in Germany has always been notoriously ridiculous but keep
in mind that solving problems is what an entrepreneur's job description is all
about. So, Deutsche Telekom sucks. I had pretty much the same problem when
setting up a company about 7 years ago. We ended up using a combination of the
neighbouring company's Internet connection and mobile Internet connectivity
(mind you, this was pre-LTE and ridiculously slow at times and we still made
do) for about 3 months.

There have always been complaints about rampant bureaucracy that's hampering
startups in Germany. While those are justified to some extent they also most
of the times seem to come from people who don't really want to start a company
anyway but are looking for a good reason not to.

------
syllogism
The bureaucracy certainly sucks, but on the other hand, wages in Berlin are
what, a third of what they are in Silicon Valley and London? And immigration
is much easier than the U.S., so if someone wants to move to work for you,
they mostly can. If you're starting a company, over the medium and long-term
that should dominate every other factor.

I'm still getting set up, but so far it seems doable. And cost of living and
lifestyle are much better here than other places I've been.

------
lumpie26
I had a completely different experience. I just set up a new company (GmbH)
here in Berlin and it was absolutely painless. Company registration took
around two weeks (and it's possible to do that in a day with some extra
money), Internet was only one phone call away, office space is super cheap and
easy to find.

------
vendakka
I've set up a business here without knowing German (I'm Indian). I moved here
from the U.S and what worked for me was to pass all of this off to people who
know how to deal with it. My lawyers handled the company set-up and my
accountant handled everything else. It is pricey (thousands of euros) but
worth it in my mind.

