Setting up a company for non-EU citizens in Germany

Hello,

My name is Hami Hadizad and I am working as a business development advisor at Wise Business Group. From now on, I will try to be more in touch with you with the topics of employment, self employment and residence in Germany. I hope you like the content. 

In this article, I would like to write about setting up a company for non-EU citizens in Germany. I get inquiries on a regular basis from Non-EU citizens who would like to establish their firm here. They mostly ask whether they need to get a residence permit to be able to set up a company in Germany or they can do it without having it.  

I assume you already know why you would like to establish your company here. Of course, there should be many motives behind this decision, from expanding the market to facilitating payments and supply chain operations. Some people also see this as an opportunity to apply for the German residence title in future. Whatever the reason is, I assume you did your research well and chose the right country to set up your business. 

Read more at Wise Business Group: The steps of a Business Set-up in Germany

Setting up a company in Germany

However, before we get to the main question and answer it, I need to explain about the two questions, below:

• which entities or organizations are involved in the process of the company formation in Germany?
• To what extent having no residence permit can be an obstacle from their points of view to conduct the operation. 

Entities involved in the process of setting up a company in Germany

Here are the entities that you need to interact with while setting up a company in Germany.

1. Notary
2. Bank
3. Registration court 
4. Trade office
5. Tax office 

Let me make it simple for you. Notary, registration court, and tax office do not mind where you are from and whether you have a German residence title or not. So, they will definitely accept to register a company for you as a non-EU citizen. 

However, there are two entities namely trade office and bank that have some conditions to register your business here and I will explain them for you in the following.

Read more: Which organizations in Germany are automatically notified of your business registration?

Trade office

Trade office or Gewerbeamt is an organization that is in charge of issuing the license for the business. In other words, if your business operation requires any specific permit in Germany, they will check your qualification and certificates. From their point of view, a person who is running the business should at least have the work permit of Germany. If he is a non EU citizen he should have the valid residence title issued by the immigration office which enables him to act as the manager. 

In this regard, if you do not want to apply for the residence title yourself, then you should either introduce a managing director or a representative who has the German residence title. 

So to make it more clear, you as a non EU citizen, who is the owner of the company, have 3 options to deal with the management issues of your company. 

1. apply for the residence title yourself or
2. assign a managing director who has the residence title while keeping the company shares for yourself, or 
3. assign a company representative who has the residence title while keeping the position of managing director and company shares for yourself. 

If you do not intend to get the residence title of Germany or you do not want to give someone the authority of being your managing director, then the third choice is the best choice. Because the representative is neither the managing director nor the shareholder. 

Bank

Based on my observation over the course of 12 years now, your nationality is important for opening a business bank account in Germany. There are some countries where German banks are not very inclined to work with their citizens. The reason is usually because these countries are not part of the FATF or other international anti money-laundering treaties. If it does not apply to your country, you will most probably be able to open a business bank account simply in Germany. If your country of origin is in their list, you can think of finding less reputable banks for your business. 

Setting up a company for non-EU citizens in Germany

So to sum up, two main obstacles to establishing a company in Germany for non-EU citizens are

• The trade office
• The bank
• Both can be solved if you do your research well before you start to set up your business here.

For further questions, you may simply send a message on my whatsapp by clicking below.

You can also fill out the following form to have a cunsulatation session about company formation in Germany .