Creating companies online
The European Commission is proposing new company law rules to make it easier for companies to merge, divide or move within the Single Market. The proposal sets out common procedures at the EU level on how a company can move from one EU country to another, merge or divide into two or more new entities across borders. Currently, national rules differ greatly between Member States or impose excessive administrative hurdles. This discourages businesses from pursuing new opportunities for fear of too much red tape.
Current situation
There are currently only 17 Member States that provide a fully online procedure for registering companies. Under the new rules, in all Member States, companies will be able to register, set up new branches or file documents to the business register online. Going digital makes the process of setting up a business more efficient and cost effective:
- online registration takes on average half of the time and can be up to 3 times cheaper than traditional paper-based formats;
- savings for online registration and filing under the new rules are estimated to be €42 – €84 million per year for EU companies;
- the “once-only principle”, included in today’s proposal, replaces the need to submit the same information several times to different authorities in a company life-cycle;
- more information about companies will be available to all interested parties free of charge in the business registers.
Read the full pressrelease here
