Germany is overhauling the business formation process. By 2029, companies are supposed to be formed within 24 hours. The digital combined application currently being piloted, however, is so far available only to sole proprietorships. For a GmbH with a French parent company, much will remain as it is for the time being.
A still lengthy process
Anyone setting up a German GmbH (limited liability company) from France is often surprised by how long the process takes: three to six weeks is not unusual. The delay is not caused by any single particularly slow step, but by several procedures that take place one after another rather than in parallel. Some of these procedures are still paper-based, and the same information is requested repeatedly. Setting up the GmbH requires the notarisation of the articles of association, the payment of the required capital contributions and registration with the German Commercial Register (Handelsregister). Business registration and tax registration follow afterwards and may also affect when the GmbH is actually able to commence its business activities.
What is currently being piloted
The Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation is driving forward the “Schneller Gründen” project. Its core element is a combined application for business registration and tax registration: the data is captured once and automatically forwarded to the trade office, the tax administration and the courts responsible for maintaining the registers, following the once-only principle. This is complemented by faster allocation of tax numbers and the connection of the registers through the National Once-Only Technical System. The combined application is operating in selected pilot regions under real-world conditions.
For perspective: in this first phase, the combined application is aimed at sole proprietorships. It does not currently apply to a GmbH. Whether and when other legal forms will be included is to be decided after the pilot phase. Even then, the streamlining starts with business registration and tax registration, not with the corporate-law documentation or the application for registration in the Commercial Register. For a GmbH, only part of the process would therefore be shortened in any event.
The bigger step: a new business formation law
The economic ministries of Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria, together with North Rhine-Westphalia’s Ministry of Justice, presented a concept for a Business Formation Acceleration Act in March 2026. The starting point is expressed with remarkable openness: if you digitise an overcomplicated process, you get an overcomplicated digital process. Further digitisation therefore achieves little without changing the legal framework.
The plan is to establish a general framework for business formation, supplemented by amendments to sector-specific legislation. In future, the public authorities would identify themselves which registration, authorisation and notification requirements apply in each individual case.
Straightforward standard cases are to enter a fast track, while complex cases will continue to be reviewed individually. Uniform assessment criteria such as “reliability” and “sound financial standing” are intended to enable automated searches of the registers. If the registers reveal no adverse information, the founder would be presumed to meet these requirements unless proven otherwise.
The law is to be ready by the end of 2026, the technical implementation is to follow by the end of 2027 and the rollout is to take place by the end of 2028. Fully automated company formations in standard cases are planned for 2029. Anyone forming a company in 2026 or 2027 will not notice any of this yet. Since up to 90% of cases are supposed to be processed automatically, while complex and atypical cases will still be reviewed manually, a GmbH whose shareholder is a French company will hardly ever be a standard case.
What already helps
This is not news, but it is often unknown in practice: since August 2022, the articles of association can be notarised by videoconference (§ 2(3) GmbHG, §§ 16a et seq. BeurkG). This also applies to legal entities acting as founders and can be completed from abroad. No one has to travel to Germany for this purpose. The procedure is available only for a cash formation and only through the videocommunication system of the Federal Chamber of Notaries. Online notarisations carried out abroad are not automatically recognised as equivalent.
For the purpose of identification, § 16c BeurkG requires a photograph to be read electronically from the chip of the identity document, as well as an electronic means of identification. Holding the identity document up to the camera is not enough. Which foreign documents are suitable can be clarified with the notary in advance. If a party is already known to the notary, transmitting the photograph is not required. For groups that regularly handle corporate-law formalities in Germany, setting up electronic identification may therefore be worthwhile.