Founding a Company in Germany: €9,600, 152 Days, and I Still Can't Send an Invoice

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Founding a Company in Germany: €9,600, 152 Days, and I Still Can't Send an Invoice

Carmine Paolino

Jun 24, 2026

I started founding my second company in Germany in late January. It is now late June.

In that time, the state, two courts, a notary, a law firm, a tax firm, and software vendors have all found a way to bill me. Every single one of them, on time.

I have spent more than 9,600 euros to start a company: a little over 7,600 in fees and bills, plus 2,000 in share capital frozen in an account I am not allowed to touch. And after five months, here is what I have to show for it:

I have not been able to send a single invoice of my own.

Not one.

The work is happening. The clients are real. The one thing the state exists to let me do, bill them cleanly, is the one thing I still can’t.

The timeline

Jan2323 JanFirst call with a law firm to set up the company. The clock and the hourly billing start.

Feb55 FebI sign the mandate and send my ID. Drafting begins.

Feb1818 FebThe structure is set: PlentyLabs UG & Co. KG, technically two companies. The name is a saga of its own.

about 1 month of drafting<br>Mar66 MarIncorporation documents ready.

Mar1717 MarDocuments approved. The hunt for a notary begins.

7 days for the appointment<br>Mar2424 MarNotary in Berlin reads the deeds aloud and certifies that I am who I say I am.

€1,575.24Notary fees

Mar2525 MarI pay in €2,000.00 of share capital. Money I cannot touch; it has to stay there.

€2,000.00Locked, not a fee

Mar2626 MarThe register court demands a fee advance.

€300.00Court advance

17 days after the notary<br>Apr1010 AprFirst company entered in the commercial register.

1 week more<br>Apr1717 AprSecond company entered.

€260.00Register, 200 + 60

Apr2020 AprI ask the firm I already pay to handle the tax registration too.

2.5 weeks just to start<br>May66 MayBefore the tax work can begin, a fresh engagement is required: proposal, power of attorney, ID checks, per company.

€630.00Tax registration quote

May2828 MayThe incorporation legal bill lands.

€4,462.50Legal fees

May2929 MayTax questionnaires submitted. I request standard VAT and a VAT ID, urgently.

Jun33 JunFirst bill from the accounting software.

€426.97Accounting software

Jun99 JunI am told the VAT ID will arrive by post. A letter.

Jun24today24 Jun, todaySeven weeks since the tax firm, almost four weeks since the questionnaires. No VAT ID. No invoice sent.

Billed by everyone else€7,654.71<br>Share capital I cannot touch€2,000.00<br>Total gone€9,654.71<br>Invoices I have managed to send0

Everyone in this story could invoice me. I am the only one who can’t invoice anyone.

“But you can invoice your German clients”

The clients abroad need a VAT ID for reverse charge, and that is exactly the one I am still waiting for. My German clients I could bill today. But a domestic invoice now would have to be reissued the moment the VAT ID arrives. Bill now, bill again later, for no reason. So those wait too.

This should have been a web form

Fill it in, pay a fee, get your company and your VAT ID in a week. Estonia does it. The UK registers a company in a day, online, for the price of a dinner. There is no law of nature that says incorporation has to take five months and arrive by post.

Germany has built a process that chains one dependency to the next, puts a fee on each, and lets a founder run up legal bills, notary bills, court fees, tax retainers, and software subscriptions on zero revenue, all before granting the one permission a company exists for: the right to send an invoice.

If you ask the government, the reason is trust: the notary, the capital, the registers, the endless checks, all there to keep bad actors out. This is the same machine that did not catch Wirecard, a two-billion-euro scam. It does, somehow, generate enough friction to scare new founders out of the country.

And no, I could not just leave instead. My first company, Freshflow, is valuable enough that walking out of Germany would trigger a massive six-figure exit tax, on gains I have not even realised, purely for the privilege of leaving. But that is a story for another post.

This is a country taxing ambition through the roof before you’ve earned a cent, then wondering why the ambitious leave.

Bonus round: my company name was “too generic”

Have you heard of Apple? A piece of fruit, and one of the most valuable brands ever built. That name would never have been approved in Germany.

Naming a company is hard. It is the word everyone who touches your work will remember. After months of turning it over, I found one I could stand behind, a name that says what I believe software should be. (That belief will be its own post, soon.) Distinctive, I thought. The kind of name you do not forget.

Plenty.

“No,” said the lawyer. German company names have to be distinctive, and “Plenty” is a plain English...