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Today the idea, tomor­row start­ing a UG in Ger­many.

You would like to start a small busi­ness in Ger­many? Set­ting up a mini GmbH, or in Ger­man called UG, with lim­ited liab­il­ity, takes time and nerves. Set­ting up a busi­ness in Ger­many can take between 6 weeks and 4 months. Espe­cially, when start­ing a com­pany in Ger­many as a for­eign­er. In par­tic­u­lar, the open­ing of the busi­ness account is asso­ci­ated with many delays.

With our ready-to-go shelf com­pan­ies, you can be the man­aging dir­ect­or of your Mini GmbH with­in 24 hours and ready to act imme­di­ately.

Our Mini GmbH.

includ­ing € 1,000 share cap­it­al
max. 3 man­aging dir­ect­ors and up to 5 share­hold­ers
The Mini GmbH offers you a par­tic­u­larly cost-effect­ive and uncom­plic­ated way to start a small busi­ness in Ger­many. You can get star­ted with as little as €1,000 equity and bene­fit from lim­ited liab­il­ity that pro­tects your private assets. The UG is ideal for founders who want to get star­ted quickly and be flex­ible — and can later be eas­ily con­ver­ted into a tra­di­tion­al GmbH as soon as the com­pany grows. Do your busi­ness setup in Ger­many now.
  • Check 2 Ready for use with­in 24 hours: Set up a Mini GmbH in just one day.
  • Check 2 Leg­ally secure and com­pli­ant: Effort­lessly ful­fil all leg­al require­ments.
  • Check 2 Digit­al pro­cess: no more paper night­mare. Enjoy a stream­lined, paper­less exper­i­ence.
  • Check 2 Busi­ness account: Get your start-up account at Ber­liner Volks­bank free of charge for 3 months.
  • Check 2 Ready-made con­tracts and doc­u­ments: Use our sample con­tracts and doc­u­ments for your appoint­ment with the not­ary in Ber­lin.
  • Check 2 Access to exclus­ive resources: Founders’ Academy, net­work and play­book developed espe­cially for founders.
  • Check 2 Access to the Start­bereit Space: Work and col­lab­or­ate in our spe­cial Start­bereit work­space.
  • Check 2 Exclus­ive dis­counts: Bene­fit from addi­tion­al ser­vices and spe­cial offers through our part­ner net­work.
  • Check 2 Your appoint­ment with our selec­ted not­ary in Ber­lin: Easy access to our trus­ted not­ar­ies, no need to search long for a not­ary in Ber­lin
  • X 2 Addi­tion­al not­ary fees: Not­ary fees are sep­ar­ate and will be paid at the appoint­ment.

UG or GmbH – Which is bet­ter for you?

Click through our test in just a few minutes and find out which leg­al form is best suited to your pro­ject. Take over a mini GmbH, or go one step fur­ther and have a pro­fes­sion­al GmbH?

Start­ing a small busi­ness in Ger­many in just one day?

Our Start­bereit shelf com­pan­ies, spe­cially foun­ded as Mini GmbH (UG), are registered in Ber­lin. You can eas­ily relo­cate the seat after pur­chase.

Each shelf com­pany has a busi­ness account at Ber­liner Volks­bank with the paid-in share cap­it­al. You can take over this account imme­di­ately and start your busi­ness. 

Our Mini GmbHs do not come with a tax num­ber for imme­di­ate busi­ness trans­ac­tions. You’ll receive this once you register with the rel­ev­ant tax office. But don’t worry – we provide detailed guides and resources to sup­port you at every step, ensur­ing your online com­pany regis­tra­tion pro­cess is as smooth and simple as pos­sible.

Germany's start-up platform #1 - small business in Germany and online company registration done with ease.

Why buy a shelf UG?

With a shelf UG (‘lim­ited liab­il­ity com­pany’), you bene­fit from fast avail­ab­il­ity and the abil­ity to act imme­di­ately, without long wait­ing times or bur­eau­crat­ic hurdles. Start­bereit takes care of all the start-up form­al­it­ies and offers you a leg­ally com­pli­ant solu­tion to avoid mis­takes. The entre­pren­eur­i­al com­pany gives you a pro­fes­sion­al appear­ance and facil­it­ates the grant­ing of loans thanks to a good cred­it rat­ing. You also start with an account at Ber­liner Volks­bank and can react flex­ibly to spe­cif­ic busi­ness require­ments if neces­sary.
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    Time sav­ing:
    Imme­di­ate avail­ab­il­ity, no wait­ing for bur­eau­crat­ic pro­cesses when set­ting up a Mini GmbH.
  • Check 2
    Leg­al secur­ity:
    Found­a­tion by ready to start min­im­ises faults.
  • Check 2
    Imme­di­ate abil­ity to act:
    Start busi­ness activ­it­ies dir­ectly, apply for loans and sub­sidies.
  • Check 2
    Pro­fes­sion­al appear­ance:
    Registered com­pany con­veys trust and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.
  • Check 2
    Easi­er cred­it approv­al:
    A good cred­it rat­ing makes it easi­er for banks to grant loans.
  • Check 2
    Avoid­ance of bur­eau­crat­ic hurdles:
    Start­bereit takes care of all found­ing form­al­it­ies.
  • Check 2
    Flex­ib­il­ity:
    Cus­tom­is­able to spe­cif­ic busi­ness require­ments.
  • Check 2
    Imme­di­ate mar­ket launch:
    Quick start for short-term busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies.
  • Check 2
    Repu­ta­tion and trust:
    Exist­ing UG sig­nals reli­ab­il­ity.
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    Ber­liner Volks­bank account included:
    Account with Ber­liner Volks­bank is included dir­ectly.

Want to get star­ted right away?

An UG is not enough for you and you want to start right away with a GmbH – let’s go!
Our pro­cesses

Found your own Mini GmbH in just a few steps

Our pro­cesses are optim­ised to make your work easi­er. Find out more about the indi­vidu­al steps involved in set­ting up a Mini GmbH here.

Found­ing a GmbH or Mini GmbH?

Are you still unsure which com­pany form suits you best? Then simply take our test!
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Keypad

Share com­pany data

So you want to set up a mini GmbH: Please enter the com­pany details in the app, includ­ing the com­pany name, registered office, address, sec­tor and object of the com­pany.

Chargeable book­ing

In order to finally reserve your UG, a fee-based order and pay­ment of the share cap­it­al and the ser­vice fee are required.
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Writing

Enter share­hold­er data

Please enter the neces­sary inform­a­tion for the pur­chase agree­ment of your entre­pren­eur­i­al com­pany and the com­pany trans­fer of your UG in the app so that the not­ary can pre­pare the con­tracts and com­plete all neces­sary checks before the dead­line.

Book a not­ary appoint­ment

As soon as you have entered all the required data, a cal­en­dar will be dis­played which you can use to book your not­ary appoint­ment. The not­ary in Ber­lin will usu­ally con­firmed your appoint­ment with­in a few hours.
Calendar
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Busi­ness Bank Account

After com­plet­ing all the steps, you will be redir­ec­ted to the bank account pro­cess to enter the required data. The account gives you quick access to your share cap­it­al and is free of any fees for the first 3 months.

Start­bereit

Con­grat­u­la­tions! You are now offi­cially the man­aging dir­ect­or of your com­pany. You can also access our exclus­ive resources and enjoy numer­ous bene­fits and dis­counts from our part­ners.
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FAQs Found­ing a Mini GmbH

A UG (Unternehmergesell­schaft) is a Ger­man cor­por­a­tion with a min­im­um share cap­it­al of just 1 euro. It offers the advant­age of lim­ited liab­il­ity, sim­il­ar to a GmbH, but at lower form­a­tion costs. The UG is ideal for founders look­ing for a leg­al struc­ture with lim­ited liab­il­ity and lower cap­it­al expendit­ure. It is par­tic­u­larly attract­ive for small and medi­um-sized com­pan­ies, as it is uncom­plic­ated to set up and can be oper­a­tion­ally util­ised quickly.

How to set up a UG

    1. Sign art­icles of asso­ci­ationThe first step is to draw up art­icles of asso­ci­ation that reg­u­late all the import­ant details of the com­pany. This agree­ment can be cus­tom­ised or replaced by a mod­el pro­tocol provided by law. The mod­el pro­tocol is sim­pler and cheap­er, but is only suit­able for com­pan­ies with a max­im­um of three share­hold­ers and one man­aging dir­ect­or, as well as for cash start-ups. It only cov­ers the basic points. The name of the UG should be checked with the IHK before­hand.

    2. Open a bank accountThe man­aging dir­ect­or opens a bank account for the UG. The share cap­it­al (at least 1 euro) must be paid in full. Banks check this thor­oughly, which can lead to delays.

    3. Proof of pay­mentThe pay­ment of the share cap­it­al must be proven to the not­ary by means of a bank state­ment. Pay­ment in cash is usu­ally not suf­fi­cient.

    4. Com­mer­cial register entry: After the cap­it­al has been paid in and veri­fied, the not­ary registers the UG with the com­mer­cial register. The lim­it­a­tion of liab­il­ity only applies after regis­tra­tion.

The UG is ideal for founders look­ing for a leg­al struc­ture with lim­ited liab­il­ity and lower cap­it­al expendit­ure. It is par­tic­u­larly attract­ive for small and medi­um-sized com­pan­ies as it is uncom­plic­ated to set up and can be oper­a­tion­ally util­ised quickly.

A UG (haf­tungs­bes­chränkt) has some dis­ad­vant­ages. The low share cap­it­al of just EUR 1 can lead to liquid­ity prob­lems. How­ever, our shelf UGs are equipped with EUR 1,000 share cap­it­al to coun­ter­act this risk. In addi­tion, the UG must set aside 25% of the annu­al net profit as a reserve each year until the cap­it­al grows to EUR 25,000, which lim­its fin­an­cial flex­ib­il­ity. Bor­row­ing can also be more dif­fi­cult, as cred­it­wor­thi­ness is impaired by the low share cap­it­al. The ongo­ing costs for book­keep­ing and tax advice are often high­er due to the leg­al require­ments. In addi­tion, the UG may enjoy less trust in the busi­ness world than a GmbH.

The form­a­tion of a UG can take up to one month, depend­ing on pre­par­a­tion, not­ar­isa­tion and entry in the com­mer­cial register. If everything runs smoothly, the pro­cess is usu­ally com­pleted with­in two to four weeks.

How­ever, with one of the start­bereit UGs you can be ready to go with­in a few days.

A shelf UG is an entre­pren­eur­i­al com­pany that has already been registered, has not yet done any busi­ness and can be taken over by you imme­di­ately. As long as it is recog­nis­able as a shelf com­pany, it is com­pletely leg­al. All Vor­rats-UGs (haf­tungs­bes­chränkt) from Start­bereit are open and ready for imme­di­ate use.

A shelf UG with a fully paid-up cap­it­al of 1,000 euros costs 1,900 euros. There are no addi­tion­al costs on our part. How­ever, you will have to pay not­ary and court fees upon acquis­i­tion, the amount of which var­ies depend­ing on the indi­vidu­al case. Please note that we do not set up UGs with a mod­el pro­tocol.

 

to prices

With a shelf com­pany, it is import­ant that the share cap­it­al is fully paid up and free from risks such as hid­den con­tri­bu­tions in kind. We guar­an­tee that our shelf com­pan­ies are 100% leg­ally com­pli­ant. Each com­pany was foun­ded in Ber­lin, has an impec­cable his­tory and a share cap­it­al of EUR 1,000 that is fully paid up. This means you can cov­er your ini­tial costs securely without hav­ing to worry about leg­acy issues or leg­al uncer­tain­ties. Trust in our exper­i­ence and start your com­pany worry-free.

In short: a shelf com­pany is new and nev­er used before, ready for imme­di­ate use. It has just been foun­ded, has no past and no leg­acy, which enables a quick and uncom­plic­ated start. A shell com­pany, on the oth­er hand, already has a his­tory and was pre­vi­ously act­ive. It may have pre­vi­ous busi­ness activ­it­ies or even exist­ing liab­il­it­ies. It is there­fore import­ant to care­fully check shell com­pan­ies for pos­sible leg­acy bur­dens or exist­ing liab­il­it­ies. A shelf com­pany has been cre­ated spe­cific­ally for imme­di­ate sale. It has not yet developed any activ­it­ies and is there­fore brand new and free of any oblig­a­tions or leg­acy liab­il­it­ies.

The mod­el pro­tocol is a leg­ally pre­scribed, sim­pli­fied art­icles of asso­ci­ation that also includes the appoint­ment of the man­aging dir­ect­ors and the list of share­hold­ers. It is cheap­er and sim­pler, but is only suit­able for com­pan­ies with a max­im­um of three share­hold­ers and one man­aging dir­ect­or as well as for cash form­a­tions. As it only cov­ers basic points, the mod­el pro­tocol is gen­er­ally only recom­men­ded for one-per­son com­pan­ies.

In order to avoid later changes or pos­sible chal­lenges at the not­ary appoint­ment and the asso­ci­ated high­er costs, we only offer UGs with cus­tom­ised art­icles of asso­ci­ation.

 
 
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Still have ques­tions?

Still have ques­tions about the start a com­pany in Ger­many, com­pany regis­tra­tion Ger­many, busi­ness account, the reser­va­tion or the pur­chase pro­cess? We answer many ques­tions in our FAQs, for everything else you are wel­come to con­tact our team.
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Want to talk?

Would you prefer to speak to someone in per­son and cla­ri­fy your ques­tions about start­ing a com­pany in Ger­many as a for­eign­er, or com­pany regis­tra­tion in Ger­many in gen­er­al, on the phone or in chat? No prob­lem! Our team is at your dis­pos­al and will be happy to help you with any ques­tions about our ser­vices.
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