Question 1

How do I set up a company, and where?

Accepted Answer

Setting up the company itself is the easy part and usually the cheapest. In most countries it takes somewhere between a day and three weeks, and the filing fee is small compared to what comes after. The hard part is everything that hangs off it: the licence for what you actually do, the tax registration, the bank account, and in some countries a physical address or a local director. The order matters more than the speed. People form a company quickly in a country they picked from a video, then discover the bank will not open an account for that structure, or that the licence they bought does not cover the work they intend to do. Undoing that costs more than doing it properly the first time. What we do is ask what you will actually be selling, who to, and where the money lands. Then we put you in front of firms in the two or three countries that genuinely fit, so you can compare real prices rather than advertised ones.

Question 2

Which country should I set the company up in?

Accepted Answer

There is no best country. There is only the country that fits what you sell, who pays you, and where you can lawfully live. As a rough map: the United Kingdom is cheap, fast and widely trusted, but you pay full tax on profits. The United Arab Emirates has low or no corporate tax on many activities and gives you a residence route, but the annual licence and visa costs are real and it only makes sense if you have genuine substance there. Georgia is inexpensive and quick with a small business tax regime that suits solo operators. Poland and the Netherlands give you an EU footing, with the Netherlands better regarded by banks and Poland cheaper to run. Estonia is straightforward to administer remotely. The United States makes sense mainly if your customers are American. Saudi Arabia is opening up quickly but wants commitment on the ground. The question we ask first is where your customers are and where you will physically be. Those two answers rule out most of the list before anyone mentions tax.

Question 3

I bill clients in America. Do I need a US company?

Accepted Answer

Not always, and it is worth knowing that before you spend money. Plenty of people outside the United States invoice American clients perfectly well from a company at home, and the client pays it without complaint. A US company starts to earn its keep when your clients insist on paying a domestic entity, when you need to appear on a US marketplace or platform, when you want to take card payments through an American processor, or when you are raising money from American investors. If you do go ahead, the usual shape is a limited liability company in a state that suits your situation, a federal tax number for the business, then a bank account. Getting a taxpayer number as a non-resident is the step that catches people out, because it takes weeks and the bank will not move without it. There are also filing duties for foreign-owned companies that carry fixed penalties if missed, so it is not a structure to set up and forget.

Question 4

Can I start a business while still employed?

Accepted Answer

In most cases yes, and a lot of people do. The things that actually stop you are not the law but your own contract and, if you are on a visa, the conditions attached to it. Check three things. First, whether your employment contract restricts outside work or claims ownership of anything you create. Many contracts do, and many employers will waive it if you ask before rather than after. Second, whether what you plan to do competes with your employer, because that is where disputes come from. Third, if your right to be in the country depends on your job, whether that permission allows you to run a business at all. In several countries it does not, and in others it allows it only in narrow circumstances. Setting the company up while employed is usually fine. It is the conditions around it that need checking first, and that is a short conversation, not a project.

Question 5

What will it actually cost me to get going?

Accepted Answer

We will not give you a single number because anyone who does is guessing. What we can give you is the shape of it, so you know what to budget for. There is the formation itself, which is normally the smallest line. Then the licence or permit for your activity, which in some countries is zero and in others is the biggest annual cost you have. Then a registered address, which is unavoidable in most places. Then tax registration, which is often free but takes time. Then the bank account, which may cost nothing or may need a minimum balance sitting in it. Then, if you are moving, the visa and the medical and the paperwork around it. The number that surprises people is the second year, not the first. Renewals, annual licence fees and accounts filing all land again, and they land whether or not you have earned anything. When we put firms in front of you we ask them for the first year and the second year separately, because that is the number that tells you whether it is affordable.

Question 6

I want to buy a business instead of building one

Accepted Answer

Buying can be faster than building, because you inherit customers and a track record instead of hunting for the first one. It is also the route where people lose money quietly, because the risk is in what you were not shown. The things that decide whether a small business is worth buying are rarely in the advert. Who actually holds the customer relationships, and will they stay when the owner leaves. Whether the profit is real or is the owner's own unpaid hours. Whether the lease, the licences or the key supplier contracts transfer to you at all. Whether there are debts or claims sitting behind it. There is also a choice between buying the company and buying only its trade and assets, and the two carry very different levels of inherited risk. That decision is worth paying a professional to make with you rather than deciding alone. We can put you in front of people who value and check small businesses for a living.

I want to start something of my own