It takes 8 weeks from start to finish to be able to get paid for your first sale as a German limited liability company.
People outside of Germany really have no idea how sclerotic the state is. Mean while Germans suffer from the brain damage of having lived there their whole lives and don't see a problem with this.
If you think brain damage is too strong a word, the last time I brought it up a bunch of Germans came out of the wood work to defend an 8 week process as completely reasonable. Then when told I could do the same thing in Australia in 15 minutes they insinuated I was probably a criminal for wanting less paper work to open a business there.
You can bill, but the company owners are completely liable until the process is completed. Then the liability goes over to the company. Quite the risk if you ask me.
As soon as you talk to a notary to prove that you're really opening a company you can get the provisional business license, or whatever they call it, to open a bank account. After you open that bank account you need to talk to the notary again to start registering the real company. Then you need to transfer the bank account from the place holder company to the real company.
I may be misremembering the exact steps because I tried drilling all those memories out of my head as soon as I left Germany.
People outside of Germany really have no idea how sclerotic the state is. Mean while Germans suffer from the brain damage of having lived there their whole lives and don't see a problem with this.
If you think brain damage is too strong a word, the last time I brought it up a bunch of Germans came out of the wood work to defend an 8 week process as completely reasonable. Then when told I could do the same thing in Australia in 15 minutes they insinuated I was probably a criminal for wanting less paper work to open a business there.