That is false. You can absolutely found a company by just getting an entry as a merchant here with neither of the things you listed. If you want to found a limited liability company though, then yes, you need some monetary backing to cover for fuckups (likely the 25k are not fully covering it anyway) and a notary to make it official.
No, you CANNOT found a company like that. It’s an absolute fabrication.
You also seem to somehow justify spending 25k on an endeavor you don’t know will succeed upfront, when every other country on the planet allows you to open one with orders of magnitude smaller amounts of capital.
You can open a UK LTD in a few days with 12GBP. Similar in DK/NL/CZ… the list goes on.
I’ve learned firsthand that germans will bend over backwards to justify this insanity.
Needing to put in >1000 EUR in starting capital is not uncommon. The "cheapest Danish limited liability company, the Aps needs 20k DKK up front, i.e. ~3000 EUR. In Sweden an AB needs 25k SEK, ~2300 EUR.
And you can always dissolve the company and take the capital out again tax free, so what's the big deal?
> No, you CANNOT found a company like that. It’s an absolute fabrication.
I'm a German. I have done this myself. I assure you it's true.
> You also seem to somehow justify spending 25k on an endeavor you don’t know will succeed upfront, when every other country on the planet allows you to open one with orders of magnitude smaller amounts of capital.
If you are planning a serious endeavour where you intend to limit your liability, you'll have a business plan. And that allows multiple options, from a bank loan of a local bank that will very likely be granted on good conditions, to one of the various municipal, regional, or federal programs that offer grants for newly founded companies. My current company secured 200k Euro at the beginning from a federal program that we did not have to pay back, for example.
You are clearly misinformed. According to German law, you can start a UG (limited) with only 1€ + notary cost. Starting a business with personal liability doesn't cost anything.
It's beyond me why anyone would downvote that. An UG is uninvestable, and a GmbH would also scare most investors. Anything but an AG is not going to work.
What are you talking about..? A GmbH is the German equivalent of an Ltd. An AG is a publicly traded company and thus not something investors are looking for. Also, the majority of companies in Germany are just ordinary eigetragene Kaufmänner (so normal businesspeople like your average plumber), or GmbH (literally any other company that isn’t a stock market traded enterprise).