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Whether the Netherlands is the right country at all, and then how a founder from outside Europe opens a Dutch company, step by step.
Opening a Dutch company is the fast part of a move to Europe. The notary, the Chamber of Commerce and the tax office work in a fixed order, and a founder does not need to travel to the Netherlands for it. The slow part usually comes after the company exists: the business bank account.
These guides follow that order. They start with whether a foreigner can start a business here at all, then cover the BV itself, and end with what the bank and the UBO register will ask for.
Before any of that comes a question these pages now answer too: whether the Netherlands is the right country at all. Three guides compare it with the alternatives on the rules each government publishes, and say plainly when the answer should be somewhere else.
Yes. Nationality is not a condition for registering a company in the Netherlands, and you do not have to live here to own or direct one. Moving to the Netherlands to run the business is a separate decision: that needs a residence permit if you are not from the EU, the EEA or Switzerland.
Read itYou appoint a Dutch civil-law notary, send identity documents and a power of attorney, and the notary signs the deed of incorporation. The notary then registers the company and its owners with KVK, the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, and the tax numbers follow by post. You do not have to travel to the Netherlands.
Read itNo. Dutch law does not require a director or a shareholder of a BV to live in the Netherlands. The company needs a Dutch address, not a resident owner. Where you live changes other things: which country may tax the company, how a bank reads the file, and whether you need a permit to work here.
Read itThe deed of incorporation follows within days once the notary has a complete file, and the company exists from that moment. Getting to a company that can actually operate usually takes one to three weeks, as a practical estimate rather than a published statistic. The business bank account sits outside that and is never promised.
Read itTwo costs are fixed and public. According to KVK, the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, registering a new company in the Dutch Business Register costs a one-off EUR 85.15, and the minimum share capital of a BV is one eurocent. The notarial deed is not fixed: Dutch notaries set their own rates.
Read itA branch is the same legal entity as the parent, registered as its Dutch establishment. A subsidiary is a separate Dutch company, usually a BV, owned by the parent. The difference shows up in who carries the liability, whose accounts become public, and what an investor can hold shares in later.
Read itMost foreign founders end up with one of two: a BV, the Dutch private limited company, or a registered branch of the company they already have. The NV, the cooperative, the sole trader and the partnership all exist, but each answers a different need. Legal personality and liability are what really separate them.
Read itA holding BV is a Dutch company whose job is to hold things, usually the shares in a second BV that does the actual work. Dutch founders use it to keep assets away from operating risk and to move profit upwards untaxed. A startup whose shares are already held by a parent abroad usually has that separation, so a Dutch holding adds cost more often than protection.
Read itA Dutch BV needs a business bank account, and the bank decides whom it takes on. Before it opens one it has to know who the client is, who ultimately owns it, what the company will do and where the money comes from. With a parent company abroad, that chain takes longer to prove, so the account sits outside the incorporation timetable.
Read itEvery Dutch BV files its ultimate beneficial owners with the KvK, the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. A beneficial owner is always a person, never a company: someone who holds more than 25% of the shares or the votes, directly or through companies above. A parent company abroad does not file its own owners here, but its owners appear in the Dutch filing.
Read itA civil-law notary needs three things: identification for every founder and director, proof that the foreign parent company exists and who may sign for it, and the decisions that go into the deed. Once the deed is signed, the notary registers the company, its directors and its beneficial owners with the KvK in one movement.
Read itA BV, short for besloten vennootschap met beperkte aansprakelijkheid, is the Dutch private limited company. It is a legal person of its own: it signs its own contracts, owes its own debts and files its own tax return. A civil-law notary creates it, and the KvK, the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, registers it.
Read itCompanies pick the Netherlands for reach rather than for price: a member state of the European Union, a dense network of tax treaties, a workforce that works in English, and research support paid out through payroll. It is the wrong answer when the plan depends on cheap salaries, easy housing, a quick bank account or a heavy power connection.
Read itThere is no single best country, because the rule that decides it is different for every company. Five things separate the options in practice: who may own and direct the company, what the entity demands before it exists, how staff from outside the EU get in, what happens to profit sent home, and which language the state deals with you in.
Read itIt depends on one question more than any other: whether anyone in your group lives in Europe. Ireland requires a director resident in the European Economic Area or a bond in its place. The Netherlands does not. After that the split is tax rate against research relief and treaty reach.
Read itBoth are ordinary places to run a European company, and the differences that decide it are capital, the moment the company exists, and tax. According to the German GmbH Act a GmbH needs EUR 25,000 of share capital, against one eurocent for a Dutch BV. Germany also has no single company tax rate, because every municipality sets part of it.
Read itTen lines about your company is enough for us to tell you what the route looks like.
Want the whole picture first? See the Route