Hi,

I hope someone must have gone through the questions which I am going to ask. I came to Germany with green card. Now I am a german national and due to personal reasons living outside germany since long time. Now I want to start application development for smart phones and tablets and later on specializing in this field trying to provide all sort of software services for smart phones and tablets (iOS and Android). This whole will be a one man setup.

But as currently I am living outside germany and I do not know when I will come again to germany or to EU again. So for me to form a firm in germany or in any other EU country is same. I do not expect big revenues in the next time as my earnings. So the dilemma which I am facing is:

1. Is it possible to make a software development firm while not living in germany and not being registered (angemeldet) in germany

2. Is there any other better EU country for the one man firm model

3. What are the tax related benefits in different EU countries and what is the minimum cost to have a registered one man firm considering that the income expected will not be very high. But it can also happens that an idea gets clicked and one has a high income. So tax and the running cost are the most important factors.

I will be extremly grateful if someone can help me in this regard.

Thanks.

Hi,

why don't you just start your business from the place you are living at the moment? I guess you have to aquire new clients or you want to offer your apps via Aples appstore.

You can just start it with your name and local address and as soon as there is some interest in your product in a special country, you can check if it is necessary to set up a local firm or not.

Many entrepreneurs set up a firm before there is any real business and then they have to do a lot of bureaucratic things before they earn 1 cent. 

I always recommend to start the business and then set up a firm when the idea works! As a German citizen you need a local address and then you can start a 1 man company (Einzelfirma)  within 1 day, without any problem.

You can also think about contacting an existing firm for a cooperation. Then you an aquire clients with the name and reputation of a running company, which should help you.

Good luck
Detlef

Hello Detlef,

Thankyou very much for your reply. Yes, the simplest way would have been that I would have just started it from my home. But the reason that I want to have a firm register with a proper name is to make a proper profile for whatever I sell from the beginning. And then to approach possible customers, if one has a proper firm and internet presence is always good.

My end destination in future is Germany and at end I will relocate whatever I do to Germany. But in the meantime I am just looking for any european country which is offering good options for offshore firms.

I have just looked around in Internet and it seems that UK is quite good country for making offshore firms. So now I am working on to get more information about this and most probably will be going to let my fim register over their.

I will still appreciate the input from any reader of this thread in this regard.

Detlef: Once again thankyou for your reply.

Regards
Muhammad