Choosing your legal status: the free tool to start right

The status is not a formality: it shapes several major aspects of your activity:

• Liability: limited to the capital (companies) or engaging your personal assets in some cases.
• Taxation: income or corporate tax, depending on the country and form.
• Social contributions and the director's protection.
• Governance: alone or with others, decision rules, bringing in partners or investors.
• Credibility with banks, customers and partners.

A poor status choice can be costly to correct: better to be informed from the start.

There is no single legal status in the EU. Each country has its forms: SARL/SAS/EURL in France, GmbH/UG in Germany, SL/SLU in Spain, SRL/Srls in Italy, sp. z o.o. in Poland, BV in the Netherlands, and so on.

Beyond the names, the rules on minimum capital, liability, taxation and formalities differ. The equivalence is never perfect: you must reason with the real forms of your country.

The legal-status help is free and available without an account for a first orientation. You answer a few questions (alone or with others, risk level, desired taxation, investor plans) and the tool highlights the statuses consistent with your situation.

No quantified data is invented: when the exact thresholds or rules for your country are not reliably available, we say so and point to official sources.

Once the status is clarified, you can move on to drafting the articles (dedicated module), refine your taxation and prepare the registration formalities specific to your country.

The status choice is closely linked to tax optimisation and the forecast. To progress in the right order, the Pro journey brings these steps together.