What a GmbH Really Costs in Germany in 2026

Forming a GmbH in Germany costs roughly €550 to €2,500 in fees, plus the €25,000 share capital, which is your own money and not a fee. Running one then costs roughly €2,000 to €8,000 per year, dominated by tax-adviser and accounting fees. The single one-time number most online guides get wrong is the commercial-register fee: it rose to €225 on 1 June 2025. The proposed EU Inc would cut formation to a targeted maximum of €100 with no notary, but it would not remove the recurring German accounting bill. This is the neutral, statute-sourced version, without a formation service trying to sell you anything.

Almost every page that ranks for "how much does a GmbH cost" is run by a formation agent, an accountant, or a company-formation platform. Their numbers are not wrong so much as incomplete, and several are out of date. Below is the full picture, with the legal source cited on each line, and the capital kept separate from the fees so the totals mean something.

Why the numbers you find online disagree

Three things make GmbH cost figures scatter. First, notary and register fees are statutory, set by the GNotKG and the HRegGebV, and they scale with your share capital and whether you use standard or custom articles. Second, the accounting cost is not a fixed price at all: it follows the StBVV fee scale, which is tied to your turnover and balance-sheet total, so a dormant holding and a trading company are nowhere near each other. Third, one figure genuinely changed in 2025 and many pages have not caught up.

What a GmbH costs to form

The line that matters most is the register fee. Entry in the Handelsregister for a cash-formed GmbH costs €225, not the €150 that is still printed across most of the search results. The fee was raised by 50 percent on 1 June 2025 by the Third Ordinance amending the register-fee schedule (BGBl. 2025 I Nr. 127), the first change since 2011. A formation with contributions in kind (Sacheinlage) instead of cash costs €360 under Nr. 2101.

Notary fees are where founders overpay attention and underpay scrutiny. They are fixed by statute, so no formation service can discount them. What lowers them is the Musterprotokoll, the model protocol available for a company with up to three shareholders and one managing director, which cuts the notary component to roughly €300 to €400. Depart from it for a bespoke shareholders' agreement and you pay the full 2.0 notarisation fee, which for a standard GmbH lands closer to €700 to €1,000 and climbs with capital and the number of shareholders. Our EU Inc in Germany breakdown covers the notary and formation steps in detail.

The €25,000 that is not a cost, but is an obligation

The €25,000 minimum share capital (§ 5 GmbHG) is not a fee and should never be added to a formation "cost" total. It is your company's own money, available to spend on rent, salaries, or equipment the moment registration completes (§ 7 Abs. 3 GmbHG requires it to be at the managing directors' free disposal). Every honest source now says this much.

The part they skip: you must pay in at least €12,500 before the company can be registered (§ 7 Abs. 2 GmbHG), and the unpaid half does not disappear. It remains a standing liability that the company can call in, including in insolvency. So the accurate framing is not "the capital is free" but "you need €12,500 in cash now, you owe the rest, and all of it stays inside the business." You will also need a business bank account to pay the capital in and evidence it for the notary; opening one is typically free, though a monthly account fee is common thereafter. For founders who cannot commit the capital, the €1 UG (haftungsbeschränkt) exists precisely to bridge the gap, with trade-offs covered below.

What a GmbH costs every year

This is the part most cost guides leave out, and it is where the real money goes.

Three corrections to the standard advice hide in that table.

You are not legally required to hire a tax adviser

A GmbH must keep books (§ 238 HGB) and file its accounts, but the managing director may prepare and sign the Jahresabschluss. A small GmbH is also not audited: the audit duty under § 316 HGB only bites once you exceed two of three thresholds in § 267 HGB (balance sheet €7.5M, revenue €15M, 50 employees). Most founders use a Steuerberater anyway, because German corporate tax filing is unforgiving, but it is a choice, not a legal cost.

Filing your accounts is cheap

Since the DiRUG reform took effect on 1 August 2022, companies file through the Unternehmensregister rather than the Bundesanzeiger. A small GmbH discloses (offenlegen) its balance sheet and notes publicly; only the smallest, the micro-entities (Kleinstkapitalgesellschaften under § 326 Abs. 2 HGB), may instead just deposit (hinterlegen) the balance sheet without publishing it. Either way the filing itself is a roughly €0 to €50 item, not the €40 to €200 Bundesanzeiger publication fee several pages still quote. Miss the twelve-month deadline, though, and the fine (Ordnungsgeld) starts at €500 and runs to €25,000 (§ 335 HGB).

A GmbH gets no first-year IHK exemption

This is the most common error in the field. The Existenzgründer relief that waives the chamber contribution for new businesses applies only to natural persons and unregistered partnerships that are not entered in the commercial register (§ 3 Abs. 3 IHKG). A GmbH is always in the register, so it is excluded and pays the base contribution (Grundbeitrag), which varies by chamber, from its first year. Any page that tells you a new GmbH is chamber-fee-free for two years is describing sole traders, not companies.

The realistic all-in: your first year

Nobody in the search results puts it in one place, so here it is, with the capital kept where it belongs, outside the fee total.

Read the bottom two rows carefully, because they are where the misleading "it costs €30,000 to start a GmbH" claims come from. The capital is not spent, and the taxes only apply to profit. The real out-of-pocket cost of having a GmbH in its first year, capital and profit taxes aside, is in the low thousands to low ten-thousands, driven almost entirely by accounting. Adjust the formation route and service level in our GmbH cost calculator to see your own estimate.

The cheaper legal routes, and what they cost you elsewhere

Two legitimate ways to spend less exist, each with a real trade-off.

• The UG (haftungsbeschränkt). The "mini-GmbH" can be founded with as little as €1 in capital and a Musterprotokoll, cutting both the capital hurdle and the notary fee. The catch is a mandatory rule to retain 25 percent of annual profit until reserves reach €25,000, at which point you can convert to a full GmbH. It also carries less credibility with banks and investors. See what a UG actually costs, including the profit-retention rule.
• The Musterprotokoll. Using the model protocol for a full GmbH keeps notary costs at the low end but locks you into standard articles: up to three shareholders, one managing director, and no bespoke governance. The moment you need a tailored shareholders' agreement, the saving disappears.

What the proposed EU Inc would change

The reason a GmbH cost breakdown belongs on this site is that the EU is proposing an alternative. The EU Inc, the working name for the 28th-regime company form in the European Commission's proposal COM(2026) 321 of 18 March 2026, is designed to remove exactly the frictions above at formation.

Two honest qualifications keep this from being a sales pitch. First, EU Inc is a proposal, not law. The European Parliament backed the concept 492 to 144 with 28 abstentions in January 2026, and EU leaders have called for agreement by the end of 2026, but the file is still in committee and Council, and the notary-free design is exactly the kind of provision member states contest. The €100 and 48-hour figures are targets conditional on using harmonised templates, not guarantees. On capital, note the precise claim: the Commission's proposal sets no minimum, while the Parliament's earlier resolution floated a symbolic €1, so "no minimum under the proposal" is the accurate line. We track the moving version on our minimum-capital page.

Second, and more important for anyone reading a cost article: EU Inc would cut your formation cost, not your annual one. The largest recurring line for a GmbH is the tax adviser, and tax and accounting obligations stay national. A company operating in Germany under any legal form will still file German returns and still, in practice, pay a Steuerberater. EU Inc removes the notary and the capital hurdle; it does not remove your bookkeeping.

What this does not mean

• These are fee ranges, not quotes. Your accounting cost in particular depends on turnover and transaction volume, so treat the €2,000 to €8,000 band as a starting point, not a promise.
• Notary and register fees are statutory. Be sceptical of any service advertising "cheaper notary costs"; all it can legally do is steer you to the Musterprotokoll.
• Profit taxes are excluded on purpose. Trade tax and corporate tax are charges on success, not fixed overhead; the combined rate lands near 30% to 33% depending on the municipal trade-tax multiplier (Hebesatz), and folding it into "running costs" is how some pages reach alarming totals. Our tax page covers how a German company is taxed under either form.

Frequently asked

How much does it cost to start a GmbH in Germany? Around €550 to €2,500 in formation fees (notary, the €225 register entry, and the trade-office registration), plus at least €12,500 of the €25,000 share capital paid in before registration. The capital is not a fee; it stays in the company. Budget a further €2,000 to €8,000 for the first year of accounting and compliance.

Do I need the full €25,000 in cash to start a GmbH? No. At least €12,500 must be paid in before registration; the rest is owed to the company and can be called later. All of it remains the company's working capital, not a fee.

How much does a GmbH cost per year? For a small, low-activity company, roughly €2,000 to €4,500 if you handle bookkeeping yourself and use a tax adviser only for the accounts and returns, and €4,000 to €8,000 for full service. Profit taxes are on top and depend on profit.

Can I form a GmbH without a notary? Not today. Notarisation is mandatory under German law, even via the video procedure available since 2022, which costs the same statutory fee. Removing that requirement is one of the central promises of the proposed EU Inc.

Is a GmbH or a UG cheaper? The UG is cheaper to start (from €1 capital and a lower notary fee) but forces you to retain a quarter of profits until you reach €25,000. Over the life of the company the running costs are similar; the difference is the capital timing and credibility.

Bottom line

The true cost of a GmbH is not the €25,000 headline that scares founders, nor the sub-€1,000 formation fee that formation agents advertise. It is the roughly €2,000 to €8,000 a year in accounting and compliance that follows the company for as long as it exists, plus a one-time formation bill in the hundreds to low thousands. The capital is yours; the annual adviser is the real spend.

That recurring bill is also the honest limit of what EU Inc would fix. It would make the German company cheaper and faster to start, and it would end the notary and capital hurdles, but the yearly cost of operating in Germany would largely remain. See how the forms line up on our comparison table, or check your own situation with the assessment tool.