The 8 expertise hubs of Financial Services Luxembourg

Which hub matches your situation?

The entry point depends on the stage you are at, not on the service you think you are looking for. The commonest mistake is asking for an accounting quote when the real question is the legal form. That choice then drives the accounting workload, the tax regime and the filing obligations for the whole life of the company. Fixing it afterwards costs more than deciding it properly at the outset.

While no structure exists yet, company setup and lifecycle covers the choice of legal form, the business licence, incorporation before the notary and RCS and RBE registration. As soon as the company produces entries, accounting, accounts and closing takes over LuxGAAP bookkeeping, the annual accounts and their filing. These two hubs are sequential, not alternative.

Filing deadlines start in the first year: tax, VAT and payroll handles corporate tax, VAT, payroll and advanced levers such as transfer pricing. If you hold participations or private wealth, the entry point is holdings, SOPARFI and wealth rather than the accounting hub: the structuring decision precedes the accounting treatment, and reversing that order produces arrangements that have to be undone later.

Three hubs answer more specific situations. Financial direction when you steer without reliable figures and the need is an outsourced CFO rather than another bookkeeper. Investment funds when you are structuring a vehicle. Governance and directorship when the structure has to demonstrate its substance. The eighth, regulatory compliance, joins as soon as AML, DAC6 or CRS/FATCA obligations pile up.

Which hubs combine most often?

A file rarely draws on a single hub. Three combinations recur constantly, and they are worth anticipating: the cost of a multi-provider setup does not come from the fees, it comes from coordinating actors who each see only one segment of the file.

The operating company follows a predictable sequence: setup, then accounting, then tax. Nothing exotic, but the sequence binds. A legal form chosen without looking at the annual accounts filing thresholds produces a closing workload out of proportion to actual turnover.

The holding combines structuring, governance and compliance. Structuring decides the vehicle, SOPARFI or another. Governance produces the substance that makes the vehicle defensible against ATAD and against challenges to treaty benefits. Compliance absorbs DAC6 and CRS/FATCA. Skipping the governance leg is the commonest and most expensive error: a correctly structured SOPARFI without real substance is not tax optimisation, it is tax risk.

The fund combines vehicle structuring, governance and compliance, with the accounting hub for fund services, fund accounting and net asset value calculation. It is the configuration with the densest interdependencies, and therefore the one where coordination between hubs weighs most.

In what order do these hubs apply on a typical project?

Order matters because some decisions close options. The legal form drives the tax regime; the tax regime drives whether a holding structure is worth it; the holding structure drives the level of substance to produce. Walking that chain backwards is possible, but it costs additional notarial deeds.

On a standard set-up, the useful sequence runs as follows. First the arbitration on legal form and ownership, before any administrative step. Then the business licence, which conditions registration. Then incorporation and bank account opening, in practice the longest and least predictable item on the calendar. Finally the accounting and filing setup, which must be operational before the first deadline rather than after it.

The accounting firm therefore comes in earlier than most founders expect. A fiduciary consulted at the moment of the legal-form decision avoids bookkeeping rework whose cost regularly exceeds whatever was saved on the initial setup. Our pricing is built on that scope logic rather than on an undifferentiated flat fee.

What does organising by hub give you over one provider per service?

The difference is not commercial, it is informational. When each service belongs to exactly one hub and the hubs share the same file, the accounting treatment of a structuring decision is known at the moment of the decision, not discovered at closing. That is the only way to avoid the most expensive category of error: an arrangement that is legally valid but unworkable in accounting or tax terms.

The second effect is on lead times. A file split between a notary, an accounting firm, a domiciliation agent and a tax adviser produces as many waiting points as it has interfaces. Each interface adds a chase, a document reconciliation and a risk of working from a stale version. Cutting the number of interfaces cuts total lead time mechanically, whatever the speed of each individual party.

The limit of this model should be stated plainly: reserved acts stay reserved. Incorporation before the notary, legal advice and authenticated deeds are coordinated with our network of partner notaries and lawyers. FSL handles structuring, accounting, filings and reporting, and coordinates the rest.