How to set up a company in Luxembourg: 8 steps and costs

How do you set up a company in Luxembourg in 2026?

Setting up a company in Luxembourg takes eight steps: choose the legal form (SARL, SARL-S or SA), check the name with the Luxembourg Business Registers, pay the capital into a blocked account, sign the articles (a notarial deed, except for the SARL-S), register the company with the Trade and Companies Register, declare the beneficial owners to the RBE within one month, obtain the business permit if the activity requires one, then register for VAT and, with employees, with the CCSS.

Allow five business days for a SARL-S once the business permit is granted, and four to eight weeks for a SARL or an SA from a complete file. The critical path is almost never the register: it is the opening of the capital account (the bank's know-your-customer checks) and the notary's appointment.

This guide follows the real order of operations, as Financial Services Luxembourg, a licensed accounting firm (permit 10077274), runs them for its clients. Each step links to the page that details it; the company formation page describes the service and the fee schedule publishes its price.

Which legal form: SARL, SARL-S, SA or SOPARFI?

The SARL is the standard form: share capital of EUR 12,000 fully paid up, 1 to 100 shareholders, notarial deed. The SARL-S is reserved for natural persons, for an activity subject to a business permit, with share capital between EUR 1 and EUR 12,000 and a private deed. The SA suits fundraising and board governance: share capital of EUR 30,000, at least one quarter paid up at incorporation.

The SOPARFI is not a legal form but a regime: a SARL or an SA whose object is the holding of participations, benefiting from the parent-subsidiary regime. A holding project is therefore incorporated as a SARL or an SA, with a corporate object drafted for the participation exemption; the SOPARFI page sets out the conditions.

Three questions settle the choice in practice. Is a shareholder a legal entity? The SARL-S is excluded. Is the available capital below EUR 12,000? The SARL-S is the only route, provided the activity falls under the business permit. Will outside investors join within two years? The SA, whose shares transfer freely, avoids a later conversion.

How much does it cost to set up a company in Luxembourg?

The budget has three blocks that must not be confused: the share capital, which is blocked and then released to the company, so it is not an expense; third-party costs, notary, Luxembourg Business Registers and chancery; and the fees of the firm running the file, published in our schedule: EUR 2,000 excl. VAT for a turnkey SARL-S (articles, permit, VAT), EUR 3,000 excl. VAT for the Turnkey package with the bank and the RBE, and from EUR 1,500 excl. VAT for a SARL, notary fees not included.

Third-party costs are checked at the source. The chancery duties for issuing a business permit amount to 24 euros (guichet.public.lu, business permit application page). The deed of incorporation of a SARL or an SA bears the fixed registration duty of 75 euros, plus filing and publication fees under the LBR scale. The notary's fees are quoted by the notary: they depend on the capital and the complexity of the articles. Our article on paying up SARL share capital details the blocked-account circuit and these duties.

The item most often forgotten is the bank account. The firm does not charge for its opening, but it drives the whole timetable: a Luxembourg bank processes a know-your-customer file in one to four weeks, longer for a non-resident founder. The page on opening a bank account explains what banks ask for.

How long does it take to set up a company in Luxembourg?

A SARL-S is registered in about five business days after the business permit is granted: with no notary, the private deed is signed as soon as the founders have approved the articles. A SARL or an SA takes four to eight weeks from a complete file, because two third parties set the pace: the bank that blocks the capital and the notary who receives the deed.

The business permit runs in parallel. The Directorate General for SMEs has three months to decide, extendable by one month in some cases, and its silence counts as tacit approval (guichet.public.lu). For a SARL-S, the permit precedes registration; for a SARL or an SA, the final grant requires the articles to be registered with the Trade and Companies Register, so the file is lodged as soon as the draft articles are settled. The business permit page lists the documents and conditions.

After registration, two deadlines start at once: one month to register the beneficial owners with the RBE (law of 13 January 2019), and fifteen days from the start of activity for the initial VAT return with the Registration Duties, Estates and VAT Authority. The VAT registration page describes the procedure and the small-business exemption.

Can you set up a company in Luxembourg without living there?

Yes. The shareholders of a SARL or an SA may be natural or legal persons, resident or not; no nationality or residence condition applies to holding the capital. The SARL-S is the one exception: its shareholders must be natural persons.

The constraint moves to three requirements. The business permit requires a manager who personally and regularly runs the effective day-to-day management of the business, with a fixed place of business in Luxembourg and appropriate physical facilities (guichet.public.lu). The registered office must be real: a domiciliation address is obtained from an authorised professional, for the firm through its partner Cerno Law Firm, avocat à la Cour. Finally, banks apply enhanced source-of-funds checks to non-resident founders, which lengthens the opening of the capital account.

Founders who are nationals of a country outside the European Union and wish to settle in Luxembourg also go through an immigration procedure with the competent ministry; the investor immigration page describes the routes. The firm coordinates these steps with its authorised partners and itself runs the incorporation, the accounting and the filings.

Which mistakes delay an incorporation?

The first is signing a lease or committing expenses before checking that the activity requires a business permit and that the manager meets the qualification condition: an unrecognised diploma or undocumented experience blocks the file at the Directorate General for SMEs, not at the register.

The second is a capital account opened too late. The notary only executes the deed with the blocking certificate in hand; a bank that asks for additional documents pushes the appointment back by several weeks. The bank file is prepared alongside the articles, not after them.

The third is a corporate object drafted too narrowly, or too broadly. Too narrow, it forces a notarial amendment at the first ancillary activity; too broad, it triggers a business permit for activities that will never be carried on. The fourth is forgetting the filings that follow registration, RBE within the month and VAT within fifteen days: the fines provided for the RBE range from 1,250 to 1,250,000 euros.

What happens after registration?

The company enters its cycle of obligations from the first month. VAT returns follow the frequency set by the AED according to turnover; payslips and CCSS filings start with the first employee or the assimilated manager; quarterly tax advances are set by the direct tax administration after the first return. First-year investments qualify, under conditions, for the investment tax credit, to be anticipated from the financing plan.

Annual accounts are approved within six months of year end and filed with the Trade and Companies Register within the following month, i.e. no later than seven months after the closing date (article 75 of the amended law of 19 December 2002), after validation of the financial data on the eCDF platform. The annual accounts page describes the package and the calendar.

This is the cycle the firm takes over after incorporation, from EUR 250 excl. VAT per month for a company, under the schedule published on the fees page. The founder thus has a single point of contact from the drafting of the articles to the first filed balance sheet.

Sources and verification

Written for Financial Services Luxembourg and reviewed before publication by Mickaël LOC, licensed accountant (permit 10077274). The observed lead times (bank account, notary, registration) are those of the files run by the firm in 2026; the legal deadlines, capital amounts and duties quoted were cross-checked on 9 October 2026 against the official sources below.

From guichet.public.lu: the page on the initial application for or amendment of a business permit, for the conditions of professional integrity, qualification, fixed place of business and effective management, the three-month decision period extendable by one month and tacit approval, the chancery duties of 24 euros and the final grant subject to registration of the articles with the RCS; the page on declaring beneficial owners to the register of beneficial owners, for the one-month deadline, online filing with the LBR and the fines;

the page on the private limited liability company (SARL), for the minimum capital of EUR 12,000 fully subscribed and paid up, the notarial deed, notary and publication costs and the fixed registration duty; the page on VAT registration, for the initial return filed with the AED.

From legilux.public.lu: the amended law of 10 August 1915 on commercial companies, the law of 2 September 2011 regulating access to the professions of craftsman, trader, manufacturer and certain liberal professions, the law of 13 January 2019 establishing a Register of Beneficial Owners and article 75 of the amended law of 19 December 2002.

Fee amounts are read from the firm's published schedule when the page is built; they are exclusive of VAT and of third-party costs. This article sets out the state of the law at the date of publication and does not constitute personalised legal or tax advice: the choice of form, the corporate object and the capital structure depend on the project, the shareholders and the intended tax position. Report an error to contact@financialservices.lu: the correction is dated in the article.