Paying up SARL share capital in Luxembourg: 100%
Paying up SARL share capital in Luxembourg allows no instalments: the whole subscribed amount is in place before the deed is signed, never after it.
How does paying up SARL share capital in Luxembourg work?
Paying up SARL share capital in Luxembourg cannot be staged: the EUR 12,000 minimum must be fully subscribed and fully paid up at the time of incorporation, deposited in a blocked bank account before the notarial deed is signed, rather than called in instalments over the first financial years.
Two verbs must be kept apart, and confusing them costs weeks. To subscribe is to undertake to contribute a sum and to receive shares in return. To pay up is actually to transfer that sum to the company. A Luxembourg SARL leaves no gap between the two: subscription and payment happen on the same day, the day of the deed.
The EUR 12,000 is a floor, not a prescribed amount. Nothing prevents incorporating a SARL with EUR 25,000 or EUR 100,000 of capital, but the completeness rule then applies to the whole subscribed amount: share capital stated at EUR 50,000 is share capital to be transferred at EUR 50,000. The figure written into the articles therefore commits the opening cash position to the cent.
The contribution may be in cash or in kind. Cash goes through the blocked account; a contribution in kind is valued in the articles of association and passes through no bank account at all. Both routes validly pay up the capital, but they follow neither the same circuit nor the same timetable.
| Form | Minimum capital | Fraction paid up at incorporation |
|---|---|---|
| SARL | EUR 12,000 | The whole of the subscribed capital |
| SARL-S | Between EUR 1 and EUR 12,000 | The whole of the subscribed capital |
| SA | EUR 30,000 | At least one quarter of the subscribed capital |
| SAS | EUR 30,000 | At least one quarter of the subscribed capital |
| SCA | EUR 30,000 | At least one quarter of the subscribed capital |
How does this differ from an SA, an SAS or an SCA?
The difference lies in the fraction required on the day of the deed: in Luxembourg a SARL pays up the whole of its capital, whereas an SA, an SAS and an SCA are incorporated with EUR 30,000 subscribed but at least one quarter paid up.
Subscribing is not paying, and that is precisely what a company limited by shares allows you to separate. The quarter paid up puts EUR 7,500 at the disposal of a public limited company whose share capital is set at EUR 30,000; the balance remains owed by the shareholders and will be called later. The SARL leaves no room for that gap.
This is the point that founders used to staged payment in their home jurisdiction discover late. We regularly see first-year cash plans built on a partial payment that no Luxembourg SARL can practise: the opening funding need is then understated by several thousand euros, not in spending but in money that has to be there on day one.
Contributions in kind are also treated differently depending on the form. In an SA, an SAS or an SCA they are the subject of a valuation report drawn up by a réviseur d'entreprises, and shares issued in consideration of contributions other than cash must be paid up within five years. The official SARL page imposes neither of those two requirements.
What is the blocked account for, and who issues the certificate?
The blocked account proves to the notary that the capital of a Luxembourg company exists before the deed is drawn up: the bank opens the account on the basis of draft articles, receives the funds there and issues a blocking certificate.
The mechanism is simple in principle. Before the constitutive deed is signed, the entrepreneur deposits the required minimum capital in a bank account, where the sum is blocked until the company is formed. An account opened on the basis of draft articles stays blocked for every transaction until the company exists: it is not yet an operating account.
The blocking certificate is the instrument by which the bank undertakes to block the funds until the company is definitively formed. That is the document the entrepreneur hands to the notary, and it is what the notary relies on to record that the capital is genuinely at the disposal of the company being formed.
Opening that account is no counter formality. It is subject to know-your-customer procedures: beyond identity documents, the banker must verify the motivation for the business relationship sought and the authority of the person claiming to act in the name of the legal person. An incomplete file therefore does not delay the banking step alone, it shifts the whole incorporation.
| Stage | Who acts | What is produced |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Draft articles | Founders and their adviser | Draft sent to the bank |
| 2. Account opening | Bank | Account blocked for every transaction |
| 3. Deposit of funds | Founders | Transfer of the whole subscribed capital |
| 4. Blocking | Bank | Blocking certificate handed to the notary |
| 5. Constitutive deed | Notary | Incorporation of the company recorded |
| 6. Release | Notary, then bank | Release certificate, funds available |
Does the capital stay blocked after incorporation?
No: once the Luxembourg company is formed, the notary issues a release certificate that the entrepreneur presents to the bank, which then unblocks the capital, from that point at the company's disposal.
The confusion is common and carries a real opportunity cost. Many founders reason as though share capital were a deposit frozen for life, and size their contribution as tightly as possible so as not to lock cash away. Capital that has been paid up is in fact ordinary working cash, which funds the first rent, the first payroll run and the first stock purchase.
What the capital does not become again, on the other hand, is personal wealth. The funds belong to the company, not to the members; taking them out follows the rules on distributions or on capital reductions, not a transfer of convenience. Mixing the company account with the manager's private account is among the anomalies we most regularly find when a file reaches us from a previous provider.
On the balance sheet the mechanics read at a glance. The Luxembourg balance sheet layout includes an item called subscribed capital not paid, split between subscribed capital not called and subscribed capital called but not paid. For a properly incorporated SARL both lines are necessarily nil: an amount sitting there would signal either a posting error or an irregular incorporation.
How is a contribution in kind paid up?
A contribution in kind pays up the capital of a Luxembourg SARL without passing through the blocked account: the asset contributed is valued in the articles of association, and its transfer to the company may attract registration duties.
Valuation is therefore a matter for the members and their adviser. The official SARL page provides that contributions in kind are valued in the articles, without requiring the valuation report it imposes for the SA, the SAS and the SCA. That freedom is a responsibility: a value set lightly stays on the balance sheet and is later reopened with third parties, with the tax authorities and, where relevant, with a buyer.
Contributions of work stand apart. They do not contribute to the formation of the capital and call for no independent valuation. In other words, time, know-how or a contact book pay up no euro of share capital, whatever their economic value to the project.
The duty on the deed follows the nature of the contribution. Incorporating a civil or commercial company with its registered office or central administration in Luxembourg gives rise to a fixed registration duty of EUR 75 payable to the Registration Duties, Estates and VAT Authority. Where the contribution bears on real property or on movable assets that change hands, the receiving company owes proportional registration and transcription duties according to the nature of the asset; if the proportional duty exceeds EUR 75, it pays that duty alone and not the fixed one.
What about a SARL-S?
The Luxembourg SARL-S follows the same completeness rule on a lower base: its share capital, between EUR 1 and EUR 12,000, is paid up in full at incorporation, through a contribution in cash or in kind.
The rest of the regime differs markedly. The SARL-S is reserved for natural persons, and it may be incorporated by private deed: a notary is not required, whereas one is for an ordinary SARL, whose articles are signed before a notary.
The upper limit is not decorative. The company must change its legal form if its share capital exceeds EUR 12,000. Moving to an ordinary SARL is therefore not a comfort option but a mechanical consequence of a capital increase, and it then calls for a notarial deed.
Private deeds follow their own publicity timetable. Those who sign them must, within the month following signature, file them for registration and publication. Filing with the Trade and Companies Register and then publication in the Electronic Compendium of Companies and Associations condition the company's enforceability against third parties: until publication has taken place, its existence cannot be relied on against them.
Which mistakes delay paying up the capital?
The most common mistake in Luxembourg is not legal but chronological: settling a signing date with the notary before the blocked account has been obtained, when opening that account is the slowest step of the incorporation.
We regularly see the same sequence on engagements. The articles are settled, a signing date is agreed with the members, and the request to open a bank account goes out last. Checks on identity, on the beneficial owner and on the motivation for the relationship then take precedence over the announced timetable, and the signing date slips accordingly. Anticipating this step saves more time than all the others combined, particularly where the members are not resident in the Grand Duchy.
Three further points deserve a check before the deed. The capital stated in the articles must match the sum deposited exactly, with no rounding for convenience. A contribution in kind must be described and valued in the articles themselves, not in an informal annex. And the blocking certificate must physically be in the notary's hands, not merely promised by the bank for the day of signature.
The timetable does not stop at signature. Constitutive deeds signed before a notary are registered by that notary with the Registration Duties, Estates and VAT Authority within fifteen days of signature, then filed electronically within the month following signature with the Trade and Companies Register for publication. Publication in the Electronic Compendium of Companies and Associations takes place on the day of filing or on a chosen date, within fifteen days of the filing, and it is from that publication that enforceability against third parties runs.
Sources and verification
Written for Financial Services Luxembourg and reviewed before publication by Mickaël LOC, licensed accountant (authorisation 10077274). The capital amounts, the fractions to be paid up, the documents, the duties and the deadlines cited here were verified on 19 September 2026 against the official sources listed below.
On guichet.public.lu: the page on the société à responsabilité limitée, for the minimum capital of EUR 12,000 fully subscribed and fully paid up at incorporation, for contributions in kind being valued in the articles, for contributions of work not forming part of the capital, and for the notarial deed; the page on the société à responsabilité limitée simplifiée, for capital between EUR 1 and EUR 12,000, full payment in cash or in kind, the form being reserved to natural persons, incorporation by private deed and the change of legal form beyond EUR 12,000; the page on the société anonyme, for the capital of EUR 30,000, payment of at least one quarter, payment within five years of shares issued in consideration of contributions other than cash, and the valuation report drawn up by a réviseur d'entreprises; the pages on the société par actions simplifiée and the société en commandite par actions, for the identity of those rules; the comparison of capital companies; the page on blocking the share capital, for the deposit preceding signature, the account opened on the basis of draft articles and blocked for every transaction, the blocking certificate, the release certificate issued by the notary, the funds becoming available and the know-your-customer checks required of the bank; the pages on the constitutive deed and on filing the articles with the Trade and Companies Register, for registration within fifteen days, electronic filing within the month and the filing of private deeds; the page on publication and publicity of filings, for the Electronic Compendium of Companies and Associations and enforceability against third parties; the pages on registration duties and on equity financing, for the fixed duty of EUR 75, the proportional registration and transcription duties, and the absorption of the fixed duty. On legilux.public.lu: the amended law of 10 August 1915 on commercial companies, the amended law of 19 December 2002 and the Grand Ducal Regulation of 18 December 2015 setting the balance sheet layouts. On cnc.lu: Q&A CNC 16/010, for the subscribed capital not paid item and its two subdivisions.
Five points could not be verified and are worth flagging. The pages of guichet.public.lu, legilux.public.lu and cnc.lu are unreachable from our drafting environment: they were consulted through indexed extracts, so no article numbering of the law of 10 August 1915 is cited here. Where exactly the subscribed capital not paid item sits in the balance sheet layout, on the asset side or within equity, could not be confirmed against the text of the Grand Ducal Regulation. The absence of any valuation report requirement for a contribution in kind to a SARL is inferred from the silence of the official page and from the contrast with the SA, SAS and SCA pages, not from a primary text read at source. Whether the blocked account must be held with an institution established in Luxembourg is stated by no source consulted. Lastly, no official source puts a figure on how long a bank account takes to open: what is said here about that duration is a practice observation, not a rule. Readers can confirm these points on guichet.public.lu, with their notary and with their bank.
This article states the law as it stands at the date of publication. Capital thresholds, payment rules and publicity formalities change, and any decision binding your structure must be checked on the date you rely on it. Report an error to contact@financialservices.lu: the correction is dated in the article.
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