Setting up a legal entity in Europe has never been described as fast. Ask any founder who has navigated notary appointments, minimum capital requirements, and weeks of administrative back-and-forth across different national registries. The paperwork alone can slow a market entry by months.

On 18 March 2026, the European Commission proposed something that would have sounded unrealistic not long ago: a single, fully digital company registration process, valid across all 27 EU member states, to be completed in under 48 hours, for less than €100.No minimum share capital, no intermediaries required, and a single submission through one interface.

The proposal is called EU Inc., also referred to as the “28th regime.” If you are a founder, HR leader, or business decision-maker thinking about European expansion, it is worth understanding what it actually changes, and what it does not.

The registration process is just the beginning.

Why Europe needed this

For too long, expanding a business across EU borders meant confronting 27 separate legal systems and more than 60 national company forms. Each country has its own registration process, its own timeline and cost structure. The result was that founders with European ambitions often looked elsewhere, to Delaware, Singapore, or the UK, simply to avoid the administrative maze at home.

The numbers tell the story. The EU generates more venture capital-backed tech startups than any other region globally, yet as of 2025 it had roughly 331 unicorns compared to nearly 1,963 in the United States. The talent and the ideas exist. The structures to scale them have not kept pace.

The International Monetary Fund has estimated that barriers within the EU single market are equivalent to a 110% tariff on services. That is a competitiveness problem, not just an administrative inconvenience.

EU Inc. is the Commission’s direct response. It sits within a broader agenda, President von der Leyen’s stated goal of “one Europe, one market” by 2028, and follows the Draghi report’s warning that Europe is falling behind in innovation and economic dynamism. This is the structural context behind a €100 registration fee.

What EU Inc. actually proposes

The proposal introduces a new optional EU-wide company form that sits alongside existing national frameworks rather than replacing them. Any founder, anywhere in the EU, can choose to incorporate under EU Inc. rather than through their country’s national process.

• Registration would happen through a single EU central interface, building on the existing Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS). The process is fully digital, with no requirement for in-person formalities, and is designed to complete within 48 hours. There is no minimum share capital requirement.
• Beyond registration, EU Inc. would also remove the mandatory involvement of intermediaries for share transfers, enable fully digital capital and governance procedures, and allow the use of investor-friendly financing instruments, including SAFEs (Simple Agreements for Future Equity), which are standard in venture capital but have been difficult to implement cleanly across many EU jurisdictions.
• For companies looking to attract investment, EU Inc. goes further. Member states would be able to allow EU Inc. companies to list directly on stock exchanges without additional corporate restructuring. Shares without nominal value would be permitted. The corporate architecture would finally match what growth-stage companies and their investors actually need.

What it does not change, and this is the part employers need to read carefully

The 48 hours and the €100 are real. But registering a legal entity and employing people in Europe are two different things, and EU Inc. does not change the second one.

Every EU member state retains full sovereignty over labour law, payroll, social security, notice periods, collective agreements, and works council requirements. A company hiring in the Netherlands answers to Dutch law. The same company hiring in Germany answers to German law. The Commission made this a deliberate choice, as taxation and labour regulation were never on the table for harmonisation.

What this means in practice: the registration burden gets lighter, but the employment compliance work that follows, contracts, payroll, mandatory benefits, working time rules, termination procedures, remains country-specific and legally binding. Fast registration paired with slow employment setup is still slow expansion.

What is the actual timeline?

EU Inc. is not yet law, and it is important to be precise about that.

The Commission chose to present this as a regulation rather than a directive, which is technically significant. Regulations are directly applicable across all member states upon approval, bypassing the usual delays of national transposition.

There is genuine political will behind this. It is still a proposal. If you are planning expansion in the near term, EU Inc. is not yet a tool you can use.

The question worth asking now

If your business is considering entry into one or more European markets, whether through EU Inc. once it is operational or through existing national routes today, the employment setup question matters just as much as the legal entity question.

These are not questions that answer themselves, and getting them wrong early is expensive to unwind.

At theHRchapter, this is exactly the work we do. We support founders and HR leaders planning European market entry, helping them build compliant employment structures, country-specific contracts and payroll, and scalable people operations before the complexity compounds.

If you are watching EU Inc. and already thinking through what comes next, we offer a free 30-minute consultation to talk through your specific situation. No sales pitch, just clarity on what your expansion actually requires and where the real risks sit.

Registering a company in 48 hours is coming. Being ready to hire the right way on day one takes a little longer. Book a free consultation with theHRchapter.