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These are the questions we are actually asked before a purchase. Where a question has a page of its own the answer links to it, and the jurisdictions index shows which countries we work in.
A shelf company, also called a ready made company, is a business entity that is already formed and registered with the appropriate authorities and then held ready for sale. It has never traded. When you buy one you take over the shares of a company that already exists instead of waiting for a new registration to clear the register. The longer explanation is on what is a shelf company.
A shelf company is ready to operate on the day you take it over, while a new registration still has to pass through the register, which takes days in the fastest countries and weeks in the notarial ones. What you are buying is the time. The trade off is that you take the company as it stands, with its existing name, address and share capital, all of which can be changed afterwards. The two routes are compared on shelf company versus new company formation.
The companies we offer are fully customizable, which means that after the purchase you may change their names, addresses, shareholders, share capital amount, etc. We will help you provide the amendments to relevant Registers of Entrepreneurs and other authorities.
A ready-made company is a perfect solution if you want to enter the market fast and start trading as soon as possible. You can also use your company to acquire real estate, carry out mergers and acquisitions, submit tenders, offshore, and more.
No, our shelf companies have no history of operations. We only offer companies that we can guarantee have no debts or previous activity whatsoever. This way when you start your business you do not need to worry about what previous owner might have done before with the company.
We stay with the company. After the sale we deal with the filings that follow a change of ownership, and we can carry on with accounting and bookkeeping, the registered office, corporate secretarial work, tax registration and representation in front of the local authorities. What is available in each country is set out on our services.
A few hours if you travel to the country where the company is registered and sign in person. Remotely, the transfer is filed within 48 hours of us receiving your signed documents, and the register amendment itself completes in 3 to 7 working days depending on the country. The steps and the documents are set out on how to buy a shelf company.
You will only need your passport. We also need information on your shareholders and company director.
Most of our EU shelf companies come with a VAT number already in place, and we confirm the VAT status of the individual company before you commit to it. Each company carries the certificates and registration documents its own jurisdiction requires, so it can start trading straight away. If your activity is VAT exempt we can supply a company without a VAT registration instead.
No EU member state restricts foreign shareholders in a private limited company, and in most of them the directors can be non resident as well. Ireland is the common exception: it wants one director resident in the EEA, or a Section 137 bond in place of one. Regulated activities such as payments, insurance and gaming carry their own licensing conditions wherever the company sits. Ask us about the jurisdiction you have in mind.
No. The whole acquisition can be done remotely, with your identity documents certified where you live and a power of attorney for the local signing. It takes longer than signing in person. In the notarial jurisdictions, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg among them, a notarial deed is still required, and we arrange that under the power of attorney rather than asking you to fly.
We register new companies as well. If nothing on the shelf fits, we build the entity with you from scratch, settling the legal form, the share capital and the objects before anything is filed. For Europe the whole process is set out on European company formation, and every country we cover is listed on the jurisdictions page.
We hold ready made companies across Europe and the list changes as they are sold, so ask us what is on the shelf today rather than assuming. Each country page says what is available there, for example Slovenia, Croatia, Latvia, Belgium and Liechtenstein. The full index sits on the jurisdictions page.
Email info@shelfcompanies24.com, call +48 2222 5 2222, or use the form on our contact page. Tell us the country you have in mind and what the company will be doing, and we will come back to you with what is available and what the next step is.