One Company, 27 Countries: The EU's Boldest Attempt to Fix Cross-Border Expansion

What EU Inc actually proposes, why it exists, and what it would mean for anyone operating across European markets

Most of what this newsletter covers is friction: new costs, new compliance requirements, new operational hurdles for selling into Europe. This issue is about the opposite, a serious, well-advanced attempt by the EU to remove one of the oldest and most expensive frictions of all: the fact that "Europe" has never been one market to incorporate in, but 27.

Today, a startup expanding from, say, Sweden to Germany needs a new legal entity, a local notary, and months of paperwork, then repeats that for every additional market. Each country has its own company law, its own registration process, its own minimum capital rules, its own filings. For a business trying to operate across several European markets, that fragmentation is a real and recurring tax on time and money.

The scale of what this costs Europe competitively is part of the motivation. The EU is home to more venture-backed tech startups than any other region, yet as of 2025 it had 331 companies valued over $1 billion, against 1,963 in the United States. The gap has many causes, but the difficulty of scaling across a fragmented single market is consistently cited as one of them. EU Inc is the direct policy response.

EU Inc would be an optional, EU-level company form, created by Regulation, meaning it applies directly and uniformly in all 27 member states without each country having to pass its own version. Crucially, it sits alongside existing national forms (the German GmbH, the Italian SRL, and so on) rather than replacing them. No business is forced to use it.

The core features, as proposed: incorporation within 48 hours for a maximum of €100, entirely online, with no minimum share capital beyond a symbolic €1. A single registration through an EU-level interface, with tax and VAT numbers issued without resubmitting paperwork. Uniform governance rules regardless of where you register. And notably for anyone who has tried to offer equity to a distributed European team, a standardised EU Employee Stock Option Plan (EU-ESOP), with taxation deferred until exit rather than at grant, plus support for VC-friendly instruments like SAFEs and multiple share classes.

One detail particularly relevant to this newsletter's audience: the proposal allows non-EU founders to register an EU Inc, provided they have a recognised digital identity (such as eIDAS) or appoint a representative in the chosen member state. At least one director must be EU-resident, and bearer shares are prohibited as a safeguard against misuse. In principle, that means a US or UK founder could one day establish a single European entity to sell across the bloc, rather than navigating national incorporation country by country. That's a meaningful shift for anyone outside the EU currently weighing how to structure a European presence.

The proposal is moving through the EU's ordinary legislative procedure under qualified majority voting, which means no single member state can veto it. Ireland took over the rotating Council Presidency on 1 July 2026 and will chair negotiations through December. In Parliament, the responsible committee's rapporteur published his draft report in late June, the first text-level rewrite from inside Parliament, and the committee debated it in mid-July, with a committee vote anticipated in September. Notably, that draft report pushes to narrow the proposal, including a possible limit to start-ups rather than all companies and a ban on publicly listing the shares, so the version that emerges from Parliament may look meaningfully different from the Commission's original. The Commission, Parliament and Council all share the stated objective of reaching political agreement by the end of 2026.

If that timeline holds, the first EU Inc companies could technically become possible in 2027, though more cautious estimates place the real-world launch in 2028, to give member states' digital systems time to adapt. Either way, the shape of the final rules is being decided over the coming months, which is exactly why it's worth tracking now rather than when it's finished.

Two things worth keeping in perspective. First, this is a proposal, and it's already changing. The Parliament's draft report is pushing to tighten it, and MEPs are divided over fundamental questions: whether it stays open to all companies or is limited to start-ups, and whether shares can be publicly listed at all. The €100 fee, the scope, and the eligibility rules could all shift before this is settled. Second, even supporters note the projected savings are modest relative to the scale of the ambition: one analysis estimated savings of €328 to €440 million over ten years across an estimated 308,000 companies, real, but not transformative on its own. EU Inc is better understood as one structural piece of a larger competitiveness agenda than as a single silver bullet.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax or business advice. EU Inc is a legislative proposal under active negotiation and is not currently available as a company form. Its terms may change. Consult a qualified legal or tax adviser before making any structuring decisions.

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