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I am italian and I opened a UK Ltd to go around these problems in Italy. But it has been a pain nonetheless. Opening an Ltd in the UK is cheap as long as you h

I am italian and I opened a UK Ltd to go around these problems in Italy. But it has been a pain nonetheless. Opening an Ltd in the UK is cheap as long as you have a location there and you can do it all by yourself. This was not my case. If you have to rely on another company, like me, costs grow a lot. You have to pay people to do these things, to advise you and to give you a legal location for your company. This cost me a lot to setup and is always a pain to communicate. So the problem persists, if you are not able of making money to cover your expenses. Now I have relocated to the Netherlands. I don't know what the situation is here, but I know that my Ltd is costing me too much to mantain (paying people that opened my Ltd and then did almost nothing more), so I'm closing it and I will try to convert it in something cheaper here. I did never seek investments, so I'm not able to relate on that part.

pmjordan 17y ago
Interesting, thank you. Is the presence you need to maintain in the UK essentially a glorified P.O. box, or is there more? What order of magnitude in fees are we talking about (if you don't mind)?
- DeusExMachina 17y ago
  I think you need a real location, but I'm not really sure. That is what they are providing to me. You also need two distinct people, one director and one secretary. They are providing me the secretary. The rates were: 4000 euros for the setup (one year ago), including the place, the secretary and accounting for one year. They took me an appointment with a bank to open a bank account, but I was the one who opened it. For subsequent years they told me it would be around 800 pounds, but now the bill is 3300 pounds (that is nearly the same price I paid the first year). That's why I decided to close it. Their service really sucks. But if you look on the internet prices really vary and you can find cheaper ones. They try to scare you telling you that if you don't do everything right there might be consequences. In my opinion the best solution is to go there for some time and do some researches in the city, or at least have someone there. Because if you don't need all these "services" it really a lot cheaper, in the range of the 300-400 euros. Also, we are speaking about London, not the entire UK. London has special laws regarding this and it's much easier than in the rest of the country.
  - djhomeless 17y ago
    You don't need a real location. There are tons of services on the web where you can use a "virtual" location or the address of the service with the Companies House. I think lost in all this is regardless how easy it is to create a company in the UK, you still have to deal with European taxes and completely moronic banks.
  - asb 17y ago
    You no longer need a secretary for a private company: http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/companiesAct/implementations/apr2008.shtml http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/companiesAct/implementation...

pmjordan 17y ago

Interesting, thank you. Is the presence you need to maintain in the UK essentially a glorified P.O. box, or is there more? What order of magnitude in fees are we talking about (if you don't mind)?

DeusExMachina 17y ago
I think you need a real location, but I'm not really sure. That is what they are providing to me. You also need two distinct people, one director and one secretary. They are providing me the secretary. The rates were: 4000 euros for the setup (one year ago), including the place, the secretary and accounting for one year. They took me an appointment with a bank to open a bank account, but I was the one who opened it. For subsequent years they told me it would be around 800 pounds, but now the bill is 3300 pounds (that is nearly the same price I paid the first year). That's why I decided to close it. Their service really sucks. But if you look on the internet prices really vary and you can find cheaper ones. They try to scare you telling you that if you don't do everything right there might be consequences. In my opinion the best solution is to go there for some time and do some researches in the city, or at least have someone there. Because if you don't need all these "services" it really a lot cheaper, in the range of the 300-400 euros. Also, we are speaking about London, not the entire UK. London has special laws regarding this and it's much easier than in the rest of the country.
- djhomeless 17y ago
  You don't need a real location. There are tons of services on the web where you can use a "virtual" location or the address of the service with the Companies House. I think lost in all this is regardless how easy it is to create a company in the UK, you still have to deal with European taxes and completely moronic banks.
- asb 17y ago
  You no longer need a secretary for a private company: http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/companiesAct/implementations/apr2008.shtml http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/companiesAct/implementation...