Just to make it clearer for other readers: The difference between setting up a limited liability company (GmbH), which is mentioned in the article, and a simple

Just to make it clearer for other readers: The difference between setting up a limited liability company (GmbH), which is mentioned in the article, and a simple company, as you describe it, is crucial here. It is indeed very easy to start such a business in Germany. A simple registration is typically (there are exceptions) all one has to do to start one. If one works as a real freelancer, ie. if the work is primarily a personal service of oneself (in contrast to delegating the work to an employee) or if the "business" is only occasionally or non-substantial, one does not even need to register. But in all this cases there is no split between business and private assets. In other words: One is liable for the business also with all private assets and even all future personal earnings (one may file personal bankruptcy, though and get rid of all liabilities after three years). The idea behind the effort regarding the registration of a GmbH (needing a police clearance certificate, a minimum of capital, a notary to confirm the correctness of everything, etc.) and its disclosure and documentation obligations is to allow for a certain level of supervision in exchange for limited liability. A GmbH has also a fuctional separation between the owners of the GmbH and the CEO. In the special case of a one-person GmbH these are in the sense of a personal union identical. But since this is not necessarily the case, it is quite easy to change it when the company grows or the owner wants to retire as the CEO. Typically even a one-person GmbH is established with a certain number of "shares". So if you want to sell a part of your GmbH, you can just sell a certain number of this shares (you need to notify the registration authorities via a notary about it, though). This is why even a one-person GmbH needs a charter (and one important job of the notary is to make sure that the charter conforms to the law). My main complaint is that some of the procedures are still very redundant because the digital exchange of data between the various authorities involved is still in its infancy and in many cases does not even exist. For example, when I changed the location of my one-person GmbH in 2019, I had, after some paperwork with the notary via (snail) mail, to go in person to the town hall of the old location to deregister with a paper form and then go in person to the town hall of the new location within two weeks to re-register with the new location.