EU Inc. - One Company for All of Europe. What It Means for Startups and Digital Creators

On March 18, 2026, the European Commission officially tabled the legislative proposal for EU Inc. - a pan-European corporate form also known as the 28th regime. After years of discussion, the Draghi and Letta reports, and sustained lobbying from the startup ecosystem, the concept has moved from idea to law. For European entrepreneurs - including digital creators selling through Stripe - this is potentially the most significant reform since the introduction of the euro.

But as with all EU regulation, the devil is in the details.

What is EU Inc. and what problem does it solve?

EU Inc. is an optional, unified corporate legal form available across all 27 EU member states. It does not replace the UK Ltd, the German GmbH, or the French SAS - it is an additional option, hence the name "28th regime". Today, a startup wanting to operate in 5 EU countries must incorporate separate entities in each one. Separate lawyers, accountants, registration procedures, and costs. According to European Commission data, the cost of such expansion is 50,000 - 150,000 euros in the first year. By comparison, a US startup incorporates in Delaware for 400-900 dollars and immediately operates in all 50 states. The difference is ten- to thirtyfold.

This gap is precisely why 30-40% of European unicorns have relocated their headquarters to the US - primarily to Delaware. Not because Europe lacks talent or ideas, but because running a company across multiple EU countries simultaneously is absurdly expensive and complex. EU Inc. aims to change that.

For anyone watching from the UK, the contrast is especially stark. Post-Brexit, British startups lost EU passporting rights entirely. While a UK Ltd remains one of the fastest and cheapest incorporations in Europe, it no longer grants automatic access to the EU single market. EU Inc. widens this gap further - offering EU-based founders something UK entrepreneurs can no longer access.

What we know for certain

The Commission's proposal (COM(2026) 321) is already public, and the specifics are impressive. Incorporating an EU Inc. will be fully digital - no notary, no office visit, from anywhere in the world, within 48 hours, for a maximum of 100 euros. Minimum share capital is a symbolic 1 euro. For context: registering a GmbH in Germany takes 4-6 weeks and costs 2,000 - 5,000 euros. Even the famously efficient Delaware incorporation takes a few days and several hundred dollars - but EU Inc. matches it on speed while adding cross-border recognition that Delaware cannot offer within Europe.

Instead of registering in each country separately, EU Inc. uses a single EU-level interface connecting national business registers (the BRIS system). You submit your company data once. And it is not just about registration - shareholder meetings, board meetings, share issuances, transfers - everything runs digitally. The regulation explicitly prohibits member states from imposing additional paper-based formalities.

One of the most groundbreaking elements is EU-ESO - a unified employee stock option scheme. Today, ESOPs work drastically differently across EU countries: favorable in France (BSPCE), punitive in Germany and Belgium. EU-ESO establishes that tax is levied only upon share disposal, not at exercise. This eliminates the absurd situation where an employee must pay tax before receiving any income. The proposal also allows flexible share classes - including preferential shares protecting founders from losing control. This mechanism is well-known from Delaware but has been available only fragmentarily in Europe.

Ursula von der Leyen put it this way: "Any entrepreneur will be able to create a company within 48 hours, from anywhere in the European Union." The Commission's target is agreement between Parliament and Council by end of 2026. Notably, English is effectively permitted as a business language for EU Inc. articles of association - a practical nod to global startup culture.

Draghi: Europe has been imposing tariffs on itself

To understand why EU Inc. emerged now, we need to look back to February 2025, when Mario Draghi - former ECB president and former Italian prime minister - published an article in the Financial Times that became a manifesto for change. The title says it all: "Forget the US - Europe has successfully put tariffs on itself".

Draghi argues that the EU's internal barriers are equivalent to tariffs of 45% on manufacturing and 110% on services - these are IMF figures. In his view, these internal barriers are more damaging to growth than any tariffs the US might impose. Trade between EU countries is less than half the level of trade between US states - unthinkable in a supposedly integrated economy. GDPR compliance costs have reduced profits for small tech firms by 12%. And from 2009 to 2024, the US injected five times more fiscal stimulus than the eurozone (14 trillion euros vs 2.5 trillion), translating into a dramatic gap in domestic demand and R&D investment.

Particularly relevant for digital entrepreneurs selling online, Draghi points to a paradox: Europe's trade openness has become its weakness. Trade as a percentage of GDP rose in the eurozone from 31% to 55%, while in the US it went from 23% to just 25%. Europe has been effectively raising regulatory barriers in a sector that accounts for 70% of its GDP.

Draghi concludes with what has become the motto of the entire reform: "Both these shortcomings - supply and demand - are largely of Europe's own making. They are therefore within its power to change."

What we still don't know

The proposal is ambitious, but it leaves significant gaps - and it is precisely in these gaps that the risk lies of EU Inc. sharing the fate of previous harmonization attempts.

The most important unknown is taxation. EU Inc. does not harmonize taxes - every EU country retains full fiscal sovereignty, and an EU Inc. company will be taxed according to the law of its registered seat. The Commission encourages (but does not mandate) member states to treat EU-ESO as capital gains rather than employment income - but this is merely a recommendation. Without BEFIT (Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation), which itself is stuck in negotiations, the EU's tax fragmentation will remain the largest cost of cross-border operations. For entrepreneurs already grappling with the complexity of cross-border tax compliance, this means EU Inc. simplifies the legal form but not the tax.

The second gap is dispute resolution. Delaware has the Court of Chancery - a specialized corporate court with over 200 years of case law. EU Inc. does not provide an equivalent. Member states may (but need not) designate specialized courts, creating the risk of divergent interpretations of the same rules across 27 countries. EU Inc. also explicitly does not harmonize labor law - in Germany, companies with more than 500 employees must still have employee representatives on the supervisory board, while in Estonia no such requirement exists. Trade unions, led by the ETUC, warn against companies registering in countries with the weakest worker protections.

Oliver Roethig of UNI Europa says bluntly: "EU Inc. opens a window for circumventing national regulatory frameworks" - and warns the proposal could undermine the European social model. From the other flank, Julian Teicke of BAD1 criticizes it entirely differently: "This is just slapping a single login screen over 27 fragmented legal systems - we need real, borderless infrastructure."

Will it work this time?

EU Inc. is not the first attempt. The Societas Europaea (SE), adopted in 2001, was supposed to be a pan-European corporate form but was so diluted by compromises that virtually nobody uses it - barely 3,000 registrations, mostly shell companies. The Societas Privata Europaea (SPE), proposed in 2008 specifically for SMEs, was blocked by Germany over codetermination. The Single-Member Company (SUP) from 2014 was withdrawn in 2018 for the same reasons. The Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB), proposed since 2011, was withdrawn in 2023.

The pattern is clear: every unification attempt either fails or gets so watered down it loses its purpose. But this time the context is different. The Draghi report provided unprecedented political legitimacy. Competitive pressure from the US and China is stronger than ever. And for the first time, the proposal deliberately sidesteps the most politically toxic issues (taxation, labor law), focusing exclusively on company law. This may be both its strength and its limitation.

What it means in practice - especially for international teams

For digital creators using Stripe and selling globally, EU Inc. could mean that instead of juggling multiple legal entities across different countries, a single company and a single invoice automation tool suffice. The challenge will remain compliance with local tax systems and regulations like KSeF, because EU Inc. does not unify these. Tools like striptu.com, which already automate Stripe transaction invoicing across various accounting systems (Fakturownia, inFakt, iFirma, wFirma), will be even more essential in an EU Inc. world - because one company operating across many countries also means many tax jurisdictions to manage.

Key numbers

Parameter	Value
EU Inc. registration cost	under 100 euros
Registration time	48 hours
Minimum capital	1 euro
Cost of expanding to 5 EU countries (today)	50,000 - 150,000 euros
Equivalent in the US (10 states)	1,500 - 5,000 dollars
EU internal barriers per IMF	45% (manufacturing), 110% (services)
European unicorns headquartered in the US	30-40%
Annual cross-border compliance cost in the EU	42 billion euros

The ball is now in the court of the European Parliament and the Council. Target: end of 2026. Previous attempts ended in failure or dilution. But as Draghi put it - these barriers are of Europe's own making, and therefore within its power to change.

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Sources: European Commission COM(2026) 321, IP/26/614, Financial Times - Mario Draghi, 14.02.2025, Tech.eu, A&O Shearman, IMF, Dealroom