EU Inc. proposal aims to let founders incorporate across Europe in 48 hours for under €100
What's the deal? The European Commission has proposed EU Inc., a unified corporate framework that would allow entrepreneurs to incorporate a company anywhere in the EU within 48 hours, for less than €100, with no minimum share capital requirement. The proposal forms the cornerstone of the EU's so-called 28th regime — an optional, digital-first set of corporate rules sitting alongside existing national frameworks. The Commission is calling on the European Parliament and Council to reach agreement on the proposal by end of 2026.
The initiative has the backing of over 22,000 founders, investors, and ecosystem participants. Key features include EU-wide employee stock option plans, simplified share transfers without mandatory intermediaries, and streamlined insolvency procedures to help founders wind down and restart faster.
Why now? European startups currently face 27 national legal systems and more than 60 company forms when expanding across borders. The Draghi Report, published in 2024, flagged this fragmentation as a direct drag on EU competitiveness. Recent geopolitical pressures — and the growing gap between European and US tech companies — have added urgency to the reform agenda.
For companies like Pleo, the pan-European fintech, the proposal is long overdue. Its chief executive Jeppe Rindom said expansion today requires different partners, structures, and processes in each market — much of it still analogue — and that EU Inc. could have enabled faster scaling and more direct competition with US rivals.
What could go wrong? Labour unions are already pushing back. Oliver Roethig of UNI Europa, representing seven million service sector workers, warned that allowing companies to choose their country of incorporation could enable them to cherry-pick jurisdictions with lower labour standards, undermining national protections. The Commission says existing social and employment law will continue to apply, but the tension is real and could slow parliamentary progress.
Some in the startup community are also sceptical about the scope. BAD1, a Berlin-based founder initiative, described the proposal as "a single login screen over 27 fragmented legal systems" — useful, but not the structural overhaul the ecosystem was hoping for.
Update — 15 October 2026: That scepticism has sharpened into alarm. EU-INCDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the founder-led initiative behind the push led by investor Andreas KlingerDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → (Prototype Capital), published an open letter to Europe's heads of state and government warning that "the EU Inc that governments themselves had championed no longer exists." A compromise text from the Irish presidency of the Council of the EU has deleted the proposal's central digital registry and capped its EU-wide stock-option framework to companies with fewer than 1,000 employees and less than €450 million in revenue — changes EU-INC says would gut the reform down to little more than fast incorporation, leaving the core problems (no standard jurisdiction, no fix for stock-option taxation) unsolved and Delaware still the better choice for ambitious founders. The letter demands governments restore their negotiating mandate to the Commission's original proposal — free choice of registration, a central digital registry, broad stock-option rights, and no industry restrictions — before a political agreement targeted for the end of 2026. European commissioner Stéphane Séjourné has pushed back on the dilution, saying he "could not imagine" the 28th regime without harmonised stock options; trade unions and notary associations, meanwhile, argue free choice of registration risks enabling jurisdiction-shopping around labour protections.
Update — 22 October 2026: The squeeze has tightened further. A Council note dated 19 October sets out the Irish presidency's near-final compromise, which EU ambassadors (Coreper) are expected to approve on Friday 23 October: the harmonised stock-option tax framework is now limited to companies with up to 750 employees and €150 million in annual turnover — tighter than the 1,000-employee/€450 million cap floated in July that founders had already protested. The text also drops the proposal's non-discrimination provision, protects national anti-abuse, tax-residency and exit-tax rules, and gives member states 21 months to implement it; the EU27 plan to stress that harmonising stock-option tax treatment is "an exceptional case" that sets no precedent for other tax files. Meanwhile, the European Parliament's legal affairs committee has slipped its own vote (planned for 19 October) after rapporteur René Repasi's compromise — extending German-style co-determination (worker board seats once a company passes 500 employees in another member state) to a company's registered office — split MEPs; Renew Europe's Pascal Canfin warns the regime "must not become a Trojan horse" for imposing co-determination EU-wide. With the Council and Parliament no longer moving in step, the end-of-2026 political-agreement target set out in the Commission's roadmap looks harder to hit.
The signal: EU Inc. is the most concrete step the EU has taken in years to reduce the structural disadvantage European startups face at scale. The ability to incorporate once, access the full single market, and offer competitive equity to talent removes three of the most cited friction points for founders choosing between Europe and the US. Whether it achieves its ambition depends heavily on implementation — and on whether member states apply it in spirit as well as letter. If it works, it could meaningfully shift the calculus for founders deciding where to build.
Sources:
TechEU
European Commission
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Agence Europe
The European Post
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