Summary
Setting up a UG (haftungsbeschränkt) typically costs between €540 and €1,200. The main factors influencing the total are the formation type (standard vs. custom articles), your chosen share capital, and the number of founders and managing directors. Small adjustments can quickly increase your bill, so it’s smart to plan a buffer for unexpected fees. Most of these formation expenses are tax-deductible, reducing your overall financial burden later.
Contents
How formation costs are calculated
Before estimating how much it costs to form a UG (haftungsbeschränkt), it helps to understand where these fees come from. In Germany, notary and registration costs are based on the business value 💬Geschäftswert of your company—a number that reflects the company’s share capital 💬Stammkapital and complexity. Learn more about the UG.
Did you know?
Notary fees in Germany are calculated using a mix of flat rates and multipliers. For example, if a UG is founded by a team instead of a single person, the multiplier for notarising the standard articles doubles—and so do the fees!
The UG is a smaller version of the GmbH, which is why the notary uses the minimum business value of a GmbH (€30,000) for certain calculations. This means that even if your UG starts with €1, some fee components are still calculated as if your company were a regular GmbH.
Factors affecting the cost
The exact formation costs can vary because several factors influence the final notary and registration fees:
- Formation type: using standard articles 💬Musterprotokoll is cheaper than custom articles 💬Satzung. Read our guide here.
- Share capital: Below €7,000, notary fees remain stable. Once the capital increases, fees go up gradually.
- Number of managing directors: Each additional MD 💬Geschäftsführer changes the fee multiplicators.
- Number of documents to certify: More pages, copies, and signatures mean higher per-page-fees.
Estimate costs with care
You can’t calculate formation fees down to the last euro and cent. Small changes from the standard process will immediately affect the fee structure. Notaries may also charge for extras such as postage, document handling, or digital copies.
📌 Always ask your notary for a fee estimate and plan a small budget buffer to avoid surprises.
Breakdown: Cost setting up a UG
The following calculation represents the average costs of setting up a UG and may vary in your individual case. This example assumes that the company has only one managing director and share capital below €7,000.
📌 A higher share capital increases the notary fees by around €60 (net).
📌 Additional managing directors or a higher business value affect the multipliers as well as flat rates used to calculate notary and other registration fees.
Formation with custom articles
Formation with standard articles
| Single shareholder | Founder team | |
|---|---|---|
| Share capital | up to approx. €7,000 | up to approx. €7,000 |
| Formation costs | ||
| Notarisation of the articles of association | €60.00 | €120.00 |
| Commercial register application | ||
| Draft application to the commercial register | €30.00 | €30.00 |
| Support activities | €15.00 | €15.00 |
| Creation of XML structure files | €15.00 | €15.00 |
| Ancillary costs | ||
| Postal & telecommunications flat-rate fee¹ | €23.00 | €27.00 |
| Documentation flat-rate fee¹ (photocopies, printouts, scans, files) |
€5.00 | €5.00 |
| Notary fees (net) | €148.00 | €212.00 |
| Notary fees (incl. 19% VAT) | €176.12 | €252.28 |
| Official registration costs | ||
| Commercial register entry | €300.00 | €300.00 |
| Trade registration² | €35.00 | €35.00 |
| Transparency register³ | €19.80 | €19.80 |
| Formation costs (incl. 19 % VAT) | €530.92 | €617.08 |
Sources: Berlin Chamber of Industry and Commerce; official fee catalogue under the German Court and Notary Fees Act; internal statistics based on notary invoices from across Germany (as of 2025)
¹ Average sum of postal, telecommunications, and document fees, as well as typical per-page charges
² Average value; each municipality sets its own fee for trade registrations.
³ Annual fee
How to save on formation costs
There is little room to negotiate notary or other registration fees in Germany because they are set by law. But a little preparation goes a long way toward keeping your formation costs under control.
⚖️ Use standard articles if —and only if— your setup is simple and you’ve weighed up the pros and cons carefully. Custom statutes increase the notary fees significantly.
📋 Prepare the shareholder list and bring it to the appointment in the correct format. This one only applies to custom articles. Creating your own list saves you time and small admin charges.
🖨️ If you need extra paperwork for the certification, make the copies yourself and bring them with you, as notaries often charge per page.
⏰ Come prepared and be punctual! Cancelling appointments, or making last-minute changes will result in additional fees.
We answered the most common FAQ about notary appointments for you.
Samar Fathulla | founder consultant
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Offsetting formation costs
Many of the expenses you incur while getting your new UG started can be deducted as pre-startup business expenses 💬vorweggenommene Betriebsausgaben. This reduces your taxable profit later.
📌You have up to three years to deduct these costs.
Deductible costs
- Notary and legal fees
- Registration fees (Trade office, trademarks, transparency register)
- Consulting, e.g., tax advice or business coaching
- Translations
- Accounting
- Software licenses
- Appraisals, trade licenses or permits
- …
Limits & special rules
If you use standard articles, there’s a cap: the UG can only assume up to €300 (or, if less, the share capital) of those formation costs. Anything above must be borne by the shareholders personally.
With custom statutes, there is no fixed cap. However, your articles should define a limit on how much the company may cover (e.g., ’up to €1,000’ or ‘up to 10% of share capital’) to avoid issues with the tax office later on.
3 golden rules
- Pay all formation costs from the company bank account, if possible.
- Don’t exceed the cap defined in your articles—anything beyond that will be considered a hidden profit distribution by the tax office.
- Keep invoices and collect documentation in one place so you can proof each item’s purpose and relation to starting the business.
Conclusion
If you understand how the UG formation costs are calculated, you can budget confidently and avoid surprises. Prepare documents in advance, and keep tidy records so you can offset eligible expenses later. With a bit of planning and the right structure, setting up a UG in Germany is straightforward.
