Opening Your Business in the EU

One of the easiest ways to get residence permit in the EU is opening an SRO (same as LTD) or becoming a self-employed individual (Živnost’).

No matter what kind of business you launching you have a right to go through a procedure of family reunion, which means that your spouse and children and sometimes parents as well, can get a residence permit in Slovakia.

SRO

Pros:

– Good for small and medium size businesses;

– The amount of owners and CEO’s can be up to 50 and each of them has a right for family reunion, but we will not recommend opening it for more than three people because of the difficulties in communicating with migration police, which may appear later;

– You only pay profits tax (income minus expenses). In 2020, tax laws changed and now if you earn less than 300,000 EUR per year your tax rate will be just 15%;

– For migration services, SRO has a higher status due to bigger cash flows and higher annual tax payments. Later when prolonging your residence permit, most likely you won’t get any troubles and extra interviews with migration officers;

– Dividends are subject to a fixed tax of 7%. After paying the tax, they go to the account of the head of the company and considered a legal income that can be used to confirm the financial solvency for a mortgage or lease;

– SRO owners can apply for a mortgage or lease based not just on the income, but also on annual money flow of the business;

– Limited liability of company owners;

– You do not have to pay social tax of 165 EUR per month for one person.

As an alternative to opening a new SRO you can buy an already operating one but without carrying on business. That may not just make the paperwork process go much faster, but also be helpful with getting a mortgage, lease or loan since banks consider at least two annual reports to approve the issuance of money.

Cons:

– The cost of starting a company is higher;

– When opening a company, you need to put at least 21.5 thousand EUR on the account as a guarantee of the SRO’s solvency if you want to submit documents for a residence permit. Important! This amount is your money and after obtaining a residence permit you can withdraw it from the account!;

– The amount of the annual income tax cannot be less than 3,500 EUR; the profit must be at least 16,500 EUR before tax;

– Before you obtain your permanent residence, there is no access to the state health insurance, while it is obligative to have one, and commercial insurance that similar to the state one costs 700 euros per year.

Živnost’:

Pros:

–              It costs less to become self-employed and you only need to put 5000 EUR into your company’s account;

–              Self-employed individuals can apply for state medical insurance (but members of their family would need to make a commercial one);

–              Annual tax for prolonging your residence permit starts at 500 EUR per year;

Cons:

– Impossible to open business with partners and split the opening and operational activity expenses;

– Social tax of at least 165 EUR per month after one year of work. The sum of tax depends on money flow and it is high can be quite high;

– If you earn not much or the money flow in the company isn’t big, it may be hard to get approved for mortgage or lease;

– Raises more attention from immigration services

– Higher responsibility

For your convenience, we made a table of comparison of SRO и živnosť: