The filing fee, the capital you must lock up, and the real first-year total produce three different rankings. Sort the table by each and watch the winner change.
The United Kingdom is still among the cheapest credible incorporations, but at £100, not the £12 everyone quotes.
Wyoming, Estonia and Singapore follow on filing fee. Germany and the UAE sit at the far end, for opposite reasons: locked-up capital versus bundled licence costs.
Fifty state regimes, not one. Wyoming is the cheapest serious option at $100 filing plus a $60 annual report. Delaware runs $110 to form and adds $300 franchise tax. New Mexico offers anonymous LLCs from $50. California and Massachusetts reach $500 plus franchise taxes.
Read the full USA guide →Companies House charges £100 for standard online registration of a private limited company, and the entity is live within 24 hours. No notary, no minimum capital, no bank deposit. The fee rose from £12 to £50 on 1 May 2024 and to £100 on 1 February 2026, most guides still quote an old number.
Read the full UK guide →Estonia abolished the €2,500 minimum share capital for the OÜ in 2023, leaving the €265 state fee and optional notary costs, avoidable entirely with e-Residency. Combined with 0% tax on retained profits, it is the strongest total-cost story for founders who reinvest rather than distribute.
Read the full Estonia guide →Government and notarial fees run roughly $350 to 500. The minimum capital rose to ₺50,000 on 1 January 2024, five times the ₺10,000 still quoted in most comparisons, though for a limited şirket it may be paid within twenty-four months rather than up front. Ongoing costs stay far below Western European peers.
Read the full Turkey guide →ACRA's BizFile+ charges S$315 for name reservation plus incorporation. The real cost is the mandatory resident director: relocate on an Employment Pass, appoint a Singaporean, or pay a nominee service at S$1,500 to 3,000 a year. Counted honestly, Singapore is mid-tier.
Read the full Singapore guide →Empresa na Hora produces a fully formed Lda in about an hour at the counter, or a few days online, for €360. Minimum capital is a symbolic €1 per shareholder. The headline corporate rate fell to 20% for 2026, with a reduced 16% band on the first €50,000 for SMEs.
Read the full Portugal guide →A GmbH needs €25,000 of share capital with at least €12,500 paid up at formation, notarial deeds at €1,200 to 2,000, and registry and publication fees around €500. The UG variant drops the capital to €1 but keeps the notary. Budget €4,000 in year one before capital.
Read the full Germany guide →The most expensive entry here, because each free zone bundles the licence with desk space, a visa allocation and a registered office. Budget $5,000 to 8,000 for IFZA, Meydan or SHAMS and $15,000+ for DIFC or ADGM. For a profitable business, 0% on qualifying income recovers the premium inside a year.
Read the full UAE guide →£100 or $100. Both let you invoice, open a business account through Wise or Mercury, and wind down for nothing if it fails. Do not lock €12,500 into a German capital account for a weekend project.
€265 buys an EU VAT number, single-market access, euro invoicing and 0% tax on retained profit. The only weak point is banking, solved with a Wise or Revolut Business account.
Counterintuitive, but the $8,000 first year is recovered fast: 0% on qualifying income above AED 375,000 leaves more cash than a UK Ltd paying 25% once profits pass roughly $100,000.
Under $200 gets an EIN, a Stripe account and the ability to invoice US customers in dollars. Pass-through treatment means non-residents generally owe no federal tax on non-ECI income.
Ordered purely by real-world cost of forming a functional company, not prestige, tax efficiency or market access. Three measurable numbers and one judgment call.
Ranges are ranges. The estimator applies your entity type, office and headcount; the checklist stops you paying expediting fees for a missing translation.
