Cost to Register a Company, by Country

What's included: the government registry's own fee for incorporating a standard private/limited company, exactly as published. For the UK, Australia, the US (Delaware) and Canada (federal) this is a single flat fee. Singapore's figure is two official ACRA line items added together (name reservation + registration). Germany has no flat fee at all — its figure is the sum of three official line items for a standard two-shareholder GmbH with the statutory minimum EUR 25,000 share capital: notary fees under the Gerichts- und Notarkostengesetz (GNotKG), the commercial register entry fee, and the Berlin trade office (Gewerbeamt) registration fee. A different share capital, shareholder count, or German state changes the notary and trade-office components.

What's excluded: legal and tax advice, translation costs, a registered agent or virtual office, business bank account fees, and any share capital itself (share capital isn't a cost — it's money the company holds, though it must be paid in before registration in capital-based jurisdictions like Germany).

The United States has no national registration fee. There's no federal company registry — each of the 50 states runs its own, at its own price. Delaware is used here because it's the overwhelming default choice for US company formation (especially for an LLC), not because it's representative of every state; a company formed in, say, California or New York would pay a different fee to a different registry.

Why Germany looks more expensive: it isn't necessarily — this table compares official registration fees only, in each country's own currency with no FX conversion, so treat a face-value ranking as directional. A full cost comparison would also need ongoing compliance costs (accounting, audit thresholds, annual filings), which vary enormously by country and aren't part of this page.