Hello, I eventually ended up in the rabbithole of self-employment structures, not because I really need it (at least for now) but more out of curiosity. There is a question that nags me. Let’s say I want to create a GmbH where I am the sole proprietor and employee, and let’s say that I am resident in Zurich. Let’s also say that my work consists 99% of a contracting agreement for a single foreign employer, and I decided to open the GmbH more for tax efficiency and for possibility of future expansion. In my scenario I work 99% from home, so clearly I should register my GmbH in Zurich. But I was wondering, what are the “reasonably minimal legal requirements” for registering the GmbH, say, in Zug? I guess a simple letterbox wouldn’t do the trick, but what if, say, I get a shared office and a bookable meeting room to take calls and meet colleagues/customers? How often shall I go there to qualify as “legal”? Once per week? Once per month? I understand it’s a grey area, I was just curious if anyone has stories, research or anecdotes to share. Thanks!
I am in a very similar situation and even though I do not need a GmbH right now, there may be a chance that I will need it in the future, so I made a couple of phone calls, and this is what I could find:
You need to go through the GmbH registration steps in the beginning, which costs around CHF 1’000, including the commercial registration, the fees, VAT registration, etc. You also need to put in the 20k capital, but this is not a cost, it is just money you put into the company.
For domiciliation, you have two options, either with a c/o address or not. The c/o address costs about 1.5-2k p.a, whereas the non c/o address costs about 3-4k p.a. The c/o address is clearly cheaper, but also frowned upon by the Zurich Tax authorities, so the regular address is recommended. I guess this would be the reasonable minimum requirement to qualify for such a thing, especially if the offer comes with office space.
For accounting services, the going rate is CHF 150 per hour plus VAT, usually around 1-3k p.a. Of course, this can be different, depending on your needs.
Finally, there is also the option of a nominee director, in case you do not live in CH, which costs around 5k p.a., but this would not be the case here as you indicated that you live in Zurich.
I am not sure that this is an exhaustive list, this is what I managed to gather. If someone has more accurate info or has already done that, it would be very helpful to share this information.
Thanks for the detailed reply, that’s useful information, although my question was a bit different. In your example, say I go for the non-c/o address at some shady letterbox company in Zug. But the tax authorities could come at me and say that it qualifies as tax evasion, since in practice I do not do any business in Zug. They would say “you should have registered your GmbH in Zurich and pay corporate taxes in Zurich”, and they would be right! So, my question is: what is the minimum “enough business in Zug” to be defensible against a tax check?
There are very few tax advantages to using a corporation for this purpose.
I know someone who set-up something similar: lived in ZH regsitered in ZG for tax reasons. The ZH tax authorities were very picky and insisted he be taxed in ZH unless he really was working from the office in ZG. Then again, the business was successful so maybe had more attention.
If you want it to work, then you should hold all official meetings physically in ZG e.g. AGM etc. And work from the office in ZG.
Understood, thanks!