Starting Up in Spain: All you need to know about entrepreneurship in Spain (ICEX)

ICEX (Invest in Spain) has just released the report “Starting up in Spain: all you need to know about entrepreneurship in Spain”.

Creating a startup in Spain

The steps to establish a startup are the same as for any other company. The very first one is to determine the most appropriate legal form, a decision that will be influenced by the startup´s later needs regarding participation deals and receipt of third-party investment.

The most commonly used legal forms are:

– Limited Liability Company (Sociedad Limitada, S.L.)

– Corporation (Sociedad Anónima, S.A.).

Both forms can also be set up as a sole-shareholder entity (Sociedad Anónima Unipersonal, S.A.U. and Sociedad Limitada Unipersonal, S.L.U. respectively) at the time of incorporation or be converted into a sole-shareholder entity afterwards.

While there are alternatives to these legal forms, they aren´t advisable for startups that will be seeking to add partners to the project and/or third-party investors. For information purposes, these include: Freelancer (Autónomo), Private partnership (Sociedad Civil) or Jointly-Owned Entity (Comunidad de Bienes), or a Cooperative (Cooperativa).

Accelerators and incubators are the best places to obtain business advice for startups, and they also offer access to finance at different stages of the project´s development.

Click here to access the full Guide by ICEX.