<story><title>How to found a company in Germany: 14 &quot;easy&quot; steps and lots of pain</title><url>https://eidel.io/how-to-found-a-company-in-germany-14-easy-steps-and-lots-of-pain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SeanLuke</author><text>For those of you griping about German bureaucracy I urge you to come to Italy to learn just how good you have it.&lt;p&gt;My wife is Italian and wanted to get married in her small home town. In order for her to get married to an American in her home town required paperwork that bordered on the Kafkaesque.  We had to show up at the Italian embassy in Washington DC (fortunately we live there!) with proof and witnesses that I was not already married, plus another ten pages of forms.  We had multiple stages of notorization.  And we had to have forms signed by &lt;i&gt;other witnesses&lt;/i&gt; vouching for the truthfulness of our witnesses.  In Italy we had to draw up a long declaration of vows in italian -- in Italy, a wedding is a contract -- and then even though I wrote the vows &lt;i&gt;myself&lt;/i&gt; in Italian, just because I am American we had to have it translated &lt;i&gt;by someone else&lt;/i&gt; back into English, by hand, just so I understood the vows I had myself written.  We then had to contract someone to read the vows out loud in English at the ceremony so I understood my own words.&lt;p&gt;At every step on the way, the bureaucrats apologized for the bureaucracy and asked us the same question, over and over and over again:  &amp;quot;Why don&amp;#x27;t you just get married in the US?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t get me started on the *hilarious* complexity of getting a Permesso di Soggiorno (sort of an Italian Green Card) this year.  I applied this past July and there are still more steps to do.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>johnzim</author><text>I lived this as an Italian trying to do the same for an American wife.&lt;p&gt;I had already steeled myself for the experience but it was still mind-numbing, until the appearance of one glorious stroke of luck.&lt;p&gt;The official in our consulate had incurred some minor peccadillo in the filling out of a form - their stamp was in the wrong part of the document, and because of that, their counterpart in Roma had officiously refused the document.&lt;p&gt;Suddenly, what had been a grinding war of attrition between us and the establishment, turned into a civil war within the machine. A principal adversary had flipped to our side.&lt;p&gt;We had serious firepower and the rest of the process was made incredibly easy, as our slighted new friend slashed through the red-tape and bulldozed our application through.&lt;p&gt;It ended with the final document being stamped at least a dozen times out of spite. I wish I had that copy (it probably rests in an aging manila envelope in the comune somewhere.)</text></comment>
<story><title>How to found a company in Germany: 14 &quot;easy&quot; steps and lots of pain</title><url>https://eidel.io/how-to-found-a-company-in-germany-14-easy-steps-and-lots-of-pain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SeanLuke</author><text>For those of you griping about German bureaucracy I urge you to come to Italy to learn just how good you have it.&lt;p&gt;My wife is Italian and wanted to get married in her small home town. In order for her to get married to an American in her home town required paperwork that bordered on the Kafkaesque.  We had to show up at the Italian embassy in Washington DC (fortunately we live there!) with proof and witnesses that I was not already married, plus another ten pages of forms.  We had multiple stages of notorization.  And we had to have forms signed by &lt;i&gt;other witnesses&lt;/i&gt; vouching for the truthfulness of our witnesses.  In Italy we had to draw up a long declaration of vows in italian -- in Italy, a wedding is a contract -- and then even though I wrote the vows &lt;i&gt;myself&lt;/i&gt; in Italian, just because I am American we had to have it translated &lt;i&gt;by someone else&lt;/i&gt; back into English, by hand, just so I understood the vows I had myself written.  We then had to contract someone to read the vows out loud in English at the ceremony so I understood my own words.&lt;p&gt;At every step on the way, the bureaucrats apologized for the bureaucracy and asked us the same question, over and over and over again:  &amp;quot;Why don&amp;#x27;t you just get married in the US?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t get me started on the *hilarious* complexity of getting a Permesso di Soggiorno (sort of an Italian Green Card) this year.  I applied this past July and there are still more steps to do.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>miracle2k</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s actually somewhat similar in Germany. You need a &lt;i&gt;Ehefähigkeitszeugnis&lt;/i&gt;, essentially that document proving that you are not married yet. You would have needed to get this from the US.&lt;p&gt;Because most countries don&amp;#x27;t have that sort of document (including the US), you then instead need to apply to your local &lt;i&gt;Oberlandesgericht&lt;/i&gt; (Higher Regional Court) for an exemption.&lt;p&gt;All the way, any foreign government documents need to be notorized by the German embassy in that country.</text></comment>