How to start a Business in Germany | Business Registration Process Step by Step

How to start a business in Germany and dealing with Business Registration. Tips from an Indian Expat and what was the process that I followed to register my business in Germany. I am a YouTuber and full-time working professional who lives in Germany and I registered by business in 2022.

0:00 Introduction
1:10 How to start a business in Germany
1:27 Do you need a business for YouTube in Germany
6:07 Elster Registration in Germany
9:55 How to register VAT in Germany
11:14 De-registration of business in Germany

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In my case, it was last year when I had to register my business because my YouTube channel was already monetized and its income had reached the limit when I had to debit it. Hello Everyone, my name is Eri and you are watching Eri in Germany.

Today’s video is going to be a finance related one. But it comes with a disclaimer to say that I am not a professional financial consultant and the experience I am going to share is about business registration This is my own which I

Did after monetization on my YouTube channel. In case if your case differs then I would highly recommend you to contact your existing employer if you have one And along with that, contact your visa officer and both of them will give you all the information. How to proceed, in your case

Last year, after monetizing my channel started generating income from it, I thought that it is a good time that I should register my business. To be on the safe side, because if you live in a foreign country and if you do not follow any rule

Then you might be fined, so do not fall in such situation , I started this process and first of all I have discussed in the previous video that if you take permission from the employer yourself then you can approach your manager. They will redirect you. To HR or if you approach HR, they

Will also clarify back with your manager, it is better to keep both the people in the loop, first keep the manager, then when you tell him your job offer is in your contract. If you are employed in Germany, then you just have to see that whatever business you are about to start,

There is no such conflict of interest. It means that you are working in a company like this. In those cases, if you are opening another company doing similar work, the company may refuse you. But I don’t know but since YouTube is very different, I

Do professional work so I got approval. I kept that letter from Manager HR with me in the email, at the same time I was talking to my visa officer and the visa officer said that when the permission comes from your office,

Then send that letter to me and after that we will change it. . The green paper that is found in your Zusatzblatt, along with your visa, generally when you come to Germany, you get a residence permit and then along with it you

Also get a green paper, so on that green paper it is written that There is visa, there is that tied, with such and such company and many times it is also mentioned that no second activity or any freelance activity or any business activity is allowed. I had to change this thing

On my visa , for which I took the letter. The first step was to get approval from my office and then the second step was that before the appointment of the visa officer, I had to register my business online and that

Would be a gewerbe website of your city. You have to go there and do Gewerbeanmeldung, which means you have to register your business. A portal will open and there will be some set of questions like your name and some documents will also be asked. As soon as your RP is submitted

And your green paper(Zusatzblatt) is submitted to, your address will be asked Then what activities will you do in business? You have to list those things in it. Are you a sole proprietor or are you opening it with someone else or have you bought it from someone? There are some business questions which

Are in German. But you translate easily on Chrome. So, there is a link where you have to fill this form, you have to do Gewerbeanmeldung, there you can register your business by going to the online office of your city itself, then please fill it there.

There is not going to be any problem in this Then what will happen in the background is that when you fill the form here, all this information will go to your visa officer. So now comes the third step, when you have talked to your visa officer, you have sent

Him the email from your trade office where you are doing business registration, the form you filled online reaches your visa officer. Then my visa officer said that I have received your business registration document. Now it’s time to change your supplementary sheet so they had to add on it that I am a passionate

YouTuber and this is my second activity, so the first employment is still with my company and they added this line. Now first of all they gave me an appointment. When I went there for that appointment, they told me to bring €50. So either you can take this in cash or you

Can also make card payment, then the fee for changing it on the Zusatzblatt there is a text written behind and is 50 euros, so this is the first expense. It was mine and now I met the visa officer, he made the changes and

Immediately gave me my new zusatzblatt. Kept the old one and then came back with that. What happened next? After this, the online business that you had registered also has a cost, so in my city it is 28 plus 8. Meaning 36, so these two costs are €8, which is

For sending you documents via Post and I thought that it is important, so I took that and then €28+€8, an invoice of €36 came. I had and with a deadline. Before this you have to make your payment, so I paid it and then after that I started getting letters

After letters after letters from Finanzamt. These letters were all in German, so while reading them slowly , I thought that yes, now there is a requirement. I need to open my Elster account. Elster is such a portal where you can open your account for free and

Opening it is also a bit tricky because it is very safe and very secure, so you get its ID in a post. Then there is an activation code or something related to that ID which comes in another post, by doing this you have to set up your Elster.

Now it will be set up. So when the Finanzamt papers came, some forums were mentioned in it which I had to go to Elster and feel, now what were these forums? So when the first form was there it was Fragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung list of Questions for tax

Registration. So there were some set of questions in it and after going there I filled it and submitted online But the story does not end here After this, I received two more forms from Finanzamt and the names of these forms were Gewerbesteuererklärung

And the second one is Übertragungsprotokoll, so in the two forms that I remember, it was being asked that what have you invested in your business so far, do you mean the expenses were this and how much profit has been made?

Last year, like I did in 21, they were asking when I was 21 and when was I registered? So what was the situation in that year? How much profit are you expecting in 2022? And what about you? What do you mean, how are you managing the business, so that

They can get some idea of ​​how big a scale this business is being run? Whether it is a small or big business, small means it has low income or it is a big business which is earning a good amount of income. So after all these things, I felt that I am not making

That much profit because my already expenses were also enough. Now when you do YouTube etc. like if there is a camera then I can easily show the expense of the camera which I bought, then I called the finance department and I told them that I am in the first year of my business,

I have some idea about it. There has been no such profit. So he said that if you have not made any profit then will you put Null in it? Meaning you will put zero But please give us an estimate for the next year as to

How much will be your income being generated now or in future So then, for example, I put €500 or so €1000 somewhere but all these things, I am tracking. I have been saving all my Expenses and Income so that when I go ahead and file it, I

Can mention exactly what my income was in 2022. This was expense. My taxes will be calculated accordingly. So these two forms were also filled by me on Elster only and there are automatically submitted. If there is any reply from there, then it comes via post. So

Let’s say you felt some form was wrong or something went wrong. So the Finanzamt will send you a form on your address , that is, it will send via post and it is clearly written in German. If these things are missing from the post then please refill it, this was my story.

The fee for business registration has a limit of some 22,000 euros per year. If your company is not earning more than this then you do not need VAT registration. But if you earn more than this in any financial year then you have to register for VAT, so for VAT registration also

You have to contact your Finanzamt. You can also call your Finanzamt and get their email ID or if you already have an email ID of Finanzamt, there you can enter your name, address, phone number, your personal ID which is your ID number in fact. If you

Also put the Steuernummer then it is very beneficial and then you tell that this is my business and I want to create the VAT number, then you will send them an email. An automated reply comes that whatever query you had has been forwarded and your VAT number

Is also posted at your home within a week and a half. Then you have to keep in mind that you have to apply for VAT returns. People do it quarterly as well as annually Another thing I am missing is that I was also asked how many people are there in your company, so

I am alone in my company. So I mean I am the sole proprietor so I put a zero there . But if you are running your company or planning accordingly, then you will have to enter how much you are planning, how many people there are and

All this is clearly asked in the form, in case you change your residence. If you are moving from one state to another state or from one city to another city, from one house to another house or somewhere else, then you have to de-register your old business which you have registered

By going to the same portal and where you If you are going to a new city and have to register your new business again, then the cost of de-registration and registration is also 36 Euro. So as I used to live in a rented house earlier , I had registered my business there.

But when I moved into my house here, I had to de-register the old one in the old city . I paid 36€ at his house and then when I moved to this city, I had to go back and register my business there due to that

And the reason behind it was asking for the cost, which means I have my complete setup in the due tory location. She is moving, so it was very expensive for me to register my business, de-register and then register it again, so this was my whole story

Of business registration and I did it by myself, I did not take any help in it. But if you look at the cost, once you paid €50 and then you paid €36, so these two means your business was registered for €86 . If you are employed then if you are watching this video

Then you must be looking to open your business or register your business. So good wishes for you and if you like this video then please write to me and let me know. See You in Next Vlog Bye..