# Starting a business in Spain without the obstacle course: what Portugal and Estonia do > Since the 2022 Crea y Crece law a Spanish limited company (SL) can be formed with €1 of capital, and with model bylaws and the online CIRCE system the law sets a few business hours per step and fees of €60 for the notary and €40 for the registry. In practice, CIRCE's 2025 report shows that 29% of SLs took more than ten days to obtain their definitive tax number, and the World Bank puts the full process at 10 to 22 days depending on the city. Estonia registers a company online for a €265 state fee in hours, and Portugal's Empresa na Hora does it at one counter. The radical-centre fix is a public clock: one legal maximum for the whole journey, measured and published, with the state passing the data between its own offices. - URL: https://www.radicalcentre.eu/en/articles/starting-a-business-spain-portugal-estonia - Language: en - Publisher: radical centre / centro radical - Published: 2026-11-08 - Topic: Economy & work - Author: radical centre - Licence: CC BY 4.0 ## Key points - Spain's Crea y Crece law (Ley 18/2022) lets a limited company (SL) be formed with €1 of capital and sets a 24-hour target for standardised online formation. - With model bylaws and capital up to €3,100, notary and registry fees are capped at €60 and €40, and BORME publication is free. - CIRCE's 2025 report: of 23,954 SLs formed through it, 30.8% obtained their definitive tax number within a day and 29% took more than ten days. - The World Bank finds the full process takes 10 to 22 days across 17 Spanish cities, slowed by backlogs at regional registries, and that 72% of SLs in 2024 still used €3,000 of capital. - Estonia charges a €265 state fee to register a company online, often within hours; Portugal's Empresa na Hora forms one at a single counter for €360. Starting a business without an obstacle course, emprender sin gincana, is the second of the productivity problems Miriam González set out at the launch of Democracia 21, which we mapped in [our overview](/en/articles/democracia-21-miriam-gonzalez-proposals-radical-centre). It sounds like a slogan, and Spain has in fact already written most of the law to fix it. The interesting question is why the law and the experience still differ, and what Portugal and Estonia do that Spain could copy this year. ## What Spanish law already promises Spain's 2022 law on business creation and growth, the Ley Crea y Crece, cut the minimum capital of a limited company (sociedad limitada, SL) to €1. While capital stays below €3,000, a fifth of profits has to go to a legal reserve until the two together reach €3,000. The law's preamble says an SL can be formed in 24 hours when founders use standardised documents. The machinery is CIRCE, the ministry's online system that carries the file between the notary, the Mercantile Registry, the tax agency and the entrepreneur's service point (PAE). The founder fills in one electronic form, the DUE. With model bylaws, the law gives six business hours for the name certificate, no more than twelve business hours to sign before the notary, and six business hours for the registrar to register the deed. If capital is €3,100 or less, the notary may charge €60 and the registrar €40, and publication in the official business gazette is free. The 2022 start-ups law repeats these limits for innovative firms. On paper, then, Spain is already close to the European standard. The EU's digital company law directive of 2019 requires online formation to be completed within five working days when founders are individuals using templates. ## What founders actually get The ministry's own CIRCE report for 2025 shows the gap. CIRCE handled 23,954 new SLs, and 97.5% of them used model bylaws. Among those, 50.6% got their definitive tax number within a day of signing the deed. Another 21.7% took one to five days, 7.7% five to ten days, and 20.1% more than ten. Across all SLs formed through CIRCE, only 30.8% finished within a day and 29% took more than ten days. The virtual PAE, the fully online entry point, handled just 4.5% of the forms; most founders still go through a physical office, often a private adviser. The World Bank's subnational Business Ready study, which covered 17 Spanish cities and was presented by ICEX in May 2026, fills in the picture. Starting a business takes from 10 calendar days in Badajoz and Barcelona to 22 in Pamplona, and costs about 1.5% of income per head everywhere. The registration step alone ranges from two days to fourteen, depending on backlogs at regional registries. Forms are complex enough that founders often need intermediaries, identity checks still require a notary, and not every fee can be paid online. And the €1 company has barely caught on: 72% of SLs formed in 2024 still used €3,000 of capital, and the report lists among the obstacles the founders' joint liability for any capital shortfall if the company is wound up. In the World Bank's 2025 business entry scores, Estonia gets 89.4, Portugal 82.4 and Spain 76.8. Spain's weakest pillar is regulation, at 70.9. ## Portugal's counter and Estonia's screen Portugal took the counter and made it work. Empresa na Hora, run by the Institute of Registries and Notaries, lets founders walk into one office with a pre-approved company name and model articles and leave with a company, for €360. All partners must be present, and the capital deposit can follow within five business days. The World Bank finds that every Portuguese city in its study performs equally well on business entry, with firms able to register in as little as 4.5 days. Estonia took the screen. Registering a private limited company electronically costs a €265 state fee, and the Estonian Chamber of Commerce says it takes from a few hours to one business day online. Through e-Residency, people who do not live in Estonia can do the same: on 8 November 2026 the programme's counter showed 44,634 companies founded by e-residents, who set up about one in five new Estonian companies in 2025. Spanish citizens are among the top nationalities using it, which means some Spanish founders already find it easier to incorporate in Tallinn than at home. The lesson from both is that speed comes from design. Portugal guarantees one place and one procedure. Estonia lets the registry trust a digital identity and a standard form. Neither depends on each office deciding how fast to go. ## A public clock for every new firm Our proposal starts from the left's view that starting a business is a public service, open to everyone on equal terms: a founder without money for a gestoría should be able to do it alone, online or at a public counter, for close to nothing. It takes from the liberal market tradition the conviction that entry is where competition begins, so capital, fees and steps should be as low as possible, and the €1 company should be made usable by limiting the founders' liability on a wind-up to an amount they can see in advance. The idea that fits neither camp is a public clock. Spain already sets maximum hours for each step; it should set one legal maximum for the whole journey, from the first form to the definitive tax number and Social Security registration, and measure it file by file. Publish the results every quarter by registry, notary district and city, so that Pamplona and Badajoz can be compared in public. When a file passes the limit, the registry has to explain why, and repeated delays trigger extra staff or a transfer of the workload to another registry. Once the founder has given their data, the state passes it between its own offices, the once-only principle the EU already asks for. Jennifer Pahlka's [Recoding America](/en/articles/jennifer-pahlka-recoding-america-explained) argues that services improve when someone owns the outcome and watches the real user's experience; a public clock gives that job to someone. Spain has the law. What it lacks is the stopwatch, and a stopwatch is cheap. ## FAQ ### How long does it take to set up a company in Spain? On paper, a few business hours per step when you use model bylaws and the CIRCE online system. In practice, the 2025 CIRCE report shows about half of SLs with model bylaws got their definitive tax number within a day, and one in five took more than ten days. The World Bank measures 10 to 22 calendar days for the whole process, depending on the city. ### How much does it cost to open an SL in Spain? The minimum capital is €1 since 2022. With model bylaws and capital up to €3,100, notary fees are capped at €60 and registry fees at €40, and publication in the BORME is free. The World Bank estimates the full cost at about 1.5% of income per head. ### How long does it take to start a company in Estonia? Electronic registration of a private limited company costs a €265 state fee. The Estonian Chamber of Commerce says it takes from a few hours to one business day online. Non-residents can do it through e-Residency. ### What is Empresa na Hora in Portugal? A service of Portugal's Institute of Registries and Notaries that lets founders form a company at one counter, with a pre-approved name and model articles, for €360. The World Bank finds firms in Portugal can register in as little as 4.5 days. ## Sources - [Informe anual 2025 CIRCE](https://paeelectronico.es/Documents/InformesCirce/Anuales/Informe_anual_2025_CIRCE.pdf), Ministerio de Industria y Turismo (2026) - [Subnational Business Ready in the European Union 2025: Spain](https://www.investinspain.org/content/dam/icex-invest/documentos/eventos/Report-B-Ready.pdf), World Bank / ICEX (2025) - [Ley 18/2022, de 28 de septiembre, de creación y crecimiento de empresas](https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2022-15818), BOE (2022) - [Empresa na Hora](https://registo.justica.gov.pt/Empresas/Empresa-na-Hora), Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado (2026) - [Establishment of a private limited company](https://abiinfo.rik.ee/index.php/en/node/230/), RIK, Estonian e-Business Register (2026) - [e-Residency](https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/), Republic of Estonia (2026)