Article Published: 14 Dec, 2018,
Updated: 23 Apr, 2023
under VAT Service
Srl stands for Società e Responsabilità Limitata and is the equivalent of a limited company in the UK or Ireland.
The main advantage associated with an srl is that it provides limited liability to shareholders, as opposed to partnerships where partners are typically fully liable liable without limit.
Advantages
An srl tends to be a more flexible type of business, permitting more variations in how the company is structured. As a result of this greater flexibility, it is more complex than a partnership, particularly as it needs to keep ordinary accounts and company books such as shareholders meetings book, bod meetings book and shareholders book.
Costs
In order to set up an srl company in Italy you need to incorporate it through a public deed executed before a notary. The cost of the notary varies from notary to notary and depends on how much share capital the company has. The minimum capital is 10.000 Euros (there is a simplified type that only needs 1 Euro of capital to set-up but it is in general not a good option). As an example, the last srl that we incorporated with 10k capital cost about 3.000 for the notary.
Then there is the accountant's fee to prepare the draft of the company bye-laws that can range from 1300 euros to 3500 depending on the type of activity and the needs of the owners setting-up the business.
There are also fixed annual costs:
- Chamber of commerce annual fee of about 200 Euros
- Company books annual tax 309 or 519 Euros depending on the capital of the company
- Filing the balance sheet to the company registrar 130 Euros
- Changes of directors, giving them proxies or making other changes, attracts a company registrar tax of around 160 euros.
More information is available elsewhere on setting-up as a sole-trader in Italy or limited company formation in Italy, whichever is more appropriate for your circumstance.
