If you are an entrepreneur or you have plans to be an entrepreneur in the near future, you most probably raised yourself the following question; what kind of entity I am going to use to do business? If you have plans to use a Dutch Limited Liability Company (BV, Besloten Vennootschap) for these purposes, a notary should set up this BV. The notary, inter alia, should provide you the deed of incorporation and should make sure that the BV will be registered at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. Based on a new EU Directive (the link to the Directive can be found below), a substantial change applies to this way of setting up a BV. Each EU-member should comply with this Directive, including the Netherlands.

The Directive specifies that, at the latest, as of 1 August 2021 each EU-member should allow that a certain entity, a BV in the Netherlands, should be set up online without the obligation for the founders to appear to the notary in person. However, the Directive is showing that each EU-member can still make use of a notary in this digital procedure. The Dutch government intends to make use of this possibility and to align this as much as possible to the previous format by making use of videoconferencing and digital identification and ratification. These tools will be further developed in the next two years to make sure that the Dutch government is able to comply with this Directive, at the latest, as of 1 August 2021.

If you would like to receive more information about these developments and/or general information with respect to this subject, please do not hesitate to contact me.

EU Directive