Foreigners inside a Company

As a foreigner may I buy a company in Germany?

Are you wondering whether you, as an alien, may be a shareholder of a German company? You may worry no longer. It is permissible for any non-German to be a shareholder and also its director.

May I live and work in Germany and work as the shareholder of my company?

Well, a shareholder does not typically work for his company – that's why directors exist. Shareholders have only assets with their shares. Therefore, you will never get a residence permit simply because you are a shareholder. We cannot say anything more in this regard; please connect with our associated attorney, Alexander Baron von Engelhardt, to obtain your information. He belongs to the best in regards to business immigration of entrepreneurs.

May I live and work in Germany and work as the director of my company?

Yes, this is quite well imaginable. You will need a permit based on §21 I AufenthG. Typical exceptions to having such a permit will be that you already have an unrestricted work permit. You have an unrestricted work permit when your title reads like "Erwerbstätigkeit gestattet". We cannot say anything more in this regard; please connect with our associated attorney Alexander Baron von Engelhardt to obtain your information. He belongs to the best in regards to business immigration of entrepreneurs.

Do I have to visit Germany to open? The thing is, I would need a visa to come, and getting one takes so awfully long.

You may visit Germany and it would be a pleasure to meet you in person. But this is not necessary when this is an inconvenience for you. For this reason, we developed a remote purchasing procedure. Check out for more information on remote purchasing here by clicking this sentence!

Being a digital nomad, I am always on the road. Though I am intrigued to have a company here, I wonder whether it makes sense. Do I have to live in Germany to run my company?

Neither corporate law nor immigration law requires you to have the center of your life here! This is another reason, why we supplement our scope of services by offering virtual offices.

Which nationals will have a problem with the bank account. Being an Iranian, I first got rejected.

Banks are very, extremely careful to provide the following nationals with an account for their company. Some of our banking partners will – in spite of this ban – open a bank account when you have a permit outside of the below-listed countries. As an example: A Russian cannot take over the bank account when he lives in Belarus. If he has a residence permit in Germany, this will generally work. However, for this example, you also have to consider that Russians on the list of restricted persons from the EU will never get an account. These nationalities are:

N.B. We do not support immigration matters but our partner attorney, Alexander Baron von Engelhardt does.