Time re­quired to start a busi­ness

It provides a way of measuring conditions for starting new businesses.

In terms of methodology and content, the indicator is not representative of entrepreneurial culture and conditions in Germany, but it does provide a view of the bureaucracy involved in setting up a company.

The data comes from the EU Commission's Directorate-General for Growth and relates to setting up limited liability companies. The time it takes to set up a limited liability company (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung [GmbH]) or small company with limited liability (haftungsbeschränkte Unternehmergesellschaft [UG]) in Germany is used for comparison purposes despite the fact that it represents less than 20 per cent of all company start-ups. For the statistics, company start-ups in three very different districts are analysed - Bremerhaven, Meissen and Munich.

In future, it would be worth finding a more representative indicator to show the conditions for setting up new businesses, entrepreneurial culture and innovation in German companies.