> With the UG, you are required to sock away capital until you hit the 25K, though, no?

Only a part of the company profits. But you can invest that capital, so if you'd by a new macbook on the company, that counts IIRC. You don't have to keep that in money in a bank account. If you're a sole founder you'd probably pay yourself a regular wage and save what's left, so that doesn't apply either.

Those doingbusiness numbers seem far off from my personal experience. The german ones don't apply in all cases (you don't need half the steps if you don't have employees) and certainly don't cover the UG case - charges and timelines are way off. They seem to apply to the standard GmbH, but there the timeline is far too quick - it takes more like 4 - 6 weeks to have all the paperwork through court and it took more than another month until the tax administration in Berlin acknowledged our existence - they're currently a little overloaded.

I wrote about the process at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4215302

You are required to save capital, so you cannot pay yourself above a certain percentage in dividends, but you can still pay yourself salary, which is not subject to those limits.

It is easier in the UK if you are already in the UK, but living in Germany is certainly easier than living in the UK in terms of immigration rules.

Minimum capital requirements aren't useless. A limited liability entity is only liable up to its capital assets. This ensures that the company has capital assets to level against if it is sued by creditors, etc.

If you want to avoid that do a UG & co. KG. Costs a bit more, since it technically is two companies but you dont have to build up the capital and you are also exempt from "Körperschaftssteuer"-tax.

IIRC the capital requirements don't have to be met with cash, but can be satisfied by things like IP. Developed an app? That could be included.