But that's only one part of the process. The continuous level of bureaucracy is really high too, and during the years I ran my corporation it never seemed to diminish.

Regardless of jurisdiction, the bureaucracy will be there. Someone would want you to pay taxes after all.

Would reply below, but reached thread max depth.

That tax advisor I got was really scummy and way over charged in addition to being an ongoing headache to deal with.

Would having a "foreign" company have any disadvantages comparing to a german company?

Also, most start-ups don't need to be registered as a Gewerbe anyway. And let's be honest, if a "start-up" fails to cope with business and bureaucracy requirements your Döner shop successfully tackles daily you might reconsider running a business in the first place.

Let's be real, that's not an Apples to apples comparison. You Döner shop doesn't sell internationally to various business customers like SW companies do, plus they often involve a lot of tax fraud by not giving receipts to all paying customers and not declaring all profits.

Any Döner shop usually has constant revenue from day one, while SW startups can go a long time without any revenue.

International sales are easy, in most acses they are without VAT and easy enough to file. International slaes, so, have nothing to do with German incorporation but are either EU or whatever driven.

Please correct me, but would a start-up don't need to be a Gewerbe / UG / Gbr / ... to have an entry in the Handelsregister? You can't just make up a "company" a filed it as "Einkommen aus Selbstständiger Arbeit" when doing your taxes, can you?

Edit: Regarding your last point, yes, you can. Upside, it's simple. Downside, you are liable and carrying losses forward is tricky. Among other things.

A lot of people in Germany founded a British Limited with a captial of 1 Euro. Then came Brexit ...

That's the quintessential HN comment I'm talking about. Just hasty generalizations and accusations. Tiresome.

Granted it's just another data point but I feel there's real substance behind this Germany bashing and it's not uncalled for.

Also, Germany is the only EU country I've encountered where scummy law companies break citizens privacy hand in hand with ISPs to spy on your internet traffic and send you fines if you torrent anything copyrighted, while at the same time marking huge fuss about how important privacy is in Germany. Ironic.

If you move to Germany make sure to get defense insurance to protect yourself if you ever need to use a lawyer.

Compared to where?

From my three bad experiences two are from Germany and with both we lost a lot of money and time on lawyers.