Incorporating a company in Spain is not especially complicated.  In 2003, the New Enterprise Limited Company Act (Act 7/2003 of 1 April) sought to make the task even simpler, to the extent of theoretically allowing a limited liability company to be set up and subsequently entered in the Mercantile Register within 48 hours when the shareholders have certain characteristics. In the event that a shareholder is a foreign individual or legal entity the procedure is a bit more complex and requires a minimum of one to two months.

In the attached document you will find the main steps to follow in order to set up a company from the initial idea right through to its full operability. We will focus on the Limited Liability Company, which according the statistics of the Mercantile Register is the form most frequently used due to its flexibility: in 2012, there were 84,3999 limited liability companies set up in Spain as opposed to 555 joint stock companies. The vast majority of the following notes apply to joint stock companies as well.