How to Open a Company in Slovakia

What follows walks through how to register a company in Slovakia end to end — what the law expects of founders, directors, share capital and a registered address, how the registration procedure itself unfolds, which licenses attach to which activities, what corporate tax and VAT actually look like in practice, how beneficial-ownership disclosure works, and what obligations start the moment the company is actually on the register.

Opening a Company in Slovakia: Legal Framework and Choice of Corporate Form

Two statutes carry almost the entire legal weight behind a Slovak company. The Obchodný zákonník — the Commercial Code — governs formation itself: internal structure, capital, the powers of governing bodies, and how far a participant's own property is exposed to the company's debts. Separately, the Živnostenský zákon (the Trade Licensing Act) decides something the Commercial Code never touches at all — whether a given activity may actually be carried on in the first place — sorting activities into a notification-only tier, a trade requiring proven qualification, and a tier bound to specific regulated competence.

Since 17 August 2026, registering a company in Slovakia runs under a genuinely new regime. Zákon č. 29/2026 Z. z. o obchodnom registri, the new Commercial Register Act, replaced the previous framework governing registration outright, and Vyhláška č. 203/2026 Z. z. of the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic (Ministerstvo spravodlivosti Slovenskej republiky) now fixes exactly which documents accompany a first entry or a later change. The same reform expanded what notary-registrars are allowed to do on their own authority and tied a subset of notification-only trade permissions directly to the moment a company actually enters the register, rather than to any separate approval step.

Before anyone can actually open a company in Slovakia, though, a founder has to settle on a corporate form, and the jurisdiction genuinely offers more than one live option: s. r. o. (a limited liability company), a. s. (a joint-stock company), j. s. a. (a simplified joint-stock company), v. o. s. and k. s. (a general and a limited partnership respectively), and družstvo (a cooperative). What separates them is minimum capital, how many participants are involved, how management is structured, and how exposed personal assets actually are.

Main forms of commercial organization in Slovakia:

For a small or mid-sized business, spoločnosť s ručením obmedzeným is where nearly everyone actually ends up. Legally it behaves the way a limited liability company does anywhere: the company itself answers for its debts with its own assets, and a participant's exposure stops at whatever part of their contribution is still unpaid on the Commercial Register. Slovak law caps an s. r. o. at 50 participants but sets no requirement that any of them be a Slovak national — full foreign ownership is the default, not an exception that has to be argued for.

Setting Up a Company in Slovakia: Founders, Directors and Capital Requirements

Take a Polish founder putting together a small outsourced software-development studio meant to serve clients scattered across the EU — precisely the kind of business the s. r. o. form was built around. Slovak law allows between one and 50 participants in that form, and nothing in the statute cares whether a given participant is an individual or a legal entity, or where either happens to be based.

A správca vkladu — a contribution administrator appointed by the founders — takes custody of the property before the legal entity exists and confirms in writing exactly how much has actually been paid in; without that confirmation, an s. r. o. cannot be registered through the ordinary route at all. Where a contribution takes the form of property rather than cash, its value follows the Commercial Code's own valuation rules, and a mere promise to perform work or render a service never counts as a capital contribution, however it is dressed up.

A konateľ — the company's director — is a separate and mandatory appointment: an s. r. o. needs at least one, and the role can only be held by an individual. Slovak citizenship is not a general condition of the job, though the registering authority does check, separately, whether a given foreign national actually has the legal right to hold the position at all. For a director who is a national of an EU or EEA member state, or of an OECD member country, no Slovak residence permit has to be shown to register as director. A national of a country outside those groups needs a valid permit to stay in the Slovak Republic if they are being registered as the person authorized to act for the company — a requirement Vyhláška č. 203/2026 Z. z. states directly. Our software-studio founder, holding Polish and therefore EU citizenship, would clear that particular hurdle without needing to produce anything beyond ordinary identification.

None of this requires a nominee local director to make the structure work — a company can be built in Slovakia without one. Questions about an owner's nationality and a director's immigration status are, deliberately, kept as two entirely separate inquiries under the law.

Registering a Company in Slovakia: Documents, Registered Address and Beneficial Owners

The registration requirements themselves changed on 17 August 2026, alongside everything else the reform touched. For an s. r. o., the foundational document is the spoločenská zmluva — the memorandum of association — or, where a single founder is involved, the zakladateľská listina, the deed of foundation. A separate set of articles, where the company chooses to adopt one, joins that same package.

The materials required for a first entry include proof of the right to carry on the declared activity wherever the law demands a separate permit, a statement from the správca vkladu, and an expert valuation wherever an in-kind contribution calls for one. Registering a company in Slovakia also means producing each appointee's written consent to sit on a governing body, along with whatever else the particular structure requires.

Where a representative is filing the application rather than the founder personally, a written power of attorney in the statutory form has to be attached. Foreign corporate documents bring their own separate checklist — certified translation, apostille, or another form of authentication, depending on where the document actually originated. The registered-address paperwork forms its own distinct category entirely.

Standard documentation for setting up a company in Slovakia includes proof of the right to use the premises, unless that right can already be read directly off the cadastral register. Acceptable evidence includes a title deed, a document showing lawful use of the property, or the owner's written, officially certified consent. Where the property is jointly owned, consent from a majority of co-owners, weighted by their respective shares, is enough.

Post-reform, registering a company in Slovakia follows an updated standard for how the founding documents themselves have to be executed. Where the Commercial Code calls for it, notarial form applies, or a document authorized by an attorney instead. A simplified electronic mechanism exists specifically for setting up an s. r. o., built around its own set of attachments, including the confirmations a foreign director's status requires.

Step-by-Step Procedure for Registering a Company in Slovakia Through the Commercial Register

As for how to register a company in Slovakia procedurally, the registration itself has run under the new regime since 17 August 2026, filed electronically throughout, with the decision on a first entry made either by the registration court or by a notary, wherever a notary happens to hold that competence. It starts with checking the proposed name against the Obchodný register — the Slovak Commercial Register — and, once it is confirmed free, attaching one of the legally permitted designations for the chosen corporate form. A founder wanting to lock in a name before the rest of the paperwork is ready can reserve it separately for a EUR 50 fee, which buys time to finish the founding documents without risking the name to someone faster.

Settling on the actual line of business comes next, and the answer decides which licensing track applies — free, trade-qualified, bound to specific competence, or a separate special-permit regime entirely, each pulling in its own set of supporting documents. For our software studio, this step would be close to automatic: custom development work falls squarely within the notification-only category, without any professional-qualification hurdle attached. The founding document itself follows directly from that — a zakladateľská listina for a single owner, a spoločenská zmluva where two or more are involved, either one fixing the ownership structure, the capital, each participant's share, the business itself, the company's seat, and how the director is authorized to act on the company's behalf.

Appointing the konateľ and the správca vkladu happens alongside that drafting work — the first to act for the company once it exists, the second to confirm the capital contributions have actually been met before the first registration entry goes through. Forming the capital itself follows immediately: cash contributions get paid in whatever portion the law requires, in-kind ones get transferred before registration outright, and a sole founder gets no grace period at all — the entire amount has to be in before anything moves forward. Our Polish founder, again working alone, would need her full EUR 5,000 sitting with the správca vkladu at this exact point, not spread out over time the way a multi-founder structure could arrange it.

Securing the necessary permissions comes next, and here the reform actually simplified matters for some activities: for a defined set of free trades listed under Annex 4a of the Živnostenský zákon, the right to carry on the business now arises directly from the Commercial Register entry itself, with no separate advance approval required; craft, competence-bound, and specially licensed activities still follow their own distinct requirements. Wherever foreign documents are involved — corporate extracts, a director's own papers, confirmations covering a foreign participant — translation and authentication rules get checked at this stage, and a director from outside the EU, EEA or OECD has their right of residence reviewed separately from everything else.

The application itself then goes in electronically, authorized and addressed to whichever competent court or notary-registrar handles it. A first court entry for an ordinary legal entity costs EUR 220, EUR 550 for a joint-stock company, and any later amendment to an existing entry costs a flat EUR 50 per organization. Where the paperwork is complete, the standard statutory procedure closes out the registration itself within two working days. Founding (založenie) happens earlier, at the moment the constitutional documents are executed; legal existence (vznik) only begins once the Commercial Register entry is made, at which point the company also receives its IČO, its company identification number. A rejected application can be challenged through the statutory objection mechanism, generally within 15 days of receiving notice.

Want to consult?

Contact our experts and get answers to your questions.

Book a consultation

Licenses and Permits for Doing Business in Slovakia

Getting a license for a business in Slovakia and simply appearing on the Commercial Register are two entirely different legal matters. An entry on the register does not amount to a blanket permission to work in any field; the Živnostenský zákon governs that question on its own terms, administered through the country's trade-licensing authorities and single contact points.

• voľná živnosť: the free trade tier, requiring no proof of professional education or experience, with no state fee at all for an electronic notification
• remeselná živnosť: the craft tier, tied to demonstrated professional training, at an electronic filing fee of EUR 11 per activity
• viazaná živnosť: the tier bound to specific professional competence, requiring documents set for that particular profession or service — education, experience, a certificate or an exam, depending on the field — also at EUR 11 per activity electronically

For our software studio, ordinary custom-development work sits comfortably in that first, notification-only category — nothing about it calls for a demonstrated qualification, and after the reform, some free trades under Annex 4a of the Živnostenský zákon arise the moment the company itself is registered, without any separate advance step at all. Where the entity itself cannot meet a craft or competence-bound trade's qualification requirement, the law allows a zodpovedný zástupca — a responsible representative — to be appointed instead, someone whose own qualifications cover the gap; that person's status and their relationship with the company still have to satisfy the Živnostenský zákon on its own terms.

A defined group of activities sits outside the ordinary Živnostenský zákon framework altogether. Banking, payment services, investment activity, insurance, medical practice, energy, and a handful of comparable fields answer to their own dedicated regulator rather than the general trade-licensing regime, and anyone starting a business in Slovakia in one of them needs to study that sector's own rules well before registration rather than after.

Corporate Taxes, VAT and Financial Obligations in Slovakia

Corporate tax in Slovakia is not a single flat figure — for tax periods beginning in 2025 onward, a three-tier system applies, running at 10%, 21% and 24% depending on how much taxable income the company actually reports.

Corporate tax rates in Slovakia:

The EUR 100,000 and EUR 5,000,000 thresholds apply to the total taxable income figure, while the rate itself is charged against a base already reduced the way the law provides for. Corporate income tax in Slovakia, in other words, depends on more than turnover alone — the applicable rate, the calculated base, allowable adjustments and carried-forward losses all factor in, which is exactly why revenue by itself never tells the whole story about taxes for a company in Slovakia.

A separate minimum corporate tax applies on top of the ordinary calculation. At taxable income up to EUR 50,000 it runs to EUR 340; above EUR 50,000 and up to EUR 250,000, EUR 960; above EUR 250,000 and up to EUR 500,000, EUR 1,920; and above EUR 500,000 and up to EUR 5,000,000, EUR 3,840. For a tax period beginning on or after 1 January 2026, income above EUR 5,000,000 carries a new tier of EUR 11,520.

VAT in Slovakia runs at a standard 23%, with reduced rates of 19% and 5% for goods and services the law specifically lists. Starting in 2026, that list itself shifted — a number of products moved from the 19% bracket up to the standard 23% rate.

Tax registration for corporate tax purposes runs off existing state-registry data, after which the company receives a DIČ, its tax identification number — distinct from the IČ DPH assigned to a VAT payer. The corporate tax rate itself has no bearing on how dividends get taxed; profit distribution follows an entirely separate set of rules.

Dividends paid to an individual out of profit for a tax period beginning after 1 January 2025 carry a base withholding rate of 7%. A recipient based in a non-cooperative jurisdiction instead faces 35%. Where the payment goes to a resident of a country with an applicable double-taxation treaty, the relevant international rule and the treaty's own ceiling on taxation get checked as well.