Having gone through this a couple of times, I'll say that all of this is true, but in practice, I find the actual founding process not very complicated with neo-banks that understand the founding process well. I just founded a new GmbH last week, and it took 2 days in total.<p>One more thing I'd recommend doing before going to a notary though is get a "Vorabstellungnahme" from IHK to ensure that they won't reject your company name which would create delays and additional notary cost. It costs some money, but is worth ensuring it doesn't cause chaos afterwards.<p>1. Get "Vorabstellungnahme" from IHK, takes a few hours.<p>2. E-mail notary (yes I've worked with them a couple times, that might speed up their response time), get pre-fab founding docs within a few hours, appointment next day. Digital version of the founding docs will be available within a few hours.<p>3. Create account with Qonto or something equivalent, there's an explicit configuration for your notary email, so they will take care of providing proof of the starting capital.<p>4. Transfer starting capital.<p>5. Notary hands in Handelsregisteranmeldung, sends you a copy and upload it to your bank.<p>In practice, I find the founding process not complicated, but the day-to-day operation, bookkeeping, taxes, etc. way more painful.<p>Founding a GmbH wholly owned by a Delaware C-Corp, however, is intensely painful, practically no bank wants to work with you, and notaries aren't enough, you need to work with apostilles (international notaries). I highly recommend working with a law firm to set this up correctly but expect easily upwards of $10k between lawyer, apostille, and bank account costs.