Updated 21 August 2026 · 7 min read
Letterbox companies in Luxembourg — an address is not an establishment.
Luxembourg does not issue a business permit to a company that has nothing but an address. Guichet.lu sets out three cumulative conditions: professional integrity, a professional qualification matching the intended activity, and the existence in Luxembourg of appropriate physical premises — the permit further presupposing effective and permanent management of the business by its holder. These words have a precise meaning: there must be a place from which the activity is genuinely carried on, and management that genuinely manages, from Luxembourg. A company set up to hold an address, a vehicle or an invoice while nothing actually happens there meets none of these conditions, and the exposure does not stop at a refused permit: it is fiscal and criminal, in the country of residence as much as in Luxembourg. This is not a grey area to be negotiated; it is a condition that is either met or not.
The rule, as written
The permit requires professional integrity, a professional qualification matching the intended activity, and appropriate physical premises in Luxembourg. It presupposes effective and permanent management of the business by the permit holder.
Source : Guichet.lu — source updated 14 July 2025 · checked on 21 August 2026
What the law requires is therefore not a mere address, but appropriate physical premises, assessed against the activity. A solo consultant and a machine shop do not have the same needs, and the word “appropriate” means exactly that — proportionate to what you do, not symbolic.
The second half of the rule is forgotten more often than the first: effective and permanent management. A director who does not direct, or directs from another country, does not satisfy this condition — whatever the quality of the address.
What this rules out, plainly
Three projects are put to us regularly. None of them works, and it is better to read that here than to learn it after paying a notary.
- A Luxembourg company set up to register a vehicle that is used and kept abroad, with no activity in Luxembourg. Physical premises and effective management are absent; in the country of residence this is tax fraud.
- A company whose management, clients and work are in another country, and of which only the registered office is Luxembourgish. What is examined is the place of effective management, not the address in the articles.
- A structure meant to invoice an activity carried on elsewhere, to benefit from a regime perceived as more favourable. The real place of activity prevails over the contractual façade.
What does hold up, by contrast
Substance is not a question of size. A single self-employed person with a real place of work in Luxembourg, management exercised from Luxembourg and an activity that takes place there meets the condition as well as a group does. What is examined is whether what is declared matches what happens.
The chancellery fee for the issue of a business permit is EUR 50.
Source : Guichet.lu — source updated 14 July 2025 · checked on 21 August 2026
The cost of the permit was never the issue. What is expensive is a refused application, because the premises did not match the declared activity — and a refusal is not fixed by changing address.
Frequently asked questions
- Is a business address enough?
- No. The condition is the existence in Luxembourg of appropriate physical premises, assessed against the activity, and the permit presupposes effective and permanent management of the business by its holder. An address is one element of the file, never the condition itself.
- Can a non-resident set up a Luxembourg company?
- The partner’s residence is not in itself the obstacle: what is examined is the physical establishment in Luxembourg and effective, permanent management. A non-resident genuinely operating from Luxembourg is not in the same position as one who never sets foot there. Each case must be checked with the Ministry of the Economy.
- Can you set up several SARL-S companies to separate activities?
- No: Guichet.lu specifies that a natural person may be a partner in only one SARL-S at a time, unless shares are transferred upon a death. The SARL-S is reserved for natural persons. Separating several activities therefore requires another form, and should be thought through with qualified professionals.