Next Biz Thing #391 intercompanysolutions.com
Intercompany Solutions https://www.intercompanysolutions.com
This episode of The Next Biz Thing visits Intercompany Solutions, a Rotterdam based firm that incorporates Dutch BV companies for international entrepreneurs in three to five business days, entirely remotely. Markus J. Diplama walks through why the Netherlands is such a strategic entry point into the European market, what a Dutch BV actually gives a founder, and why keeping incorporation, accounting, tax, compliance and payroll under one integrated team matters so much when you are operating from another country. A useful listen for anyone weighing a European base for their business.
Somewhere in the world right now, there is a person with a business idea good enough to work almost anywhere. They have the product. They have the customers lined up. And they are about to stall for six months, not because the idea was wrong, but because they cannot figure out how to legally exist in the country where they want to trade.
That gap, between having a business and being allowed to be a business, is one of the most underrated obstacles in international entrepreneurship. And it is the gap that today's company has spent years learning to close.
Welcome back to The Next Biz Thing. I am Markus J. Diplama, and this is the show where we look at the companies making difficult things simple, often in corners of the economy that nobody writes headlines about. Today we are in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and we are talking about a firm called Intercompany Solutions. If you have ever thought about opening a business in Europe, or you are simply curious about how cross border company formation actually works, stay with me, because this one is a genuinely useful education.
Let me start with why the Netherlands, specifically. Because if you have not looked at this before, the answer is more interesting than you might expect. The Netherlands sits at the logistical heart of Europe. Rotterdam is one of the largest ports on the continent. Amsterdam is a major air and data hub. The country offers full access to the European single market, an extensive network of tax treaties, an exceptionally high level of English proficiency in business, and a legal environment that international investors have trusted for a very long time.
Then there is the Dutch BV, the besloten vennootschap, which is the Dutch equivalent of a private limited company. It is the workhorse structure for foreign entrepreneurs entering Europe. Limited liability, a well understood legal framework, and credibility with European banks, suppliers, and customers. For a lot of businesses looking at Europe, the Dutch BV is simply the most sensible door to walk through.
The catch, of course, is the walking through part. Company formation in a country you do not live in involves notarial deeds, chamber of commerce registration, tax registration, VAT applications, a registered address, bank arrangements, and ongoing filing obligations that begin the moment the entity exists. Every one of those steps has its own requirements and its own way of going wrong. And if you are sitting in another country, in another time zone, speaking another language, each step is a place where momentum dies.
This is where Intercompany Solutions comes in. Based at Beursplein 37 in Rotterdam, they are a professional services firm specialising in Dutch company incorporation and everything that comes after it. And the number they lead with is worth pausing on. They set up a Dutch BV in three to five business days.
Three to five days. Not three to five months. And crucially, they do it one hundred percent remotely. You do not need to fly to Rotterdam. You do not need to sit in a notary's office in person. The process is designed from the ground up for an entrepreneur who is somewhere else in the world and wants to be operating in Europe quickly.
Now I want to be careful here, because speed on its own is not impressive. Speed matters only when the thing being done quickly is also being done right. And what makes their model work is that incorporation is not where their involvement ends. It is where it starts.
Once your company exists, you inherit a set of ongoing obligations. Bookkeeping. VAT returns filed on schedule. Corporate tax. Annual reporting to the chamber of commerce. Payroll if you hire anyone. None of these are optional, and all of them carry consequences if they slip. Intercompany Solutions handles all of it. Accounting, tax filings, VAT applications, corporate secretarial work, compliance support, and payroll, all under the same roof as the incorporation itself.
I think that integration is the real story. Consider the alternative, which is what most people end up doing. You use one provider to incorporate. You find an accountant separately. You engage a lawyer when something legal arises. You add a payroll provider when you hire. Now you have four relationships, four sets of fees, and four parties who each have partial visibility into your situation. When a question sits at the intersection of tax and corporate law, which many of the important questions do, nobody owns the answer. You become the project manager of your own compliance, in a country whose rules you do not know.
One integrated team removes that. The people who formed your company are the people who file your returns and the people who advise you on structure. Context does not have to be rebuilt every time you ask a question. And for a foreign entrepreneur, that continuity is worth an enormous amount.
Let me talk about scale, because it tells you something about how tested this process is. Since 2017, Intercompany Solutions has served more than two thousand clients from over fifty countries. Sit with those two numbers together for a moment. Two thousand incorporations means the process is not being improvised. Fifty countries means they have dealt with the specific documentation, identity verification, and cross border quirks that come with founders from wildly different jurisdictions. The founder from Singapore and the founder from Brazil do not present the same paperwork challenges. Having handled both, many times, is exactly the kind of experience you want behind you when you are the one filing.
They also commit to responding within twenty four hours. That sounds like a small operational detail, and it is the kind of thing companies say all the time. But when you are in another time zone waiting to know whether your entity is registered so you can open a bank account so you can invoice a customer, a twenty four hour response window is not a nicety. It is the difference between a process that feels alive and one that feels abandoned.
On credentials, the firm holds memberships with the International Bar Association, the Dutch Bar Association, and the International Fiscal Association. Those memberships matter for a practical reason. They signal that the people advising you sit inside professional communities with standards, continuing education, and accountability, rather than operating as an unaffiliated intermediary. When someone is advising you on the structure of your European operations, knowing they are embedded in the professional bodies that govern that work is genuinely reassuring. The firm has also been referenced by outlets including CBC News and specialist tax publications.
The company itself is a registered Dutch entity, with a Dutch chamber of commerce registration number and a VAT number published openly on their site. That transparency is a quiet signal. A firm that publishes its own registration details is a firm that expects you to check.
What comes through in client feedback is not speed, interestingly. It is explanation. One reviewer highlighted that their advisor took the time to clearly explain the entire process of forming a Dutch BV. I keep coming back to that, because it captures something important about this kind of work. A client who is incorporating abroad for the first time does not just want the task completed. They want to understand what has been created in their name, what obligations now attach to them, and what happens next. Taking the time to explain is a choice. It is slower in the moment and it builds a client who actually knows what they own.
Let me widen the lens, because I think there is a real shift happening underneath all of this. The barrier to building an international business used to be capital and connections. You needed money and you needed people on the ground. Increasingly, the binding constraint is administrative. The product can be built anywhere, the customers can be found anywhere, and the payments can move anywhere. What remains stubbornly local is the legal and fiscal architecture. Every country still has its own registry, its own tax authority, its own filing calendar.
So the firms that make that architecture navigable are doing something more consequential than paperwork. They are widening the set of people who can realistically build across borders. When forming a European entity requires no flight, no relocation, and under a week, a founder in Lagos or Manila or São Paulo has a genuine route into the European market that simply did not exist in practical terms a generation ago. That is not a small thing.
Intercompany Solutions is one of the firms doing that work, in one of the most strategically useful jurisdictions in the world, with a model built specifically for people who are not in the room. Fast, remote, integrated, and by the look of their client base, well practiced.
So if you are considering a European base for your business, or you already sell into Europe and you are starting to wonder whether an entity there would make things simpler, Intercompany Solutions is a good place to start the conversation. Whether you need the full incorporation or you already have a Dutch entity and want the accounting and tax handled by people who know the terrain, they cover the whole span. And if you are only at the curious stage, still weighing whether Europe makes sense for you at all, they are the kind of firm that can tell you honestly what you would be taking on.
That is our episode. Thank you for spending this time with me. If today's story gave you something, follow the show so the next business we spotlight reaches you too. I am Markus J. Diplama, and this has been The Next Biz Thing. Until next time, keep building.
