For the European tech ecosystem, “scale” has historically been a bug, not a feature. While the Single Market exists on paper, the underlying corporate layer has remained a patchwork of 27 legacy systems. At Empleyo , we’ve been tracking the push for a unified corporate protocol for years, and with the recent announcements at Davos 2026, the path to a borderless European company is finally crystallized.
From Manifesto to Mandate: The Origins of EU-Inc
The road to EU-Inc wasn’t built overnight. This 2027 rollout is the culmination of years of advocacy from the grassroots “EU-Inc” movement—a coalition of founders, researchers, and policy experts who argued that Europe’s fragmentation was its greatest self-imposed tax.
The momentum shifted from academic debate to legislative priority following the 2024 Draghi Report, which provided the empirical evidence that Europe’s “scaling gap” was directly tied to regulatory friction. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen codified this mission at Davos, asserting that the status quo was no longer an option for a competitive continent:
“For too long, our companies have been held back by the invisible borders of 27 different legal systems. The 28th regime is our answer is a native European solution designed to let our businesses breathe, grow, and lead from within our own borders.”
Engineering the ’28th Regime”
EU-Inc isn’t a replacement for national laws; it is an optional legal layer (the “28th regime”) that allows a company to exist as a truly European entity from day one. By choosing this path, founders opt into a harmonized environment specifically engineered for high-growth sectors.
Key Features of the 2027 Technical Roadmap include:
- The S.EU Entity: A new corporate designation—the Societas Europaea Inc.—that functions with full legal reciprocity across all Member States.
- Decoupling from Local Notary Latency: The framework mandates 48-hour digital incorporation. This moves the needle from weeks of manual, physical verification to a streamlined, digital-first registration process.+1
- The EU-ESOP Protocol: A unified framework for employee share ownership. Von der Leyen emphasized the human capital element at Davos:
“We must make it as easy to share success with employees in Warsaw as it is in Paris. A unified stock option plan is not just a legal tool; it is the engine of our future talent economy.” - Harmonized Investment Logic (EU-FAST): By standardizing the “legal plumbing” of funding rounds—such as convertible notes and shareholder rights, the EU-Inc framework reduces the legal overhead that currently eats into early-stage capital.
Why This is a Sovereign Milestone?
By moving toward a unified corporate code, Europe is finally addressing its “Series B Chasm.” Historically, companies reaching this stage were forced to spend significant resources re-mapping their legal structures just to expand across the street to a neighboring country.
As von der Leyen noted during her Davos address, the 28th regime is about European autonomy:
“Our goal is clear: an entrepreneur in Europe should be able to scale across our entire market as easily as they would in a single country. This is about building a European home for the next generation of global leaders.”
Looking Ahead
The legislative framework is set for a Q1 2026 submission, with 2027 earmarked as the official “Go Live” date for the first EU-Inc registrations. For our peers in the ecosystem, this represents the most significant upgrade to the European business operating system since the introduction of the Euro.
At Empleyo, we believe the 28th regime will be the default configuration for any founder looking to build a multi-market leader. The era of the “27-headed monster” is finally coming to a close.
