The schedule
| Phase | Working days | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement and intake | Day 0–1 | Document checklist issued, name check, notary instructed, articles drafted |
| Documents and legalisation | Day 1–5 | Apostille or consular legalisation, sworn translations, power of attorney executed, address agreement in place |
| Notarial deed | Day 5–10 | Deed passed; registration with the Chamber of Commerce (KVK) and of the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO), usually the same day |
| Tax registrations | Week 2–4 | Corporate income tax and VAT (value-added tax) numbers issued by the tax administration |
| Banking | Week 4–8 | Bank application decided; a regulated electronic money institution account can run live from week one in parallel |
The company legally exists from the moment the deed passes, so it can contract, hire and invoice from that day. The registrations that follow give it the numbers it needs to file and to be paid.
What runs in parallel
The schedule above compresses because four workstreams overlap rather than queue. Legalisation starts on day one and runs in the background. The articles of association are drafted while documents travel. The registered address is arranged in the same week, since the notary needs it before the deed. And the banking file is assembled during the wait, so that the application is ready to submit the moment the KVK number exists.
Owners who treat these as sequential steps routinely take four to six weeks for the same result.
The two things that cause delay
Legalisation is the critical path, every time. An apostille in a convention country takes days; consular legalisation outside the convention takes weeks and varies by mission. This is the one item with an external clock, and it decides whether the ten-day schedule holds. Starting it before anything else is the single highest-value scheduling decision.
Document freshness quietly resets the clock. Corporate extracts and proof of address carry a validity window, often one to three months. A document that was recent when it left the registry can fall outside the window by the time the deed is scheduled, which means ordering and legalising again. Working backwards from the intended deed date avoids this entirely: the full document list sets out what to order and when.
The banking timeline, honestly
Account opening sits outside anyone’s control except the bank’s. A well-prepared file with a clear business model, verifiable source of funds and a genuine address is decided in weeks; a thin file drifts for months or ends in a refusal that has to be started again elsewhere. Running a regulated electronic money institution (EMI) account in parallel gives the company payment capability from the first week, which removes the pressure from the bank timeline entirely.
When speed matters more than sequence
Companies with a fixed external deadline — a tender, a carrier agreement, a marketplace requirement, a supplier who needs an EU counterparty — benefit from starting legalisation before the engagement is even finalised, because it is the one step that runs on an external clock. Everything else in the schedule accelerates with attention; that one keeps its own pace.
For the wider picture of incorporating from outside the Netherlands, including the director and shareholder questions, see company formation from abroad.
Two steps further
Further along the same line: BV Incorporation Costs 2026 and Notary Fees for BV Incorporation.