Moving to EU

[The Soup Dragon]

Is anyone else thinking about or looking into moving their business over to the EU?

I am thinking that ROI looks quite appealing as it is open to all UK citizens and of course would make things a whole lot easier for selling and shipping within the EU which we do a fair bit of.

Interested to hear peoples thoughts SD

 

[The Byre]

I thought it is closed to all UK subjects. Or am I missing something?

I have a German company already, so a foot in both camps. I am toying with the idea of developing a 'Help Brits sell to the EU and visa-versa!' type of company, but I want to see how much of a disaster Brexit becomes. If it all ends in tears, I might be onto a winner!

So here's hoping that we get empty shelves in the supermarkets and businesses unable to fathom out all the new paperwork. As we have a former head-of-duties-and-import-processes for a major international in our ranks, we could get off to a good start!

There are however some VERY dark clouds on the economic horizon and the more I look, the darker they get! I am keeping my powder dry for the time being.

 

[The Soup Dragon]

All UK citizens are allowed to go and live and work in ROI and vice versa. Travel at present may not be possible of course.

 

[Mr D]

No more closed than it was, except with quarantine / test results / fines . Just some different hoops to jump through - same as EU people wanting to come here.

 

[JPMiddleton]

All UK citizens are allowed to go and live and work in ROI and vice versa. Travel at present may not be possible of course.

The common travel area has been in place since 1922. The special status for Irish and UK citizens a long time also, not sure how long.. but it pre dates the EU as far as I know.

 

[Ray272]

All UK citizens are allowed to go and live and work in ROI and vice versa. Travel at present may not be possible of course.

I am considering this yes. Did you get to the part about a CRO bond of 25000 euros based on residency?

One other matter is shipping. Goods would need to go back through uk to get to EU. Adds 2 days shipping. Opens up idea of register in roi and store and ship from somewhere like NL.

Corp tax is just 12% in ROI.

I am looking at this seriously as there are many traders who have been chucked under the bus with these new rules.

I believe there is now a strategic advantage to ROI and if you have the knowledge of traders in your industry. Moving there may be appealing to them. Likewise your existing EU clients who may be put off from import from UK now, may seek to use you for additional biz of you are in ROI.

It's a scary thought at first but I just never had to consider this but the more I do think about the more I sense a business opp and that's difficult to ignore.

 

[The Soup Dragon]

I am considering this yes. Did you get to the part about a CRO bond of 25000 euros based on residency?

One other matter is shipping. Goods would need to go back through uk to get to EU. Adds 2 days shipping. Opens up idea of register in roi and store and ship from somewhere like NL.

Corp tax is just 12% in ROI.

I am looking at this seriously as there are many traders who have been chucked under the bus with these new rules.

I believe there is now a strategic advantage to ROI and if you have the knowledge of traders in your industry. Moving there may be appealing to them. Likewise your existing EU clients who may be put off from import from UK now, may seek to use you for additional biz of you are in ROI.

It's a scary thought at first but I just never had to consider this but the more I do think about the more I sense a business opp and that's difficult to ignore.

Yes that's my kind of thought process too but didnt know about this 25K euro thing will have to google that. Surely there is shipping that goes from Cork to Europe? We often send stuff by air too.

 

[Ray272]

Yes that's my kind of thought process too but didnt know about this 25K euro thing will have to google that. Surely there is shipping that goes from Cork to Europe? We often send stuff by air too.

It's based on residency it's a bond CRO non residents Bond but I believe if in UK resident it does not apply but may be change to that rule due to..you guessed it. Brexit.

If you moved to ROI you would definitely not be subject to that bond.

 

[The Soup Dragon]

It's based on residency it's a bond CRO non residents Bond but I believe if in UK resident it does not apply but may be change to that rule due to..you guessed it. Brexit.

If you moved to ROI you would definitely not be subject to that bond.

I would move there

 

[Ray272]

I would move there

Then you must have been doing 80% of business in EU to be serious.

Traders, especially niche biz need to give this option serious thought.

A lot of industries and business between US/UK is also at stake.

Example: US manufacturers in many cases prove all EU leads to UK dist partners. This used to make developing biz easier but what an EU enquiry could now object to this referral citing the brexit effect.

I have only been thinking about this since this month after seeing all the hurdles go up and the difficulties ahead but if I was in ROI now surely they are realising this advantage? It's not just the big companies who can benefit from ROI set up.

 

[The Soup Dragon]

This post has raised an issue that I hope someone may know the answer to.

Does anyone now what the usual courier routing of parcels by road is from ROI to EU. Does it hop on the ferry at Cork and land at Roscoff for onward travel?

 

[MBE2017]

This post has raised an issue that I hope someone may know the answer to.

Does anyone now what the usual courier routing of parcels by road is from ROI to EU. Does it hop on the ferry at Cork and land at Roscoff for onward travel?

The usual routing is through the UK. The ferry companies are looking at increasing direct links, but it will take a fair bit of time.

 

[DefinitelyMaybeUK]

Holyhead demand has fallen off it seems from this article and there's a couple of new direct sailings offered:
irishtimes [dot] com/news/ireland/irish-news/ferry-firms-offer-new-ireland-to-france-sailings-due-to-brexit-delays-1.4460384

 

[The Byre]

Although mostly ro-ro traffic to Roscoff, there is now a Cork-Zeebrugge container link as well (two sailings a week) and Cork has put in a couple of container cranes for unaccompanied freight. There are also several Dublin-Zeebrugge and Dublin-Roscoff sailings.

'Supply Chain Solutions' seems to do much or most of the contracted big supermarket stuff from France, Belgium and Holland to Ireland. These people might help with specific questions - https://www.freightlink.co.uk/ferry-country/ferries-republic-ireland

 

[SillyBill]

We looked into Ireland a few years ago but it'd have involved getting an Irish owner of the subsidiary if I recall as neither me nor my business partner would satisfy the residency requirement. So we canned it. We do a lot of Irish business and were looking into it as a tax dodge in honesty, selling to an Irish office based distributor which would distribute our product to our Irish customers (and paying Irish Corp tax on those profits).

I've just a had a proposal from my accountant to set up and run a NI based company though which would sit outside our Group but will have a NI VAT number and most importantly for us allow us to interact with the EHCA through it with respect to chemical registrations/notifications etc. (NI is covered by EU chemical regs). We then plan to counter invoice our main business all of the regulatory stuff our NI business will do on behalf of our UK business. It will have one customer in effect, our UK business.

For all the huffing and puffing it took the best part of half a morning to research and get the above in motion and seems a good workaround for what we need to do (chemicals), it will cost us not very much at all to run each year for a big market for us so not a hardship. I think non-exporters ("UK & EU" only businesses) are having a hard time in the early days as a lot of the paperwork and terms will be new to them, for the rest of us its just extending the same processes across another market so our only frustration has been haulier delays while everyone else gets up to speed. We're 30 days in and I'm amazed it has been as smooth as it has in honesty.