Damn, we have it good in France. It costs less than 10 euros to open a micro-company and you only need to have a separate account in your personnal bank (you dont need to open a pro account) . Of course its limited in term of revenue you can make with it but it erase totally the "I cant do this one shot consulting gig a friend ask me to do"

What GP outlined was opening up a limited liability company in Germany, which comes with more liability protections than alternative company types, but also more responsibilities, which if you offload them to e.g. an accountant results in a non-negligable baseline cost.

If you were to open a sole proprietorship ("Einzelunternehmen"), or even just a "Gewerbe" for side-hustles, you can also get things up in a quite lean way and with low overhead costs.

> it erase totally the "I cant do this one shot consulting gig a friend ask me to do"

At leas in Germany, I think the bigger (perceived) hurdle is that most employment contracts state that side-gigs need to be announced to the employer, and just going through those motions is too much of a hurdle.