Setting up a holding in 2026: full budget (online vs firm)

Updated May 12, 2026 — reviewed by Samuel HAYOT, chartered accountant. Online business-creation platforms advertise holding packages at EUR 199 excl. VAT when a chartered accountant firm bills EUR 1,500 to EUR 3,500 excl. VAT for the same operation. A factor-of-ten gap deserves a real reading: what does each option cover, where is the hidden surcharge, and when does the initial saving become a loss 12 to 24 months later? This guide prices each line of the real budget (formalities, bylaws, legal notice, capital, advice) and compares the two creation paths.

Our reading. The online platform is rational for around 30% of the cases we see — typically a pure holding without share contribution, without a tax consolidation project, without a transmission plan. For the remaining 70% (contribution of existing shares, active holding, Dutreil agreement, post-buyout setup), we systematically have to rewrite the clauses and the documentation. The initial "EUR 199" then becomes EUR 1,800 to EUR 2,500 of rework, and the operation would have cost less in a firm from the start.

• INPI / one-stop-shop administrative fees: EUR 60 to 120 excl. VAT depending on the legal form (SAS, SARL holding).
• Legal notice: EUR 150 to 250 excl. VAT in the Paris region, EUR 130 to 200 excl. VAT elsewhere in France.
• Drafting of bylaws (basic platform): EUR 0 to 250 excl. VAT — generic templates, poorly adapted to contribution clauses or active-holding clauses.
• Drafting of bylaws (firm): EUR 800 to 2,000 excl. VAT — tailor-made clauses for the corporate purpose, the active-holding role, the intragroup agreements and the dividend upstream rules.
• Capital deposit: free in most professional banks, or EUR 0 to 100 excl. VAT at a notary if the capital is contributed in kind.
• Upstream advisory fees (scheme preparation): EUR 0 in self-diagnosis, EUR 500 to 1,500 excl. VAT for a framing memo from your chartered accountant.
• Annual accounting of the holding: EUR 1,200 to 3,000 excl. VAT per year depending on the volume of intragroup operations and the complexity of the parent-subsidiary regime or the tax consolidation regime.

For more depth, see Holding company: advantages and disadvantages, Business creation: expert package and Chartered accountant fee simulator.

Formality fees#

The one-stop-shop for formalities (guichet unique) and the prices published by the INPI (French intellectual property office) provide a baseline for the administrative costs of registration and amendment, depending on the type of entity and the act. These fees are uniform across France and do not depend on the chosen provider.

Legal notice#

Except in specific cases, the creation of a company also requires a paid legal notice published in an authorised journal. The price varies by region and by the length of the notice.

Drafting of the bylaws#

A low-cost platform may display a headline price, but the quality of the holding-specific clauses is decisive: corporate purpose, active-holding role, intragroup flows, governance and dividend upstream rules. A standard template designed for a single operating company is rarely sufficient.

• A poorly designed capital structure;
• Mis-read taxation;
• Lack of consistency with the companies held;
• Later rework of the legal and accounting documentation;
• Loss of access to the parent-subsidiary regime because the bylaws are not aligned;
• Costly amendments to integrate the holding into a future tax consolidation.

On a holding company, the cost of a bad setup can very quickly exceed the saving made at the start. This is particularly true if the holding company is meant to be used for transmission, for the parent-subsidiary regime, for active animation or for a buyout. In every one of these cases, the bylaws and the intragroup agreements are load-bearing — and a generic template rarely carries that load.

Hayot Expertise advice: for a holding company, the real cost is not the cost of the form. It is the cost of a setup that does not actually serve your project.

The cost of an online holding company is never reduced to the displayed price. To compare correctly, you have to distinguish several blocks: incorporation fees, administrative formalities, publication, ancillary deeds, annual accounting and, sometimes, strategic advice. The full budget is the sum of all these items.

The first layer of spending is often visible: drafting the bylaws, filing the application, publishing the legal notice and registering through the one-stop-shop. But a holding company is rarely a simple registration project. As soon as there is a share contribution, a family holding, an intragroup agreement or a buyout objective, the securing work increases — and so does the cost of doing it well.

The second layer, less visible, is the quality of the setup. The clauses of the bylaws, the corporate purpose, the governance, the role of the holding company and the links with the subsidiaries all need to be coherent. A headline price may look reassuring, but it does not guarantee that the scheme will hold up over time, especially when faced with a bank financing request, a transmission or a tax audit.

This table helps read the topic more accurately. The real cost gap does not sit only between two platforms; it sits between a standard scheme and a scheme adapted to your wealth or entrepreneurial path.

Three parameters change the bill significantly. First, the legal form: a SAS (simplified joint-stock company) and a SARL (limited liability company) do not read the same way in terms of governance or flexibility. Second, the nature of the project: a holding company used to upstream dividends does not require the same deeds as a family holding or a buyout holding. Third, the depth of support: simple creation, creation with audit, or creation with a full architecture.

In practice, official fees are often easier to read than advisory fees. That is normal. Official fees correspond to fixed or regulated formalities. Advice, on the other hand, depends on the level of risk, the number of companies involved and the documentation needs. A structure without solid documentation becomes more expensive later — sometimes much later, when a bank or the DGFiP (French tax authority) starts asking questions.

The biggest budget gap often comes from hidden costs. A holding company set up too quickly may later require a full rework of the bylaws, agreements, accounting or taxation. The manager then pays twice: once to move fast, once to fix it. Over a 24-month horizon, the second bill often exceeds the first one by a wide margin.

You also have to think about the annual cost. A holding company does not stop at registration. It has to keep proper accounting, organise its decisions, track its flows and meet its tax obligations. Over a horizon of several years, this recurring cost often weighs more than the initial headline price. A holding billed EUR 2,500 a year for five years represents EUR 12,500 — a budget that deserves attention from day one, in the same way as the entry ticket.

An online setup can be sufficient for a very simple project: one single company, few flows, no complex contribution and clear governance. In that case, a well-executed standard service can be perfectly relevant.

As soon as a buyout, a transmission, a group scheme or a family logic is involved, the need changes. It is no longer only a matter of creating a company; it is about defining an economic role, a documentation framework and flow pathways. That is often where the "cheap" creation becomes misleading. The platform delivers a registered company; it does not deliver a usable holding architecture.

Before validating an offer:

• Ask exactly what is included;
• Check whether the bylaws are adapted to a holding company and not only to a standard operating company;
• Verify whether the legal notice, the filing and the registration are included;
• Ask whether post-creation follow-up is provided;
• Have the platform confirm how special cases are handled: share contribution, active holding, family holding, intragroup agreement;
• Ask who will be your interlocutor in case of a problem after registration (and whether that follow-up is billed separately).

These checks take little time and avoid much more expensive corrections later. They are also the best way to compare offers that do not cover the same scope. In our experience, two quotes that look comparable on the surface often differ by EUR 1,500 to 2,000 once the perimeter is properly described.

We price with you the full cost of an online or tailor-made holding company, then we validate whether this structure is relevant before launch. Our role is to position the right cursor between speed of execution and quality of documentation — and to avoid the typical rework that affects holdings created in a hurry.

Quick link: Evaluate the full cost of your holding project

In 2026, the costs of creating an online holding company must be read globally. Visible costs are only part of the story. The real saving consists of avoiding a poorly structured holding company. The right question is not "what is the cheapest creation?" but "what is the full cost over 3 years of a holding company that actually serves my project?"

(Official sources: Entreprendre.Service-Public.fr — choice of legal form and one-stop-shop for formalities; INPI — fees.)