The proposal does not force anyone into the new form, and it does not strand you there. Article 21 sets out four ways an existing company can become a 28th regime company: a domestic conversion of one company, a domestic merger of several, a domestic division of one, or a cross-border conversion, division or merger involving limited liability companies.

For a single existing company, the relevant route is the domestic conversion. The proposal is explicit that this conversion would be governed by the national law of the company that is converting (Article 21(2)). So a GmbH converting in Germany would follow German conversion law; a BV in the Netherlands would follow Dutch law. The EU form is the destination, but the national rulebook gets you to the door.

There is a guardrail against using this to dodge a fresh company’s obligations. A company can only convert, merge or divide domestically once two years have passed since its registration, or once its first two sets of annual accounts have been approved (Article 21(4)). A company younger than that cannot flip into the new form on day one.

Cross-border cases are routed somewhere familiar. Creating a 28th regime company through a cross-border conversion, division or merger would be carried out under Chapters I, II and IV of Directive (EU) 2017/1132, the existing EU directive that already governs cross-border company operations (Article 21(5)). The proposal reuses machinery that company lawyers already know rather than inventing a new cross-border process.

And the exit exists. Article 21(6) is the mirror image: a 28th regime company may change back into a national limited liability company in the Member State where it is registered, using the same methods, with the same two-year wait before a domestic operation. The door swings both ways.

Here is the part most of the founder commentary leaves out. The proposal does not give you tax neutrality for converting.

The regulation is a corporate-law instrument. Its recitals are clear that, apart from the employee stock option scheme it calls the EU-ESO (the EU Employee Stock Option framework), it is not meant to harmonise taxation. Conversion tax treatment is therefore left to national law, and whether a conversion is tax-neutral, triggers a deemed disposal, or sits inside an existing reorganisation relief depends entirely on the jurisdiction you are converting in and out of.

That single fact reframes the whole decision. Moving an existing company into the 28th regime is not a corporate-law convenience you tick because a new form appeared. It is a tax and structuring decision wearing a corporate-law costume. The interesting question is never “can I convert”, because Article 21 says you can. The question is “what does my national tax system do to me on the way through”, and that is a question for an adviser who can see your actual balance sheet.

For a founder starting fresh, the new form is built to be easy: the proposal targets registration within 48 hours for 100 euros through the EU central interface using standard templates (Article 16), with a symbolic minimum capital of zero or one euro. Greenfield is where the 28th regime shines.

Conversion is the opposite case. You already have a company that works, with a tax history, a cap table, contracts, and a registered office. The proposal lets you move it, but it gives you no tax reason to rush and no deadline to beat. Add that the text itself can still change. The formation and internal-governance chapters, the ones that shape how heavy the form is to run, only entered detailed Council negotiation in June 2026, so the version you would convert into is not final.

For almost every founder reading this, the correct action today is nothing. Not “nothing” as in ignore it, but “nothing” as in keep your current company, understand the conversion path, and revisit it when the form is real and you can put a concrete tax answer next to a concrete benefit. The preparation that does pay off now is the groundwork that does not depend on the final text, which is exactly what the free readiness checklist is for.

If you have a specific reason to consider converting once the form exists, three questions decide most of it, and all three are local:

• What does conversion trigger under my national tax law, for the company and for me as a shareholder, and is there an existing reorganisation relief that covers it?
• What happens to employee participation and any co-determination obligations? The proposal points domestic cases to its own participation rule (Article 12(1)) and cross-border cases to the participation provisions of Directive (EU) 2017/1132.
• What moves with the company and what has to be re-papered: contracts, licences, the registered office, and your option pool, which carries as equity but whose tax timing is its own separate question under the EU-ESO.

None of those have a single EU answer, which is the honest takeaway. The 28th regime would standardise the company form. It would not standardise the tax road into it.

• 1 July 2026: Ireland takes over the six-month rotating Council presidency and has named the 28th regime (“EU Inc.”) as a priority file in its official programme. The presidency sets the Council agenda, so this affects the pace from here.
• Mid-July 2026: Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) is expected to take up the draft report from its rapporteur (the lead member steering the file), René Repasi. As of late June that draft had not yet appeared on the official procedure file, so its contents are still to be confirmed.
• September and October 2026: provisional JURI committee vote and a first European Parliament plenary vote.
• Availability: not before 2027 on the most optimistic reading, and later is widely expected.

The live version of this timeline, updated from the official procedure file (OEIL, the Parliament’s Legislative Observatory) and the Council register, is on the progress tracker.

• Proposal for a Regulation on the 28th regime corporate legal framework, “EU Inc.”, COM(2026) 321 final, 18 March 2026: Article 21 (creation through conversions, mergers and divisions) and Article 16 (fast-track formation). Procedure 2026/0074(COD).
• Directive (EU) 2017/1132 on certain aspects of company law: cross-border conversions, mergers and divisions, Chapters I, II and IV.
• The 28th Regime, progress tracker and timeline: the28thregime.eu/progress
• The 28th Regime, founder readiness checklist: founder.the28thregime.eu