Start-up founders struggle with basic banking in financial centre
Over the past few years, Luxembourg has taken steps to position itself as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship, but for many start-ups and small businesses one fundamental hurdle stands in the way: opening and maintaining a bank account.
Complaints from within the ecosystem about the difficulty of doing business have been long-standing. Some entrepreneurs, like Finnish founder Timo Nurminen, have grown so frustrated with the process that they have moved their companies out of the country altogether.
“Luxembourg was very actively promoting the country as a start-up friendly ecosystem and [the] ease of doing business,” he said about launching his start-up in Luxembourg in 2022. “No one mentioned that banks do not open normal company IBAN account for legally incorporated Luxembourg-based SMEs.”
Business lobby urges Luxembourg to target disillusioned UK ‘non-doms’
The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) in Luxembourg has urged the government to market itself as an alternative destination for wealthy individuals from the UK following London’s decision to abolish non-dom tax status from this week.
Last year, the Labour government in the UK announced it would scrap the non-dom status from Sunday, 6 April. The status allows UK residents to designate a permanent domicile outside the country for tax purposes.
“The axing of the ‘non-dom’ regime represents a momentous change in the UK’s tax framework, and for many wealthy individuals this underscores the importance of proactively exploring alternative jurisdictions before April 2025. Italy and Switzerland are currently viewed as compelling European alternatives,” said Jonathan Norman, the chair of the BCC’s Tax Group.
Expats beware: 2 in 3 jobs in Luxembourg require French
Want to land a job in Luxembourg? Better brush up on your French. More than 70% of job postings in the Grand Duchy require French proficiency, with the level of fluency required rising rather than diminishing, according to data by employment office Adem and frustrated testimonials by international applicants in the labour market.
“I have a strong profile, even Adem acknowledges that. But I don’t know French, and that’s the main obstacle,” said Parvathy*, a former Facebook and Amazon employee looking for work in Luxembourg. “How can you expect someone from outside Luxembourg to have both the job expertise and fluency in multiple languages?”
As of February 2025, Adem was recruiting for 7,202 vacant positions. Of those, 49% required English at an intermediate or advanced level (B or C), but only 21% listed English as the sole mandatory language, without the need for French, German or Luxembourgish. More than half (51%) of vacancies did not require English at all.
‘Palestinians are invisible,’ says envoy ahead of Luxembourg meeting
As the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa are due to meet for a first high-level dialogue in Luxembourg on 14 April, the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to the EU has warned that the bloc risks being complicit in atrocities committed by Israel.
“I feel here in Europe that we Palestinians are invisible,” Amal Jadou told the Luxembourg Times in an interview. “Every day we wake up to more and more killing.”
Jadou has been the Palestinian ambassador to the EU, Belgium and Luxembourg since October 2024. She previously served as deputy foreign minister and as assistant minister for European affairs.
Major gaps in oversight of EU funding to NGOs, auditors warn
The EU handed out more than €7 billion in funding to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) between 2021 and 2023 despite major gaps in oversight, the bloc’s Luxembourg-based budget watchdog said Monday.
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) said that despite improvements since a previous report in 2018, “information on EU funding awarded to NGOs that are active in the bloc’s internal policies remains inaccurate and incomplete.”
Over a two-year period from 2021, civil society groups were awarded €7.4 billion – comprising €4.8 from the commission and €2.6 billion from member states – for work across key EU policy areas such as migration, research and the environment.
However, the ECA said there is “no reliable overview” of the funding.