What actually counts as a qualification for the Luxembourg business permit

Whether the Luxembourg business permit (autorisation d'établissement) needs a qualification depends on the list your activity sits on. For ordinary commerce and services, the requirement is none — no professional qualification is required for commercial activities that are not otherwise regulated. A list A craft trade needs a master craftsman's certificate (brevet de maîtrise) covering the craft activity in question or its essential parts, or a vocational diploma (DAP) plus 6 years of practice.

A list B craft accepts 3 years of experience instead of the diploma. For list C, none — carrying on a list C craft activity requires no professional qualification. The chancellery duty is €50, and the ministry has 3 months to decide under the rules in force in 2026.

Deciding whether you qualify means checking your qualification against the declared activity and building the attestation file the ministry will assess.

See how the business permit application works

What does each category of activity require?

Qualification is one of five permit conditions: professional integrity, professional qualification in line with the planned activity, establishment in Luxembourg, effective and permanent management of the business by the permit holder, and compliance with tax and business obligations.

Two of the others sink files first: establishment needs an appropriate physical installation, adapted to the nature and the scale of the activities carried on, so an address alone does not qualify. The tax condition is personal: the manager must not have evaded business and tax obligations, including withholding tax, in previous or current business activities.

Commercial activities: when is the bar zero?

Trading, e-commerce and most services need no diploma, and every exception is named in law. The activity wording on the application decides which regime applies, so a file describing regulated work in unregulated language comes back.

Hospitality is the clearest exception: the manager must hold a business permit in order to operate a drinking and catering establishment. Its qualification is the HoReCa access course, with one exemption: one year of professional experience, evidenced by a Centre commun de la sécurité sociale affiliation certificate or an EC certificate from the country of origin, may exempt the applicant from the HoReCa access course.

Advisory work is easily misread: business permits are no longer issued for economic advice and advisory activities; the persons concerned must instead apply for a permit for commercial activities and services. That changes the permit an adviser applies for, not the qualification bar.

Some activities need no permit at all, including journalistic or book authoring activities that do not involve self-publishing, and an entrepreneurial school project whose annual turnover stays below €35,000 excluding tax.

Craft trades: what replaces the brevet de maîtrise?

Each craft trade is named on list A, B or C, and the list decides the bar, not the size of the business. For list A, the loi du 2 septembre 2011 sets the baseline at a master craftsman's certificate (brevet de maîtrise) covering the craft activity in question or its essential parts.

Without that certificate, guichet publishes four alternative routes, each pairing a qualification with practice.

List B is lighter: 3 years of professional experience can replace the vocational diploma. Check the overlap rule before splitting a business in two: a craftsman already authorised for a list A activity may also carry out a list B activity belonging to the same technical group. For list C, none — carrying on a list C craft activity requires no professional qualification.

Experience proves only the trade it was earned in, so years in a trade you are leaving do not support a permit for a new one.

What goes in the evidence file for the DAP route?

The ministry assesses documents, not biographies. On the diploma-plus-experience route, the file has to make 6 years legible on paper:

1. The DAP itself, in the trade being declared, not an adjacent one.
2. An attestation for every period claimed, naming role, employer and exact dates, so the years add up without gaps.
3. Payroll or social-security records for the same periods, because two independent documents end the discussion.
4. The integrity documents for the person who will hold the permit.
5. Proof of the €50 chancellery duty.

Rejections nearly always follow one pattern: real experience, no paper. Time worked without an employer attestation is time the ministry cannot see, and former employers get harder to reach every year.

Liberal professions: which ones run through the permit?

These liberal professions run through the business permit: architect, interior architect, landscape architect or landscape engineer, construction engineer, independent engineer in a discipline other than construction, surveyor, town and country planner, chartered accountant, accountant and patent attorney.

An accountant (comptable) needs a technical secondary school graduation diploma (diplôme de fin d'études secondaires techniques ou de technicien) in the administrative and commercial division or equivalent, with 3 years of professional practice. A chartered accountant (expert-comptable) needs a bachelor's degree in economics, finance, management, business law or equivalent, also with 3 years.

Others need a separate authorisation, which no business permit replaces: the profession of auditor, supervised by the CSSF and controlled by the Institut des réviseurs d'entreprises; other financial-sector professions, which require an authorisation or accreditation from either the Minister of Justice or the CSSF; the profession of lawyer, which requires an authorisation from the Ministry of Justice; and medical professions (physician, dentist, veterinary surgeon, pharmacist) and health professions (nurse, midwife, physiotherapist and others), which require a permit from the Ministry of Health and Social Security.

Who has to hold the qualification?

The qualification attaches to the manager, a role the law defines tightly: the manager must ensure day-to-day management of the business effectively and permanently, through a physical presence at the establishment. The manager must also be the owner of the business where the activity is carried on in a personal name, or entered in the Trade and Companies Register as the company's mandataire where it is a company.

Integrity must be proved by the manager of the business in whose name the permit will be issued; and, where the business is operated as a company, also the person holding the majority of the shares and anyone who can exert a significant influence on the management or administration of the business.

Several disqualifying acts concern paperwork, not crime. Tax returns left unfiled for 2 financial years within a 3-year period disqualify, as does a company left out of the Register of Beneficial Owners for 6 months. Another is making false statements or using forged documents to apply for a business permit, which is why a nominal manager is a poor plan.

A founder without the qualification can engage a qualified manager who genuinely runs the business, obtain the qualification, or narrow the declared activity to fit the evidence.

Foreign diplomas and the clock

Experience earned abroad is proved with the same employer attestations, but a foreign diploma that has to be recognised can extend the ministry's decision window by 1 month.

Recognition runs in its own queue, so start it before the permit file, not alongside it. The ministry acknowledges receipt within 15 days, then has 3 months to decide, and the absence of a ministerial reply before the end of the 3-month period counts as a tacit authorisation.

For a new company, the articles of association must be registered with the Trade and Companies Register before the permit is definitively granted. The permit and the RCS registration interlock rather than queue.

What happens if the file is refused?

A refusal is an administrative decision against which the usual means of appeal can be used, provided the legal deadlines are complied with. It names the condition that failed, so the fix is a document, a narrower declared activity or a different permit holder.

That fix costs less before filing than after. Checking the qualification against the declared activity and building the attestation file belongs before the €50 duty is paid and the 3-month clock starts.