Guide
EU Market Entry
How US manufacturers reach European customers: distributors and agents, who carries the importer's obligations, and the contract terms that behave nothing like a US rep agreement.
Articles in This Series
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EU Market Entry for US Companies: How to Reach European Customers
EU market entry for US companies: who can act as your EU importer, what CE marking costs in calendar time, and the narrow cases that force an EU entity.
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How to Find Distributors in Europe: A Guide for US Manufacturers
How to find distributors in Europe: where they are, how to qualify them, what a partner search costs, and the statutory termination claim US firms miss.
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American companies usually plan European entry as a legal project. They incorporate a GmbH, register for VAT, and 18 months later they own a German entity and no customers. For a physical product the order is backwards. The first European sale comes through a channel partner, and the entity, if it ever happens, comes after that partner proves the market exists.
Most industrial products don't need a European entity at all. The distributor or the customer takes on the importer's obligations under EU product law, and a US company can sell into the EU without incorporating anywhere. What forces an entity is hiring people, holding consignment stock, or bidding public tenders. Selling alone doesn't.
The part that catches US exporters is the contract. A German Handelsvertreter has a statutory claim to compensation when you terminate, calculated from the business they built, and you can't write it out of the agreement. Europe also isn't one market: a distributor who covers Germany well is usually the wrong answer for Italy or the Nordics. These guides cover what that means in practice.