The European Company (SE) had a relatively slow take-off during the first years following the entry into force of the SE legislation in October 2004. There were two reasons at the beginning: there was a certain reluctance towards a completely new company form and implementation of the SE Directive in a number of Member States was delayed. In 2008, the number of new SE registrations doubled from 88 (2007) to 174 new SEs. In the following two years the acceleration halted again. However, in 2011 the number of SE registrations rose again sharply, with 362 newly set-up SEs (compared to 211 new SEs in 2010). In 2012, another peak was seen, with 569 SEs registered.

A large part of SE dynamics can in recent years be attributed to the Czech Republic. The country hosts 70 % of currently registered SEs set-up in the 30 countries of the European Economic Area (7 countries + Croatia host none). Between 2011-2014, four out of five SEs (78%) were set up in the Czech Republic.