Ten years on, the real Brexit story is what it did to small business founders

BY Liina Vahtras, Managing Director, e-Residency 

Most of the coverage marking ten years since the Brexit vote has looked at whether it worked. That’s a fair question, and one worth asking. But having spent the past decade working alongside thousands of UK entrepreneurs, I think there’s an equally important question that’s been largely overlooked; what Brexit pushed small businesses to become.

Founders haven’t become less ambitious, and they haven’t lost interest in Europe. Nearly three quarters of the entrepreneurs we surveyed (74%) still see Europe as their preferred market for expansion, even as the practical experience of trading with the EU has become harder. What has changed is how much time, administration and cost it now takes to turn that ambition into reality, and who ends up carrying that cost.

Same rules, different impact

When new trading and customs requirements came in, they applied equally to every business trading with the EU. On paper, that sounds fair. In practice, it hasn’t worked out that way. Larger businesses have been able to absorb those additional demands by expanding compliance teams and specialist functions, spreading the cost across departments and budgets that a small business simply doesn’t have. Founders have largely had to absorb the same requirements themselves, on top of the everyday demands of running a business; sales, hiring, cash flow and everything else that doesn’t pause to make room for new paperwork.

That pressure shows up clearly in the numbers. Analysis of research from the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade puts the additional paperwork created by Brexit at around two billion documents, enough to wrap around the world 15 times over. 

Adaptation has become part of the story

What has been striking over the past decade is how quickly entrepreneurs have adapted rather than retreated. Many have looked for different ways to stay connected to European markets, through remote company administration, online public services and digital identity schemes that reduce the practical barriers to trading across borders. e-Residency is a good example, allowing entrepreneurs to register and manage a company entirely online from anywhere in the world, cutting out much of the paperwork that can be paralyzing for a smaller business.

These are not a substitute for clearer rules, and they do not undo the changes Brexit brought about. But they do show how resourceful founders become when the systems around them get harder to navigate, and how much appetite there still is to keep operating across borders despite the friction involved.

This adaptability is also reflected in how entrepreneurs judge which countries are worth building relationships with in future. Nearly four in five of those we surveyed (79%) say government-backed digital infrastructure will determine which countries produce the next generation of global businesses. Ten years ago, that would have been a niche consideration for most founders. Today, it looks closer to a basic expectation of how cross-border business should work, alongside more familiar concerns like tax and market access.

What the next decade should focus on

What entrepreneurs consistently ask for is simplicity; systems that are easier to navigate, rules that are clear, and regulation that doesn’t fall hardest on the smallest businesses.

Over half of the founders we surveyed (51%) said faster, clearer regulation on AI and digital identity would do more for business confidence than any other single policy change on the table. That is a specific and answerable ask, and one that governments, including the UK’s, are in a position to act on now rather than waiting for the next major review.

Brexit tends to be measured in trade figures and GDP forecasts. Its less visible legacy is the resilience it has forced onto a generation of UK founders, who have built the habits, tools and workarounds needed to keep operating internationally as the trading landscape around them shifted.

The resilience is admirable. Whether it should have taken this much resilience is another matter. Ten years on, the more interesting question is not whether entrepreneurs still want to do business in Europe. The evidence suggests they do. It is whether governments can finally make that ambition easier to act on.