The Tribunal confirms the commerciality of a one-off project with outsourced functions*

I. Introduction

In two judgments of 6 June 2025¹ the Administrative Tribunal of Luxembourg (the “Tribunal”) confirmed² that a Luxembourg limited partnership whose purpose and activities in practice are solely dedicated to making one single movie carries out a commercial activity for the purpose of municipal business tax application (the “MBT”).

Three points emerge in particular from these judgements. First, the isolated or one-off nature of a project does not, in itself, preclude permanence where the implementation of that project entails a sufficiently organized and continuous series of acts. Secondly, outsourcing substantial operational tasks does not prevent a finding of commerciality where the partnership retains meaningful powers, assumes relevant risks and appears on the market through contracts concluded in its own name. Thirdly, commerciality must be assessed on an entity-by-entity basis: the Tribunal rejected attempts to derive non-commerciality from the status or hypothetical status of an investor and held that neither the circular of 9 January 2015 nor article 14(4) LITL³ could support such a transposition.

II. Background

A. Legal background 

Partnerships are transparent for Luxembourg corporate income tax and net wealth tax purposes⁴. No taxation is … .

This article was first published in Revue générale de fiscalité luxembourgeoise, n°2, 2026, pp. 61-66. The full article is available on the Stradalex Luxembourg website under this link. Stradalex is a subscription based publication by www.larcier-intersentia.com.