The African Market Entry database is a comprehensive, country-by-country reference on foreign business registration and market entry across Africa, built to support investment decision-making, advisory work, policy analysis, and comparative market intelligence. It provides a standardized view of how foreign investors can legally establish and operate businesses in each jurisdiction, covering foreign ownership rules, permitted legal entities, step-by-step registration procedures, timelines, official costs, minimum capital requirements, and detailed regulatory and sectoral constraints.
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Sources: All country entries are derived from official government sources and authoritative references, including company registries, one-stop business registration platforms, investment promotion agencies, revenue authorities, and sector regulators. Where relevant, the database also draws on multilateral and institutional sources such as the World Bank (Doing Business legacy indicators), UNCTAD investment policy frameworks, OECD regulatory benchmarks, and official investment climate reports to validate procedures and regulatory context. Each country record includes direct links to primary sources.
The Ease-of-Entry Score (1–10): is a comparative, investor-focused index included to enable rapid cross-country benchmarking of business entry conditions. It reflects a weighted assessment of registration speed, administrative complexity, official cost burden, capital barriers, and regulatory friction, capturing both legal requirements and practical implementation risks. Higher scores indicate jurisdictions where foreign investors can establish operations quickly, at low cost, and with minimal regulatory constraints, while lower scores signal markets where entry is slowed by licensing requirements, localization rules, capital thresholds, or fragmented administrative processes. The score is not a measure of market attractiveness or investment returns, but strictly a measure of entry friction and regulatory accessibility.