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Rules for starting a business

How closely do the rules for registering a new business in each economy match the B-READY checklist of good practice?

100 of 100 shown in the list

B-READY score, 0 to 100

  1. Armenia100.0 2025
  2. Eswatini96.2 2025
  3. Rwanda96.1 2025
  4. Jamaica95.0 2025
  5. Singapore94.4 2025
  6. Greece93.7 2025
  7. Uzbekistan93.1 2025
  8. Serbia92.8 2025
  9. Malta92.3 2025
  10. Montenegro92.2 2025
  11. Pakistan91.7 2025
  12. Ireland91.1 2025
  13. United Kingdom91.1 2025
  14. United States91.0 2025
  15. Moldova90.3 2025
  16. Tajikistan89.4 2025
  17. Samoa89.2 2025
  18. Trinidad and Tobago89.2 2025
  19. Romania88.9 2025
  20. Czechia88.7 2025
  21. Lesotho88.1 2025
  22. Morocco87.5 2025
  23. North Macedonia87.3 2025
  24. Portugal87.3 2025
  25. Cyprus86.7 2025

Source: World Bank, Business Ready (B-READY), B-READY: Business Entry Pillar 1: Quality of Regulations for Business Entry, via the World Bank. Data for 2025. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 100 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Armenia at 100.0 (2025) and the lowest is Republic of the Congo at 38.8 (2025).
  • The middle value (the median) is 79.6.

What it counts

A score from 0 to 100 in the World Bank's B-READY study (the latest round) for the quality of the regulations for business entry, such as the rules on registering a company and the requirements placed on new firms.

What it leaves out, and how far to trust a comparison

The score compares an economy's rules with a checklist of features chosen by the World Bank, and the checklist reflects one view of good practice for businesses. It is built from expert answers and firm surveys, it covers a standard case and it says nothing about justice, fairness or what suits a particular country. Only the economies in the study are shown, and it is not a ranking of better and worse law.

Source

World Bank, Business Ready (B-READY): B-READY: Business Entry Pillar 1: Quality of Regulations for Business Entry, via the World Bank, compiled in World Bank, World Development Indicators. Source licence: CC BY 4.0. Data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.

Cite this chart

Free to use in teaching, articles, reports and slides, with credit. Our compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0; the source publishes the underlying data under its own licence, shown below.

Reference (APA style)

TheLawToKnow. (2026). Rules for starting a business [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/business-entry-regulation-score. Data: World Bank, Business Ready (B-READY), B-READY: Business Entry Pillar 1: Quality of Regulations for Business Entry, via the World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BRE.BE.P1 (data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25).

Short credit for slides and websites

Chart: TheLawToKnow, Law in Charts (https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/business-entry-regulation-score). Data: World Bank, Business Ready (B-READY), via World Bank, World Development Indicators.

BibTeX

@misc{businessentryregulationscore2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {Rules for starting a business},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/business-entry-regulation-score},
  note = {Data: World Bank, Business Ready (B-READY), B-READY: Business Entry Pillar 1: Quality of Regulations for Business Entry, via the World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BRE.BE.P1. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

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