You get what you pay for: Malta relatively cheap to do business in, but also quite difficult

The cost of opening a business in Malta is estimated to be €528, considerably less expensive than the amounts charged for obtaining approvals, permits and licences in most Western European countries.

Italy leads the pack in expensive corporate registration in Europe, charging entrepreneurs around €4,118 on average to open a business, double the average monthly income.

The figures emerge from the Wold Bank’s 2020 Doing Business project, which placed Malta in 88th place globally when looking at ease of doing business.

The World Bank’s Doing Business project keeps tabs on the cost and procedures you need to start a small- to medium-size limited liability company in every country.

The sections of the overall assessment that Malta ranks particularly badly in are access to credit (144th), resolving insolvency (121st), and registering property (152nd).

BusinessFinancing.co.uk analysed the findings to find the costs of registration around the world.

"New business owners must shell out for approvals, licenses, permits, and inscriptions," the website writes.

"These processes are not just expensive but time-consuming and complicated.

"For example, before legislation to simplify start-up procedures and stimulate greater levels of entrepreneurship, Saudi businesses had to pass through 13 procedures and have 1,057 per cent of income per capita in the bank before opening up shop."

BusinessFinancing.co.uk compared the figures collected by the Doing Business project to the local average income to map the cost and affordability of starting a business around the world.

It found that:
• The United Arab Emirates is the most expensive country to establish a business, with start-up costs of €6,289.
• There are no fees to start a business in Rwanda for the first two years, and in Slovenia the only ‘cost’ is a capital requirement of €6,350 with no fees.
• Starting a new business is least affordable in Congo, where €1,041 in fees equates to 2,554 per cent of the average monthly income.
• In Kazakhstan it takes just 2 per cent of the average monthly income (€10.14 against €448) to start a business.