Register a company in Egypt: the scale story.

Yes - GAFI incorporation, tax registrations, and bank preparation are handled by power of attorney with legalized documents. Banks typically want one meeting with the manager; sector licenses vary. We sequence a Cairo trip around the bank and any license steps.

Turnkey registration starts at $2,400, with banking at $4,400. Golden-license and SCZone applications are scoped per project. Renewals with accounting run from $1,500 a year - Egyptian-priced, like everything else.

Corporate tax at 22.5%, VAT at 14%, dividends out at 10% (5% listed), payroll to 27.5% with substantial social insurance. SCZone projects ride the zone's incentives. Sane, stable rates by regional standards - the planning energy in Egypt goes into currency, not tax.

A cabinet-level single approval for qualifying strategic projects - industrial, infrastructure, large investments - replacing the sequential permit maze with one decision covering land, building, and operation. It does not cut taxes; it cuts months. For projects at the threshold, it is the difference between a quarter and a year of paperwork, and we build the application to qualify.

The central risk, stated plainly: devaluations came in chapters - 2016, 2022-24 - each roughly halving the currency, and no serious plan assumes the book is finished. The float era with Gulf backstop has becalmed things; our answer is architecture regardless: hard-currency revenue legs, lawful dollar-linked pricing, minimal idle pounds, prompt conversion discipline. Exporters are hedged by design - the pound that hurts importers is precisely what makes Egyptian production cheap.

In most activities, yes - services, manufacturing, IT, tourism and more take fully foreign LLCs with foreign managers. The historic exception is import-for-resale, where the import registry has demanded Egyptian majority ownership; models built purely on importing and reselling get structured around this honestly - commercial agency, manufacturing plus import of inputs, or partnership structures with real protections. We tell you which applies before you commit.

A self-governed economic zone along the canal - Ain Sokhna, East Port Said and satellites - offering industrial land, customs advantages, its own licensing and proximity to the artery carrying a tenth of world trade. The marquee bets: green hydrogen and ammonia projects clustering at Sokhna, container logistics, and export manufacturing. For industrial projects it is Egypt's front door, and we negotiate entries there as dedicated projects.

Real enough to name: state- and military-linked enterprises operate across construction, food, cement and more, with advantages private players lack. The IMF program includes divestment commitments moving at their own pace. Practical guidance: sectors where the state is customer (infrastructure inputs, services) or absent (export niches, IT, specialized manufacturing) treat foreign entrants better than head-on consumer staples. We position accordingly.

Mature banking - CIB and peers are genuinely good - with documented repatriation that works in normal times and queued during the 2022-23 FX crunch; the Ras El-Hekma era refilled the pipes. Discipline remains: registered investment, tax clearances, clean contracts. Dollar accounts alongside pound accounts are standard practice, not exotic.

The company: one to three weeks through GAFI. Banking: one to three more. Golden-license and SCZone tracks: three to twelve weeks by project. A working, banked Egyptian operation inside six weeks - with FX architecture live from day one - is the honest default.