Register a company in Senegal, the francophone anchor.

Yes - APIX incorporation, tax registrations and banking preparation run by power of attorney. Banks like meeting the gérant once, and licence-track work rewards presence. We sequence one Dakar trip where it earns most.

Turnkey registration starts from $2,400; with banking from $4,400. Sector licences are scoped per case. Renewals with accounting run from $1,500 a year.

By regional and global standards - remarkably: power has changed hands by ballot repeatedly, and 2024's transition - from crisis to peaceful handover in weeks - stress-tested the institutions in public. The new administration governs energetically with a sovereignty agenda, which for investors means terms under review, not property at risk. We track the file as ordinary counsel.

Recalibration: hydrocarbon and mining conventions signed by prior governments face renegotiation pressure on state shares and local content - a process running through commissions and talks rather than decrees. Existing operators negotiate; new entrants price the emerging terms from the start, which is cleaner. Resource-adjacent services feel it as rising local-content expectations - which our setups are built to meet.

Corporate tax at 30%, VAT 18%, dividends 10%, employer social contributions around 24% on capped bases - the WAEMU pattern, competently administered. Petroleum and mining run per-convention terms. The peg keeps it all stable in euro terms, and documented transfers flow through the franc zone's rules.

A forming ecosystem: GTA ships LNG, Sangomar produces oil, expansion phases queue, and the contractor economy - marine, logistics, catering, maintenance, supply - is being written now, with local presence and content scoring the bids. Senegal's version of the pattern we describe in Mauritania, with deeper local infrastructure. Early, compliant entrants hold the positions.

Depth: the region's francophone banks, agencies, airlines and institutions concentrate here, the professional bench is the area's deepest, connectivity is the best in francophone West Africa, and the city's stability premium is real. Running Sahel and coastal operations from a Dakar seat is the established pattern - and the SARL under OHADA makes the legal side portable regionwide.

Busy and honest about it: Dakar's port anchors the Mali corridor and fights congestion, with expansion works (the Ndayane project) building relief. Corridor trade runs on documentation discipline and realistic scheduling; the Sahel's politics occasionally reroute flows, and diversified routing is standard practice. We model logistics with current, not brochure, timings.

It removes the devaluation chapter from planning: pricing, borrowing and repatriation all happen in a currency fixed to the euro for decades under BCEAO arrangements, with documented transfers flowing freely within the rules. For businesses invoicing Europe, the currency risk is effectively retired - a sentence available in very few frontier files.

The company: one to two weeks through APIX. Banking: one to two more. Sector licences: three to ten weeks by track. A working, banked Senegalese base inside a month - positioned for the gas era it came for - is the honest default.