New business density

Erik Rostad, owner of entrpr. Last updated 6 November 2026. Data extract 1 July 2026. World Bank API metadata for these series said last updated 8 October 2026 when the 2024 values were compared with this extract on 6 November 2026. Report a correction.

Use this page for the definition, the formula, the 2024 ranking, and the download. The entrepreneurship rate by country page explains why this is not the only measure. The 2024 findings add the comparisons.

Formula and unit

New business density = newly registered limited-liability firms in the calendar year, divided by people ages 15-64, multiplied by 1,000.

The unit is firms per 1,000 people ages 15-64. entrpr does not recompute that quotient. The numbers below are the World Bank indicator, after the rounding described in methods.

What is included and excluded

• Included: newly registered companies with limited liability, or the local equivalent, of any size, in the formal sector, during the calendar year.
• Excluded: sole proprietors. The Entrepreneurship Database collects them as a separate series. They are not in IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS.
• Excluded: informal businesses. The World Bank says this is because they are hard to count, not because they are unimportant.
• Not the same thing: GEM Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity, which is a survey rate. See entrepreneurship rate by country.
• Not a ranking of the best country to start a business. The series does not measure taxes, residency, banking, or how hard incorporation is for a foreigner.

2024 ranking

This table keeps a single reference year. 134 economies have a 2024 value. The median is 2.61. Offshore financial centers stay in this table because the World Bank publishes them in WDI. They are marked OFC. 10 of the top 20 carry that mark. Outside the list, Estonia is highest, at 26.76.

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Economies with no 2024 value

49 economies have new business density in this extract, but not for 2024. The year shown is the latest one on file. Do not read these values as 2024 observations. The latest-year density list mixes those years and prints the year on each row. 34 economies have no density series. The United States is one of them. Absence is blank, not zero.

Economies with no new business density series (34)

American Samoa; Andorra; Aruba; Bahamas, The; Bermuda; British Virgin Islands; Cameroon; Channel Islands; Cuba; Curacao; Equatorial Guinea; Eritrea; Faroe Islands; French Polynesia; Gibraltar; Greenland; Guam; Korea, Dem. People's Rep.; Lebanon; Libya; Macao SAR, China; Monaco; New Caledonia; Nicaragua; Northern Mariana Islands; Palau; San Marino; St. Martin (French part); Sudan; Syrian Arab Republic; Turkmenistan; United States; Venezuela, RB; Yemen, Rep..

Coverage over time

Reporting is not stable. The count of economies with a density value peaked at 173 in 2018 and is 134 in 2024. A lower count is not evidence that fewer businesses opened.

Offshore financial centers

The World Bank methodology says data for economies that Eurostat lists as offshore financial centers are collected and published, then excluded from the World Bank's own trend analysis, because many registrations may be shell companies. The 2024 values for economies in this extract that are on that list:

Methods

Indicator codes: IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS and IC.BUS.NREG. Source URLs are in sources. The extract file is site/data/countries.json, generated 1 July 2026 by src/fetch.py. API metadata listed lastupdated 2026-10-08 when checked on 2026-11-06. On that date the full 2024 cross-section matched this extract for both indicators (134 economies, no mismatches). Checked records include Estonia, India, the United Kingdom, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Nigeria (value in 2022, none in 2023 or 2024), and the United States (no value).

Transformation: Python round, half to even, to 2 decimal places for density and to a whole number for registrations. Pages use the stored history values. Missing stays missing. Medians of an even count average the two middle values and are shown to 2 decimal places. The one-year rule and the panel rule are stated on the 2024 findings page.

Coverage notes

• World Bank Entrepreneurship Database: for China, only the data for Shanghai is included. The methodology note lists the Ministry of Finance (Beijing) and the Shanghai Administration of Industry and Commerce as sources. The published figure is not a complete national series. Source: World Bank Entrepreneurship Database.
• World Bank Entrepreneurship Database: data for the Democratic Republic of Congo cover Kinshasa, Kongo Central, Upper Katanga, Tshopo, North Kivu, South Kivu, Lualaba, Eastern Kasai, and Central Kasai only. Source: World Bank Entrepreneurship Database.
• World Bank Entrepreneurship Database: data for Canada cover federal registrations, Quebec, and Nova Scotia only. Source: World Bank Entrepreneurship Database.

Sources

• World Bank, World Development Indicators, IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS, New business density (new registrations per 1,000 people ages 15-64). Source note: the number of newly registered firms with limited liability per 1,000 working-age people (ages 15-64) per calendar year. Source organization: Entrepreneurship Database, World Bank.
• World Bank, World Development Indicators, IC.BUS.NREG, New businesses registered (number). Source note: the number of new limited liability corporations (or its equivalent) registered in the calendar year.
• World Bank Entrepreneurship Database methodology and the methodology note (8th edition), including the offshore-center rule and Annex 2.
• World Bank Entrepreneurship Database coverage notes for China, Canada, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, retrieved 6 November 2026.
• Eurostat list of offshore financial centres (Balance of Payments Vademecum, appendix 7), as reproduced by the World Bank.
• GEM definition of Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) and how GEM defines entrepreneurship. No GEM country rates are republished here.
• License for the World Bank data: CC BY 4.0. Rankings, medians, and the panel are entrpr calculations.