Study reveals Romania is one of the best countries for global business expansion

New data from global HR and payroll company, Remote, which investigates the world’s best countries for businesses wanting to expand internationally.

Recent data shows that nearly half of company CFOs are currently in the process of expanding their business to overseas markets, or planning to do so soon.

With this in mind, Remote has created the global business expansion index, analyzing 100 countries with the largest GDPs in the world based on metrics such as their annual GDP growth rate, labor productivity, and the costs involved with launching a business to determine the top countries for expanding business globally.

Remote’s key findings include:

• The United States is the top country for global enterprise expansion with the highest number of start-ups at 73,553 and one of the shortest times required to start a business at just four days, followed by Singapore and Ireland
• Launching a business in Venezuela takes an average of 230 days – the longest amount of all the countries researched

• The United Arab Emirates is the most expensive country to launch a business in at $7,444

The United States is the top country for global enterprise expansion, followed by Singapore and Ireland

The United States ranked at the top of the global expansion index, revealing it as the best country for businesses looking to expand overseas. The US has by far the highest number of start-ups out of all countries we analyzed at 73,553; to put this into perspective, the second highest number was 14,667 in India – nearly 60,000 less.

The US also has one of the shortest times required to start a business at just 4 days, along with a fairly reasonable average cost of $725 (though this is the highest cost of all the top five countries on the list).

The second location on the list is Singapore, a small country in Southeast Asia with a very big business output. Singapore actually has a higher annual growth rate than the US (7.6% vs America’s 5.7%), as well as less tax on profits (17% vs 21%) and fewer tax payments made in a year (5 vs 11). It also has the fastest broadband speed on the list at 255.83 Mbps, and a low average cost of just $238 to start a business.

Additionally, Singapore currently lists 1,062 start-ups – which is still a very impressive number, despite paling in comparison to the number in the US.

Ireland takes the third spot on our list, with the greatest annual growth rate of all countries in the top 20 (13.5%). It has far fewer start-ups than the US or Singapore with only 452, but also has one of the lowest tax rates of all countries (12.5%) and a very low average cost of just $86 to set up a business.

Launching a business in Venezuela takes an average of 230 days the longest amount of all the countries researched

Venezuela placed at the very bottom of our list, ranking as the country where it takes the longest amount of time to start a business at an average of 230 days. When compared to countries like New Zealand and Singapore where it takes just a day or two to get a business going, this is definitely less than ideal.

United Arab Emirates is the most expensive country to launch a business in

When it comes to costs, the United Arab Emirates received the lowest score thanks to its very expensive $7,444 price to start a business. Italy, Qatar, Lebanon and Austria also recorded very high business start-up costs, all costing between $2,000 and $5,000.

Romania ranks seventh, with a GDP annual growth rate of 5.9 and 263 of start-ups.

The table below shows the top 10 countries ranked by their overall ‘Global Expansion’ score out of 10.