Rwanda has been ranked third worldwide for business readiness in the World Bank’s 2025 Business Ready (B-Ready) report, emerging as the top performer in sub-Saharan Africa and underscoring the country’s sustained push to improve its investment climate.
The report, launched Dec. 29 in Washington, D.C., replaces the World Bank’s former Doing Business index and significantly expands coverage, assessing 101 economies in 2025 compared with 50 the previous year.
The B-Ready framework evaluates how effectively countries support private sector activity across three core pillars: the quality of business-related laws and regulations, the efficiency of public services that support businesses, and how well economies enable firms to operate freely and efficiently in practice.
Rwanda placed third globally in the pillar measuring how easily businesses can operate in practice, marking the second consecutive year the country has achieved that position. In the 2025 rankings, Rwanda trailed only Bahrain and Colombia in that category. In 2024, it ranked behind Singapore and Georgia.
The report also shows Rwanda leading sub-Saharan Africa in the same pillar, outperforming peers such as Tanzania, Togo, Mauritius and Ghana, which posted strong results in other indicators assessed by the World Bank. In North Africa, only Tunisia and Morocco featured among the region’s stronger performers.
Overall, Rwanda continues to rank highly when compared with countries of similar income levels and population sizes, the report said, reflecting consistent reforms aimed at improving the ease of starting, operating and expanding businesses.
Globally, the World Bank found that countries score an average of 60% in enabling businesses to operate efficiently, compared with an average of 66% across the other two pillars — legal frameworks and public service delivery. The findings suggest that while many countries have made progress in improving regulations, gaps remain in implementation.
“Globally, countries are business-ready at an average of only 60%,” the report said, noting that significant room remains for reforms that translate policy into practical outcomes for firms.
The report also highlights disparities linked to demographics. Developing economies with large youth populations tend to perform worse in creating business-friendly environments, averaging 49%, compared with 69% among countries with aging populations.
Data from Rwanda’s National Institute of Statistics show that more than 269,000 businesses were created in the country over the past decade through 2024, with private enterprises accounting for nearly 96% of them. New business creation contributed to a 30.2% increase in employment opportunities.
Rwanda’s Vision 2050 development strategy aims to transform the country into an upper-middle-income and eventually high-income economy, driven by industrialization and a services-based private sector.
