Best European Countries for Business 2020 (2024)

The 2020 edition of the report in which EuCham ranks and analyzes 46 European countries according to their economic environment. The ranking is the result of an analysis based on internationally recognized indexes of the World Bank and Transparency International. EuCham thinks that business integrity and transparency play strategic roles.

Nordic countries are still on the top of the list: Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, followed by Switzerland, UK and Germany. Estonia, Lithuania and Georgia are outstanding exceptions among the post-Soviet countries. The report reveals also that the highest level of improvement is shown by Armenia.

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As in the previous years, Nordic countries are still dominant at the top of the research Best European Countries for Business 2020.
In the ranking, Armenia stands out with its whopping 6 positions up, and with Spain, Montenegro, and Azerbaijan, have gone up the most, while North Macedonia has slipped the most (5 positions down).
Regarding the score, the highest level of improvement is shown by Armenia and Kazakhstan.
France, North Macedonia, and Albania have the most significant negative variation.
The EuCham score is based on the average of two indicators: the Ease of Doing Business score (World Bank) and the Corruption Perception Index score (Transparency International).
Russia is slightly improving its score, but stays in the same position near the bottom of the list. Ukraine still remains the last as in the previous year.

Methodology and results

The European Chamber ranks European countries based on their business environment. The EuCham score, used for the ranking, is calculated with the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business score (EoDB) and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI). The EuCham score of a country is reflected on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the lowest performance and 100 represents the best. Denmark tops the ranking with a score of 86, followed by Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Switzerland.

Other studies, which do not take into consideration corruption, show different results because they only reflect the capacity of countries’ environments to address the corporate sector’s desire to achieve financial results. The World Bank’s score is mostly influenced by the effectiveness of regulations, and by the time it takes to finalize corporate transactions. EuCham, however, considers integrity and transparency expectations equally important factors in the assessment.

Additional information

The EuCham score, used for the ranking, is the average of the EoDB and the CPI scores (50% weight each). A high score indicates the country is favorable to do business in, while low scores refer to the least favorable countries for business.

The EoDB score by the World Bank (from their Doing Business report) measures the gap between the country’s own economic policies and regulations, and the best practice on each indicator across all economies (e.g. starting a business, paying taxes, trading across borders, property registration). The difference is shown on a scale from 0, representing the lowest possible performance, to 100, the highest currently attainable result according to the new standards used since the 2015 edition of the Doing Business report.

The CPI from Transparency International is used to determine how corrupt each country’s public sector is perceived to be, on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). A low score can be an indication of widespread bribery, lack of punishment for corruption, or a government not responding to social needs.

Best European Countries for Business 2020
The EuCham Score

	Ranking			EuCham score		Doing Business score World Bank		CPI score Transparency Int.
	2019	2020	Change	2019	2020	2019	2020	2019	2020*
Denmark	1	1	–	86.32	86.15	84.64	85.30	88	87
Sweden	3	2	↑	83.14	83.50	81.27	82.00	85	85
Norway	2	3	↓	83.48	83.30	82.95	82.60	84	84
Finland	4	4	–	82.68	83.10	80.35	80.20	85	86
Switzerland	6	5	↑	80.35	80.80	75.69	76.60	85	85
United Kingdom	5	6	↓	81.33	80.25	82.65	83.50	80	77
Germany	7	7	–	79.45	79.85	78.90	79.70	80	80
Netherlands	8	8	–	79.02	79.05	76.04	76.10	82	82
Iceland	9	9	–	77.68	78.50	79.35	79.00	76	78
Austria	10	10	–	77.29	77.85	78.57	78.70	76	77
Estonia	11	11	–	76.75	77.30	80.50	80.60	73	74
Ireland	12	12	–	75.96	76.80	78.91	79.60	73	74
Belgium	15	13	↑↑	74.48	75.00	73.95	75.00	75	75
Luxembourg	13	14	↓	75.01	74.80	69.01	69.60	81	80
France	14	15	↓	74.65	72.90	77.29	76.80	72	69
Lithuania	18	16	↑↑	69.92	70.80	80.83	81.60	59	60
Spain	21	17	↑↑↑↑	67.84	69.95	77.68	77.90	58	62
Georgia	16	18	↓↓	70.64	69.85	83.28	83.70	58	56
Portugal	17	19	↓↓	70.28	69.25	76.55	76.50	64	62
Slovenia	22	20	↑↑	67.81	68.25	75.61	76.50	60	60
Latvia	19	21	↓↓	68.80	68.15	79.59	80.30	58	56
Poland	20	22	↓↓	68.48	67.20	76.95	76.40	60	58
Czech Republic	23	23	–	67.55	66.15	76.10	76.30	59	56
Cyprus	24	24	–	65.36	65.70	71.71	73.40	59	58
Italy	26	25	↑	62.28	62.95	72.56	72.90	52	53
Slovakia	25	26	↓↓	62.59	62.80	75.17	75.60	50	50
Croatia	29	27	↑↑	59.70	60.30	71.40	73.60	48	47
Malta	28	28	–	59.72	60.05	65.43	66.10	54	54
Belarus	27	29	↓↓	59.89	59.65	75.77	74.30	44	45
Montenegro	33	30	↑↑↑	58.87	59.40	72.73	73.80	45	45
Hungary	32	31	↑	59.14	58.70	72.28	73.40	46	44
Romania	30	32	↓↓	59.65	58.65	72.30	73.30	47	44
Armenia	39	33	↑↑↑↑↑↑	55.19	58.25	75.37	74.50	35	42
Greece	36	34	↑↑	56.54	58.20	68.08	68.40	45	48
Turkey	34	35	↓	57.67	57.90	74.33	76.80	41	39
North Macedonia	31	36	↓↓↓↓↓	59.28	57.85	81.55	80.70	37	35
Bulgaria	35	37	↓↓	56.62	57.50	71.24	72.00	42	43
Serbia	37	38	↓↓	56.25	57.35	73.49	75.70	39	39
Kazakhstan	40	39	↑	54.45	56.80	77.89	79.60	31	34
Kosovo	38	40	↓↓	55.58	54.60	74.15	73.20	37	36
Azerbaijan	44	41	↑↑↑	51.82	53.35	78.64	76.70	25	30
Moldova	41	42	↓	53.27	53.20	73.54	74.40	33	32
Russia	43	43	–	52.69	53.10	77.37	78.20	28	28
Albania	42	44	↓↓	52.76	51.35	69.51	67.70	36	35
Bosnia & Herz.	45	45	–	50.91	50.70	63.82	65.40	38	36
Ukraine	46	46	–	50.13	50.10	68.25	70.20	32	30

* This column, named 2020, uses data from CPI 2019 published in Jan 2020. Same logic for the column named 2019.
No data: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Vatican City, San Marino.
Sources: World Bank, Transparency International, EuCham – European Chamber.
EuCham Research Department: Rania Fallatah, Cecilia Bottoni, Patrícia Lipi.
Editing: Lanxin Sun, Elifnur Bingöl, Patricia Lojo Fernandez.

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Best European Countries for Business 2020 (2024)

As in the previous years, Nordic countries are still dominant at the top of the research Best European Countries for Business 2020.

In the ranking, Armenia stands out with its whopping 6 positions up, and with Spain, Montenegro, and Azerbaijan, have gone up the most, while North Macedonia has slipped the most (5 positions down).

Regarding the score, the highest level of improvement is shown by Armenia and Kazakhstan. France, North Macedonia, and Albania have the most significant negative variation.

The EuCham score is based on the average of two indicators: the Ease of Doing Business score (World Bank) and the Corruption Perception Index score (Transparency International).

Russia is slightly improving its score, but stays in the same position near the bottom of the list. Ukraine still remains the last as in the previous year.

Regarding the score, the highest level of improvement is shown by Armenia and Kazakhstan.
France, North Macedonia, and Albania have the most significant negative variation.