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Banking and business opportunities in Egypt – an underrated, non-crs country.

@drumtraks

Yes, you will have to have an accountant but in general, Egyptian accountants will almost always work for the best interests of their clients so they will "help" you with problems that might appear on your books.

No, your office/business space could be your lawyers address or just a "paper" address, most law firms in Egypt will help you with that.

yeah, capital gains in Egypt is high, but can be mitigated by a competent accountant who know what they are doing and know the ins and outs of the Egyptian tax system.

Bottom line, I like Egypt for their banking and there are lots of opportunities there if you know what to look for, their is also plenty of talents there and the cost of labor is cheap and compete with countries like India and china, I hired (still do) a couple of Egyptians who manage the arabic/english side of my company in the UAE, and all I can say is that they get the job done and don't mind going this extra mile for you and get their hands dirty if the job asked for it.

And for other stuff, every thing could be solved ,legally of course ;), with the right price in Egypt.
 
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  • The most obvious one is getting the resident permit and once you get it you don’t have to live in Egypt to keep it, you just have to visit the country once a year to maintain it. For the type of residence permit you should get…The cheapest, fastest and most straight forward residence permit is the one you get through investing or creating a LLC company. You have to deposit a 500,000 EGP (about 32,000 USD), and you get the residency for one year and you can renew it as much as you like without any problem as long as the company’s capital remain higher than 4000 USD.
  • You can ignore all of the above and open a bank account through POA (power of attorney) or a local nominee director.
  • Introducers who knows the banks’ managers and will help you get it done under a week or so.
I'll need a personal account. Are there other ways to bypass the requirement of a residency permit?
Are there banks that are less strict and that'd allow one without a residency permit to open an account more easily than others?
 
I'll need a personal account. Are there other ways to bypass the requirement of a residency permit?
Are there banks that are less strict and that'd allow one without a residency permit to open an account more easily than others?
As, I mentioned earlier. residence permit is required but can be done via getting a one month residence permit for banking purposes, however, this permit is issued for you after you incorporate an LLC company in Egypt. and you'll have to travel to Egypt and meet a lawyer to go get this permit in about 10 minutes.

with this permit you can open bank accounts with major banks like HSBC, Crédit Agricole, ABC bank, QNB, NBE, NBD, Abu Dhabi Islamic bank. and you can enjoy all the products that these banks have to offer and almost all of them has some sort of private/priority banking (for balances above 500,000 EGP or equivalent in foreign currencies).

For me though I skipped all of that, All I've done is that I open my bank accounts via the introducer route (An Egyptian lawyer that I knew from Dubai) but I still had to travel to Egypt, and I went with him to NBE bank and I opened an account with them on my tourist visa and a "paper" apartment lease contract. So, everything was good, and I Get to open the account with no problem. I also opened other accounts in Egypt after that by just providing my bank statement from NBE and without further questions :)

The third option though is that you can open an account via nominee director, which means your name won't appear on the bank but you can have the right to control the account in some form or another. but you have to check with an Egyptian lawyer first though.
 
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@MiddleEuroAsia you seem very knowledgeable about the area. I have a software development business and I must confess I’ve never looked into Egypt. Do you happen to know or be able to know how the talent pool is in this field as well as how it goes salary wise? Sorry I’m bombing out with questions :)
 
@MiddleEuroAsia you seem very knowledgeable about the area. I have a software development business and I must confess I’ve never looked into Egypt. Do you happen to know or be able to know how the talent pool is in this field as well as how it goes salary wise? Sorry I’m bombing out with questions :)
No worries, Happy to help :)

Talents in Egypt are plenty specially in the IT sector and customer service, and they get the job done.

Salaries are extremely cheap but it varies, whether you want to build your own team, Or ask for a company help to build it for you. Bot both are cheap.

Anyway if you are building your team in the IT sector, salaries start from the following:

- salaries start from 180 USD for novice developer

- around 280- 400 USD to Senior developer

- 450-700 USD for lead developer

If you don't want to go this route and want to have a company manage this process for you, you can contact an outsource company like crossworkers, it's more expensive than running your own team, but not THAT expensive.

if you have some time, I suggest you read that report about IT outsourcing in Egypt.

Hope that helps!
 
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As, I mentioned earlier. residence permit is required but can be done via getting a one month residence permit for banking purposes, however, this permit is issued for you after you incorporate an LLC company in Egypt. and you'll have to travel to Egypt and meet a lawyer to go get this permit in about 10 minutes.

with this permit you can open bank accounts with major banks like HSBC, Crédit Agricole, ABC bank, QNB, NBE, NBD, Abu Dhabi Islamic bank. and you can enjoy all the products that these banks have to offer and almost all of them has some sort of private/priority banking (for balances above 500,000 EGP or equivalent in foreign currencies).

For me though I skipped all of that, All I've done is that I open my bank accounts via the introducer route (An Egyptian lawyer that I knew from Dubai) but I still had to travel to Egypt, and I went with him to NBE bank and I opened an account with them on my tourist visa and a "paper" apartment lease contract. So, everything was good, and I Get to open the account with no problem. I also opened other accounts in Egypt after that by just providing my bank statement from NBE and without further questions :)

The third option though is that you can open an account via nominee director, which means your name won't appear on the bank but you can have the right to control the account in some form or another. but you have to check with an Egyptian lawyer first though.
You haven't undestood. My question is how to bypass the resident requirement apart from the 3 methods you'd mentioned. And for a personal account.
 
You haven't undestood. My question is how to bypass the resident requirement apart from the 3 methods you'd mentioned. And for a personal account.
Ah, ok. So, you want the "other" methods.

This method is similar to the Georgian POA method. What you are going to do is You will find an Egyptian national (Egyptian attorney is preferred) that will open an account for you under his name, but you will be the one who will actually control the account and manage the funds. The Lawyer will just sign the documents for you (under his name) in the banks.

or, you can contact the Egyptian branch of HSBC bank directly and ask them about opening a current account for non-residents.
on their website, they say "Current account opening is subject to special approval for non-residents." So, contact them.
 
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@MiddleEuroAsia can i open bank egypt account with merchant account from USA LLC?

income from foreign countries is taxed in egypt?

is there any consulting firm to lean on?

thanks
- No, but you can an own Egyptian LLC with US LLC and open an Egyptian bank account with merchant account under the Egyptian LLC.

- see my reply here for foreign taxes

- Yes, there are a lot of firms that you could work with, but all depends on what you're looking for!
 
That's a good list you found. I need to analyze further some of those good performing banks :D. A couple in the top 15 I already have relationships with ;).
 
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Great article.

Just came across this today:

Many Egyptian banks mentioned.
That's a great read. And I agree that NBE and CIB are top notch when we are talking about banking in Africa
 
do your own research before you land on egypt you are not missing opportunity in egypt LMAO. he just exaggerate each angle in egypt for sake licking his boss boots . his main gain to exploit you .

the country always go through serious economic problems. over 30% live under poverty line. the purchasing power continuously decline but in particular after arab spring . the economy would have been collapsed if oil arab countries don't push billions of dollars to rescue it in hardships . from time to time arab vip business men burn money and invest in projects try to revive egypt economy but typically the money divert by the power of corruption . living standards is down right bad and large number of inhabitants make $200 a month . believe me a lot don't have enough to buy toilet paper . egypt survive on aid .

when you want to talk about everyday life chaos is basically the norm . air is very toxic and environment neglected ... its not uncommon for many people to take walk in street and back to where they stay full in dust . from day one foreigners are seen as option to trade on not a human with rights . where the exotic offshore part about egypt ?

it's too hard to do business in egypt and 99% not worth it specially for foreigners . you will not find a lawyer anywhere in egypt to do your request in 10 minutes . hell you could pay him couple of times and he wont achieve results then he will blame bureaucracy or something he didn't pay attention to it . i'm not in mood to dive into details but bribing and corruption are most prominent . comparing outsource talents available on some countries with one in egypt is sort of insult.
generally speaking banking is lax and obviously safer than many parts of africa . but if you want to run business in egypt you better put this money in gambling game .

What to consider if you invest in Egypt​

Weak Points
  • Political situation that remains tense and arouses uncertainty for foreign investors
  • Degraded regional security situation
  • Fragile banking sector
  • High poverty rate and persistent unemployment
  • Infrastructure that remains insufficient
  • Omnipresent public sector and excessive bureaucracy
  • Shortage of skilled labour
  • Cumbersome customs procedures and non-tariff trade barriers

 
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do your own research before you land on egypt you are not missing opportunity in egypt LMAO. he just exaggerate each angle in egypt for sake licking his boss boots . his main gain to exploit you .

the country always go through serious economic problems. over 30% live under poverty line. the purchasing power continuously decline but in particular after arab spring . the economy would have been collapsed if oil arab countries don't push billions of dollars to rescue it in hardships . from time to time arab vip business men burn money and invest in projects try to revive egypt economy but typically the money divert by the power of corruption . living standards is down right bad and large number of inhabitants make $200 a month . believe me a lot don't have enough to buy toilet paper . egypt survive on aid .

when you want to talk about everyday life chaos is basically the norm . air is very toxic and environment neglected ... its not uncommon for many people to take walk in street and back to where they stay full in dust . from day one foreigners are seen as option to trade on not a human with rights . where the exotic offshore part about egypt ?

it's too hard to do business in egypt and 99% not worth it specially for foreigners . you will not find a lawyer anywhere in egypt to do your request in 10 minutes . hell you could pay him couple of times and he wont achieve results then he will blame bureaucracy or something he didn't pay attention to it . i'm not in mood to dive into details but bribing and corruption are most prominent . comparing outsource talents available on some countries with one in egypt is sort of insult.
generally speaking banking is lax and obviously safer than many parts of africa . but if you want to run business in egypt you better put this money in gambling game .

What to consider if you invest in Egypt​

Weak Points
  • Political situation that remains tense and arouses uncertainty for foreign investors
  • Degraded regional security situation
  • Fragile banking sector
  • High poverty rate and persistent unemployment
  • Infrastructure that remains insufficient
  • Omnipresent public sector and excessive bureaucracy
  • Shortage of skilled labour
  • Cumbersome customs procedures and non-tariff trade barriers

Man, you really have no f*****g Clue about what are you talking about and the annoying thing is, you are pretty confident about your bulls**t you keep spreading left and right. And If I'm being honest, It's quite tiring debunking your bulls**t. And I should know better as I have better stuff to do. But You're attacking me directly and claim that "I suck my boss boots" Tell me what boss? you seem to have some faulty wire in your head.

Secondly you claim that I'm trying to Exploit people here in this forum. And let me tell you, are you stupid? or are you f*****g stupid? the answer lies between these two questions! Did you see me trying to advertise or do any hidden advertising you lying piece of s**t? point where I tried to sell my service here in this forum!. look at threads that I'm participating in and you'll see that I'm not doing anything but trying to be helpful and share with people the info about what I know!

Like really? the toxity in cairo is a problem? does that mean that people shouldn't do business in Beijing because of Air toxicity? Is this really your logic?.

Also, people in India are f*****g poor too, and guess what? India is still an economic powerhouse despite all it's problems!. Also you said that the purchasing power is low in Egypt, which is completely false especially in the food and clothes markets, but let's pretend that this is the case, did you even read what I wrote? I said that there are lots of business opportunituies in egypt if you know what you're doing, for example you could make a factory in Egypt and sell your products outside of Egypt and all of this can be under a regular LLC or under a freezone company.

your logic is filled with plenty of flaws and I don't even knew where to begin that it's not even funny!.
you say that there is corruption in Egypt which is true. But let me ask you a question, have you been living under a f*****g rock! All countries are corrupt to certain degree!. Georgia is corrupt, Armenia is corrupt, Cyprus is corrupt, Malta is corrupt, UAE is corrupt, Malaysia is corrupt, USA is corrupt , Montenegro is corrupt, But some hide their corruption better than the others.

let me just tell you how f*****g you stupid you are and f*****g naïve you are to believe that we actually live in a world with countries that aren't corrupt in some form or another. even the "democratic" france president granted the "dictator" Egyptian president the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. which is the highest award in France f*****g lol, where is human rights now, huh?.

And not only france, but Italy, USA, germany, all of them sell arms to egypt, and italy has this gas deal in Egypt, and Egypt, cyprus and israel also has some sort of gas pipelines deals going on. so tell me where is their so called "human rights" that EU countries keep preaching about. f*****g hypocrites.

People here talk about maturities, Georgia, Belize...etc and you want to tell me that these countries are not corrupt? and people there are not somewhat poor? who are you trying to fool!. People here knew about the corruption in these countries and yet they still do business with them because every one is different and every one has a different risk appetite. Even in the UAE, the Sheikh can decide to f**k with you for real if he doesn't like what you're doing in his country. but yeah keep crying about egypt more.

From the tone of your post, you sound that you are Egyptian who hate his country and hate that some foreigners are taking advantage of this situation and are doing business their way!. But let me tell you, that you shouldn't be surprised that in some countries foreigners are treated better than locals, and this happened in a lot of Asian countries too.

You know although we are in a pseudo anonymous forum, I will tell you that if this real life, your tone would be quite different. In my business, reputation is everything, and I don't like it when lowlifes is hurting my reputation and to make matters worse, they are doing it without evidence, and that irks me a little bit :)
 
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Man, you really have no f*****g Clue about what are you talking about and the annoying thing is, you are pretty confident about your bulls**t you keep spreading left and right. And If I'm being honest, It's quite tiring debunking your bulls**t. And I should know better as I have better stuff to do. But You're attacking me directly and claim that "I suck my boss boots" Tell me what boss? you seem to have some faulty wire in your head.

Secondly you claim that I'm trying to Exploit people here in this forum. And let me tell you, are you stupid? or are you f*****g stupid? the answer lies between these two questions! Did you see me trying to advertise or do any hidden advertising you lying piece of s**t? point where I tried to sell my service here in this forum!. look at threads that I'm participating in and you'll see that I'm not doing anything but trying to be helpful and share with people the info about what I know!

Like really? the toxity in cairo is a problem? does that mean that people shouldn't do business in Beijing because of Air toxicity? Is this really your logic?.

Also, people in India are f*****g poor too, and guess what? India is still an economic powerhouse despite all it's problems!. Also you said that the purchasing power is low in Egypt, which is completely false especially in the food and clothes markets, but let's pretend that this is the case, did you even read what I wrote? I said that there are lots of business opportunituies in egypt if you know what you're doing, for example you could make a factory in Egypt and sell your products outside of Egypt and all of this can be under a regular LLC or under a freezone company.

your logic is filled with plenty of flaws and I don't even knew where to begin that it's not even funny!.
you say that there is corruption in Egypt which is true. But let me ask you a question, have you been living under a f*****g rock! All countries are corrupt to certain degree!. Georgia is corrupt, Armenia is corrupt, Cyprus is corrupt, Malta is corrupt, UAE is corrupt, Malaysia is corrupt, USA is corrupt , Montenegro is corrupt, But some hide their corruption better than the others.

let me just tell you how f*****g you stupid you are and f*****g naïve you are to believe that we actually live in a world with countries that aren't corrupt in some form or another. even the "democratic" france president granted the "dictator" Egyptian president the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. which is the highest award in France f*****g lol, where is human rights now, huh?.

And not only france, but Italy, USA, germany, all of them sell arms to egypt, and italy has this gas deal in Egypt, and Egypt, cyprus and israel also has some sort of gas pipelines deals going on. so tell me where is their so called "human rights" that EU countries keep preaching about. f*****g hypocrites.

People here talk about maturities, Georgia, Belize...etc and you want to tell me that these countries are not corrupt? and people there are not somewhat poor? who are you trying to fool!. People here knew about the corruption in these countries and yet they still do business with them because every one is different and every one has a different risk appetite. Even in the UAE, the Sheikh can decide to f**k with you for real if he doesn't like what you're doing in his country. but yeah keep crying about egypt more.

From the tone of your post, you sound that you are Egyptian who hate his country and hate that some foreigners are taking advantage of this situation and are doing business their way!. But let me tell you, that you shouldn't be surprised that in some countries foreigners are treated better than locals, and this happened in a lot of Asian countries too.

You know although we are in a pseudo anonymous forum, I will tell you that if this real life, your tone would be quite different. In my business, reputation is everything, and I don't like it when lowlifes is hurting my reputation and to make matters worse, they are doing it without evidence, and that irks me a little bit :)
i know what i'm talking about in fact egypt is deeply understood for me . you just use the ignorance of egypt for your purposes . you outright liar it's pretty pathetic. it's foolish but you can't hide your modest mischievous character which make you fall quickly .

i never been to belize but its exotic country and i don't think it's sick as egypt. are you saying you promoting garbage country because all alternative countries are like that ?

listen bully i'm not hiding behind computer so stop with loud tone because i'm last person you would want to meet from this forum . the thing is if i wanted to pay you a visit i will never let you know it literally . pay attention to what i name myself.
 
listen bully i'm not hiding behind computer so stop with loud tone because i'm last person you would want to meet from this forum . the thing is if i wanted to pay you a visit i will never let you know it literally . pay attention to what i name myself.
Haha, you are quite a character :D
 

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