hello.
It depends what you need Egypt for, I agree with
@JackAlabama that You can't really compare the two, however I disagree with him on one point. Georgia is too much mainstream, while Egypt is not.
For free zone companies in Egypt, they are great but they are more suitable for certain industries, for example:
- A clothes factories. if you source your products from
china (private label, wholesale...etc) and sell it to western countries, you can see that it's good way for your business, however, you run the risk of your product being stolen and sold under the Chinese factory's name (
and it happens alot)
so a great alternative is opening a factory in Egypt and you can import all the materials and machinery tax free and with no import/export duties + the cost of labor is the same or even cheaper than china.
so you can maintain the same quality of products but you will have a total control of your product, which means it's easier to raise funds, better scalability and you can sell your business easier down the line if you wanted to.
-
Crypto mining farm. That's an interesting project, because Egypt prohibits applications/projects that are energy intensive inside free zones, but the person doing this project is a friend of mine and he (with his lawyers) argues that he will use wind power, solar power and other clean energy sources to power his mining farm, so that makes effectively the argument that his business is energy intensive obsolete. and in Egypt, crypto isn't banned, un regulated crypto is, and that doesn't matter anyway since regular Egyptian laws don't apply to free zones.
Will he succeed tho? I don't know, but I'm keeping a close eye on this one, if he succeeded, it will open up plenty of opportunities for people who work in the crypto business.
there are other use cases too for freezones, like printing businesses, tech businesses.....etc.
However if you want to just incorporate a tax free business without doing any of the leg work that's mentioned above or just simply for "cashing out", "consulting" or "web developing" business and the like, then Dubai FZ is more suitable for you if you just want zero taxes (but you need to be mindful of other "fees" that's sometimes could feel like taxes if you are a small business),
or you can incorporate an Egyptian LLC with no capital (however, it's advised that you put some money into it, to show that you are serious) and have a
corporate bank account + personal one later (if you wanted to) and you will have an Egyptian residency issued for you, your family and your business partners (if they do exist), but the caveat is that you'll be taxed at the normal corporate rate (but you can minimize them a lot by hiring a competent accountant who will use schemes like license fees, IP fees and other schemes that will make you effectively pay peanuts).
The Egyptian LLC route is no different than the Dubai FZ route, the only difference is taxes (but as I said, you can minimize it by having a competent accountant and there are plenty of them in Egypt)
Life in Egypt is nothing like Dubai, it's much much cheaper, and you can live relatively safe and worry free if you live in upscale areas in Cairo like the new administrative capital, 5th settlement...etc or in coastal cities/resorts like the north cost or in el gouna, hurgada, sharm elsheikh...etc that's located in the red sea.
You asked about why I chose Egypt. and the answer is banking and
investing, nowadays I focus on property investment specially property in new cities like the new administrative capital, the new alamein city...etc. there is a lot of opportunities and a lot of money to be made here and I'm focusing on that, banking and all of that is a fun little thing that I do in the side, but I have premium/private relationship with a lot of banks in Egypt, UAE,
Malaysia, Singapore and a lot of other areas around the world, so I no longer worry about banking.
so, at the end of the day it really depends on what you need and what are you trying to achieve in Egypt. Egypt can be a lot of things if you are creative enough.
but if you ask me for one advice, I would tell you that a good lawyer and accountant is a must in Egypt, they know how the laws work in practice and how to work around them. Don't opt for international/foreign lawyers with "experience" in the Egyptian market, instead opt for Egyptian lawyers with experience in the international markets.
the difference is day and night, believe me, I'm speaking from experience.
That's it, if you have any further questions, feel free to ask me
