Starting a business in Albania: foreigner's guide (2026)

Albania opened its last negotiating cluster with the EU, completing the opening of all 33 chapters — including Cluster 2 (Internal Market), which covers Chapter 6 on company law, freedom of establishment, and financial services. This makes full alignment of Albania's commercial-registration regime with EU acquis a binding negotiation obligation.

The National Business Center ended all in-person counter services; the e-Albania portal became the sole channel for incorporation, status changes, and licensing applications. Decisions are issued electronically within one working day, completing Albania's transition to a fully digital registration system.

The first Inter-Governmental Conference opened formal EU accession negotiations with Albania, triggering mandatory legislative alignment across 33 chapters. Company law, right of establishment, and the internal market are included in Cluster 2, making EU-standard business-registration reform a structural requirement.

From May 2022, every document issued through the e-Albania portal carries an electronic seal and signature with full legal value, eliminating any requirement for paper follow-up. Business registration output (certificates, tax IDs, licence decisions) became end-to-end digital and legally equivalent to notarised paper.

Parliament approved changes to Law 112/2020 that entered into force on 2 March 2022, streamlining the beneficial-owner filing process and easing the administrative burden on newly incorporated companies and non-profit entities, reducing duplicate registrations.

The national Register of Beneficial Owners (RBO) became operational at the National Business Center, requiring all commercial entities to identify and disclose natural-person ultimate beneficial owners (≥25% stake). This added a mandatory AML/transparency step to the company incorporation workflow.

Albania enacted Law 112/2020, partially transposing the EU's 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive and acting on MONEYVAL recommendations. It mandates that every entity in the commercial register identify and maintain beneficial ownership data, coupling business registration with AML compliance for the first time.

From January 2020 the National Business Center offered incorporation, permit, and licence applications electronically through the e-Albania portal, reducing the entire registration procedure to a single online session completed in 1–2 working days at no registration fee.

Albania climbed from rank 90 to 58 in the World Bank Doing Business 2017 report — its best-ever ranking — driven by lower registration fees and permit consolidation reforms following the 2015 QKB merger. The leap validated the single-window institutional model and attracted significant reform attention.

Parliament passed Law 131/2015 on 26 November 2015 (entry into force 29 December 2015), merging the National Registration Center and National Licensing Center into a single institution. Entrepreneurs can now complete company registration, tax, social/health insurance, and labour-inspectorate registration through one application, in person or via e-Albania.

Albania adopted its primary commercial-companies law, establishing legal-entity types (sole trader, LLC, joint-stock company, partnerships, branches) and the rules for incorporation, governance, and liquidation. Modelled on French, Italian, German and British law, it is the statute under which every Albanian business is still legally constituted today.