Company registration, and a very recent change in the investment framework
Business/company registration in Ghana is handled by the Office of the Registrar of Companies (ORC,
formerly the Registrar General's Department) under the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992). Separately, the
framework governing foreign investment has just changed: President Mahama signed the Ghana Investment
Promotion Authority (GIPA) Act into law on 22 July 2026, replacing the GIPC Act, 2013 (Act 865), only
weeks before this platform's research was conducted. Because the Act is this recent, this platform
explicitly flags that commencement dates, transitional treatment of existing GIPC registrations, and
final capital thresholds need direct verification against the gazetted Act text before being treated as
settled -- what follows is presented as the outgoing/incoming picture rather than a single confirmed
current rule.
Minimum capital requirements -- outgoing GIPC regime and incoming GIPA regime
Under the outgoing GIPC Act, minimum foreign capital requirements were USD 200,000 for a joint
venture with a Ghanaian partner holding at least 10% equity, USD 500,000 for a wholly foreign-owned
enterprise, and USD 1,000,000 plus a minimum of 20 skilled Ghanaian employees for a 100%-foreign trading
enterprise (manufacturing, export trading, portfolio investment, and foreign spouses of Ghanaian
citizens were exempted). Pre-assent commentary on the new GIPA Act describes it as eliminating minimum
capital thresholds for joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in most sectors, while
reducing the trading-sector threshold to USD 500,000 (down from USD 1,000,000) paired with a requirement
that 75% of the workforce be skilled Ghanaians, removing the prior exemption for foreign spouses of
Ghanaian citizens, and raising the expatriate quota to up to 12 persons for enterprises with capital
exceeding USD 10 million.
Sectors reserved for Ghanaian citizens
Ghana's negative list -- sectors reserved exclusively for Ghanaian citizens -- under the outgoing
GIPC Act's Section 27 includes petty trading and hawking, operating a taxi or car-hire service with
fewer than 25 vehicles, beauty salons and barber shops, production and retail of sachet water,
production of exercise books and basic stationery, and retail of finished pharmaceutical products. The
pharmaceutical-retail restriction is directly relevant given active Indian pharmaceutical business
presence in Ghana: Indian pharma companies can manufacture and wholesale but cannot retail finished
pharmaceutical products as non-citizens. Ghanaian officials have publicly flagged “fronting”
-- Ghanaians registering businesses on behalf of foreign owners in reserved sectors -- as an active
enforcement concern, which is a real compliance risk worth building into any Ghana market-entry plan.
Foreign investors typically obtain an immigrant-quota allocation tied to their GIPC/GIPA registration,
administered by the Ghana Immigration Service, which then permits Work and Residence Permit issuance
for a specified number of expatriate staff -- see this platform's Immigration guide for Ghana for more
detail.
Common mistakes people connected to Ghana make:
- Relying on outgoing GIPC capital figures without checking whether the new GIPA Act's
transitional provisions have changed the applicable threshold.
- Attempting to retail finished pharmaceutical products directly as a non-citizen, when this
remains on the negative list.
- Using a Ghanaian nominee/fronting arrangement in a reserved sector, which Ghanaian authorities
have identified as an active enforcement target.
