Doing Business (Ease of Doing Business ranking)

Editions

How the ranking works

Doing Business measured regulation affecting a standardized domestic firm in the largest business city (two cities for 11 large economies from DB2015) across ten topics: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. Data came from questionnaires completed by local lawyers, accountants and other practitioners, plus reviews of laws and regulations.

Each economy received a score from 0 to 100 on each topic (the 'distance to frontier', later 'ease of doing business score'), and the overall ranking sorted economies by the simple average. The aggregate ranking started with DB2006; indicators and scoring were revised several times, and rankings were often restated in later reports.

Ranked positions: Each item has a position (1, 2, 3), with ties allowed. The World Bank covered almost every economy (190 by 2019). Economies could not pay to be ranked, but some governments bought Reimbursable Advisory Services from the Bank, which the WilmerHale investigation cited as a motive for favorable treatment of Saudi Arabia.

Read the publisher’s methodology

How far to trust it

Superscout grades every ranking on six criteria, each scored 0 to 2. Doing Business (Ease of Doing Business ranking) scores 8 of 12, grade B.

Transparency 2/2

Full methodology, topic scores and indicator data were published.

Independence 0/2

Investigation documented management pressure tied to member-country funding and advisory contracts.

Evidence 1/2

Expert questionnaires on standardized cases rather than firm-level outcome data.

Stability 1/2

Several scoring and indicator changes, with rankings restated.

Coverage 2/2

Near-census of 190 economies.

Track record 2/2

17 reports from DB2004 to DB2020, 15 with an aggregate ranking.

History

The project grew out of 'The Regulation of Entry' (Djankov, La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes and Shleifer, 2002) and the World Development Report 2002, and the first report (Doing Business 2004) appeared in 2003. The aggregate ranking was introduced in Doing Business 2006. Singapore ranked first from DB2007 to DB2016 and New Zealand from DB2017 to DB2020. Over 2003 to 2020 the reports recorded nearly 5,000 regulatory reforms in 190 economies.

In January 2018 chief economist Paul Romer said Chile's rankings had been affected by methodology changes and that past results would be recalculated. On 2020-08-27 the World Bank paused the report after finding changes in the DB2018 and DB2020 data inconsistent with the methodology. The WilmerHale investigation released in September 2021 described pressure from then-president Jim Yong Kim, then-CEO Kristalina Georgieva and Simeon Djankov to raise China's DB2018 score, and changes by Djankov that raised Saudi Arabia's and lowered Azerbaijan's DB2020 results. The World Bank discontinued Doing Business on 2021-09-16 and replaced it with Business Ready in 2024.

How it is received

Doing Business was the most cited business-climate benchmark for governments: Wikipedia reports that several countries set explicit rank targets, more than 3,000 academic papers used its data, and the UK's Confederation of British Industry campaigned for a top-five UK rank. Critics argued it rewarded deregulation over outcomes; Wikipedia cites research finding the post-2016 distance-to-frontier measure was not correlated with later growth or investment, while a 2024 University of Torino paper found positive growth effects from associated reforms.

Its credibility collapsed over data integrity. The World Bank's own December 2020 reviews found DB staff 'reported undue pressure, both directly and indirectly by Bank management to manipulate data' for the 2018 and 2020 reports, and the September 2021 WilmerHale report detailed changes to China's, Saudi Arabia's and Azerbaijan's data. Georgieva disputed the report's characterization of her actions, and the IMF board found it did not conclusively show she manipulated data. The World Bank said on discontinuation that 'trust in the research of the World Bank Group is vital.'

Open questions

Facts not verified yet. They stay visible so they are not mistaken for settled facts.

• Exact publication dates for DB2004 to DB2019 not sourced (year precision used; publication year taken as label year minus one).
• Wikipedia's historical columns contain inconsistencies (South Korea row shifted; duplicate and missing ranks in DB2006, DB2008, DB2009, DB2015, DB2016); these are flagged in entries_note, not corrected against World Bank PDFs.
• DB2004 and DB2005 economy counts not sourced.
• The WilmerHale report PDF itself was not opened; its findings are cited via Wikipedia and the World Bank statements.
• Corrected (post-December 2020) DB2018 and DB2020 data for China, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Azerbaijan are not reflected in the as-published rankings loaded here.