Over the first four months of the year, 5,710 businesses were launched in Togo — a modest uptick from 2025, but one that obscures deeper structural shifts: a growing share of incorporated entities, rising foreign investment, and a declining proportion of women entrepreneurs.

Togo registered 5,710 new companies between January and April 2026, up from 5,599 over the same period in 2025, according to data from the Centre de Formalités des Entreprises. The increase of just under 2% masks several deeper shifts in who is creating businesses and how they are structured.

Month-to-month activity was uneven: January came in below last year's pace, March surged, and April settled back down. More telling than the headline numbers is the changing composition of new registrations. Corporate entities are claiming a larger share of formations, and so are foreign entrepreneurs.

The following five data points explain what is driving the trend.

A rise in company creation, driven by an exceptional month of March

Togo recorded 1,595 company registrations in March 2026, the equivalent of roughly one new business every 30 working minutes, making it the strongest month in the January-to-April window. January, however, got off to a slower start than in 2025, down 6.1%, a gap that subsequent months made up.

Corporate entities drive growth as sole traders stagnate

The more structural finding concerns the type of entity being registered. Legal persons, primarily limited liability companies known as SARLs, are growing faster than sole proprietorships, and it is that segment that is pulling overall growth higher.

Over the four-month period, 2,299 corporate entities were created in 2026, compared with 2,149 in 2025, an increase of 150. Sole trader registrations, by contrast, edged down from 3,450 to 3,411. The gap is narrow, but it marks a shift: corporate entities now account for 40.3% of all new registrations, up from 38.4% a year earlier.

Togo's entrepreneurial fabric is becoming more structured, meaning a growing share of new projects is choosing a corporate legal framework.

Foreign entrepreneurs increasingly present in new registrations

The sharpest signal in the data concerns foreign participation. The share of companies created by foreign nationals surpassed 20% of total registrations for the first time over a January-to-April period.

Foreign nationals created 1,208 businesses between January and April 2026, up from 1,057 a year earlier, a rise of 14.3%. March accounted for much of the movement, with 374 foreign-led registrations, a monthly record for the period. The trend reflects the government's strategy to attract regional investors, though it also raises questions about the space left for local entrepreneurs.

Women's share edges down, particularly in corporate registrations

The data also show a slight decline in the share of women among new business creators. Women accounted for 29.5% of registrants in 2025; that figure fell to 27.8% in 2026.

The drop is modest in absolute terms, 64 fewer female-led registrations, but it comes against a backdrop of overall growth, which amplifies its relative significance. The disparity is most pronounced among corporate entities, where women represent only 21.6% of founders, compared with 32.0% among sole traders. The higher the level of legal formality, in other words, the smaller women's presence becomes.

Notarized SARLs growing faster than privately executed equivalents

The final indicator is more technical but points in the same direction: formalization is accelerating. SARLs constituted by notarial deed, a more regulated and more expensive process than a privately executed instrument, are growing faster than the overall average.

Notarized companies remain a small minority, 142 out of 2,099 SARLs registered, or 6.8% of the total, but their growth rate is considerably higher than that of privately executed formations. Notarial deeds remain reserved for higher-stakes structures: those with significant capital, foreign investors or broader ambitions. Their expansion suggests that the quality of registered projects is deepening alongside the quantity.

More companies, then, but above all more structured ones. That is the real story of the opening months of 2026.

Fiacre E. Kakpo