Accra runs on small business. Most working people here are not employed by anybody — they are trading, cooking, cutting hair, sewing, fixing phones or moving goods, and doing it for themselves.

That is not a figure of speech. Across Greater Accra’s 29 district assemblies the average share of workers in informal employment is 66%, on the 2021 census — and in the district where it is highest, 85%.

So this is not a guide about becoming a startup founder. It is a guide about the thing most of Accra already does.

— Tech startups, if that is what you meant

Start with whether anyone will pay

The most expensive mistake in Accra is not a bad location or a weak margin. It is building something nobody was waiting for.

Before you spend anything:

  • Sell it once, badly, before you build it properly. Cook ten plates. Cut five heads. Sew two dresses. Take the money.
  • Count your competition on foot, at the hour you would trade. Not at noon if you are selling breakfast.
  • Ask three of them what killed the last person who tried it there. They will usually tell you.
  • Work out your margin per unit before your monthly costs, then check how many units a day it takes to cover the rent.

Choosing where: use the data, then go and stand there

Accra is not one market. Density, spending power, the share of people in informal work and the cost of premises vary enormously across the 29 assemblies, and a trade that thrives in one dies two districts over.

Two things on this site exist for exactly this decision.

The viability checker ranks all 29 districts for a specific trade against the census figures — footfall, spending power, competition, cost of premises — and shows you every number behind the answer.

— Business viability checker

The map is the other half. Shade all 29 districts by population, density, age, employment, informality or rent, tap any district for its constituencies and landmarks, and see where your shortlist actually is.

— The map of Greater Accra

Neither replaces standing on the street

No dataset knows whether four barbers already work that corner, whether the water runs, or whether the landlord wants two years up front. Use the data to shortlist three districts. Then go and count, at trading hour.

The paperwork, in order

  1. Get a Ghana Card. Everything below asks for it.
  2. Register the business with the ORC. A business name costs ₵60; a company limited by shares costs ₵330. — Registering a business
  3. Your TIN is your Ghana Card number, so that step is already done.
  4. Get a business operating permit from the district assembly you trade in — roughly ₵200 to ₵2,000 a year, set by each assembly’s own fee-fixing resolution.
  5. Trade-specific licences, if you handle food, medicines or children. Those are the ones that stop you opening at all, so check them first.
  6. SSNIT registration, the moment you have one employee.

Business name or company?

A business name (sole proprietorship) is cheap, quick and gives you no separate legal personality — your own house is exposed if the business is sued or owes money.

A company limited by shares costs more and puts a wall between you and the business. Worth it once there is a partner, an investor, a lease in the company’s name, or a customer big enough to sue you.

— Registering a business — Starting a tech company

The money

The rent advance is the wall. A landlord will ask for 12 months up front, which for a shop at ₵180 to ₵2,500 a month is the single largest cheque most people write to start.

— Rent advance calculator — The rent advance, and the law on it

Where the money comes from, in the order people actually use:

  • Your own savings, and a susu collection.
  • Family, which is the largest source of small business capital in Ghana and the one with the worst paperwork. Write down what it is — a loan or a share — while everyone is still pleased with each other.
  • A microfinance or savings-and-loans institution. Check it is licensed by the Bank of Ghana before you deposit a cedi with anyone.
  • A bank loan, which will want security you probably do not have.
  • Buying stock on credit from a supplier, which is how most retail here is really financed.

— Loan repayment calculator — Investment and Ponzi schemes

An unlicensed ‘investment’ will take everything

Ghana loses household money to these every few years and the marketing is always excellent. If the operator is not on the Bank of Ghana’s or the SEC’s list of licensed institutions, there is nothing to discuss.

Tax, without the surprise

  • Income tax. A sole proprietor pays PAYE-style personal rates on business profit; a company pays corporate tax at 25%.
  • The presumptive and modified taxation regimes exist for small businesses below the audit threshold. Ask the GRA which applies to your turnover rather than assuming the full regime does.
  • VAT once taxable turnover crosses ₵200,000. Know where that line is before you cross it, because registering changes your pricing and your bookkeeping.
  • Withholding tax, deducted from what larger customers pay you.

— VAT calculator — Withholding tax calculator — Income tax and PAYE

Taking money

MoMo is not optional. A merchant wallet, a printed till number and a till book will do more for your cash control than any app.

  • Keep the business wallet separate from your personal one. Mixing them is how people lose track of whether they are profitable.
  • Reconcile the wallet against the till book daily, not weekly.
  • Expect the E-Levy question; know what applies.

— Mobile money — Fintech apps — Opening a bank account

Hiring your first person

  • The minimum wage is ₵19.97 a day. That is a floor, not a going rate.
  • Employ people properly. Calling an employee an apprentice or a contractor to avoid SSNIT is common and it is the employer who carries it.
  • Apprenticeship is the real training system in Ghana’s trades, and it comes with obligations both ways. Be clear which one you are offering.
  • Write the terms down. One page beats a handshake when somebody leaves.

— Employee rights — Employment contract checklist — Salary calculator

What actually closes small businesses in Accra

Not competition, usually. In order:

  1. Spending the working capital. The stock money and the food money are the same pocket, and the pocket loses.
  2. The rent advance falling due again twelve months later, with nothing saved for it.
  3. dumsor and water. A salon that cannot wash hair is shut, whatever the demand. — Electricity and dumsor — Water in Accra
  4. Giving credit to people who do not pay. Especially family.
  5. No records. You cannot tell a bad month from a bad business without them.
  6. One supplier, who then raises the price.

Keep records from day one

A ruled exercise book is enough, and is better than an app you stop opening. Every day: money in, money out, stock bought, what is owed to you, what you owe. That book is what turns “it feels slow” into a number, and it is the only thing a bank or a buyer will ever accept.

— Cost of living calculator

Pick your trade

— The traditional trades of Accra — Business viability checker — Freelancing in Ghana — Ghana’s regulators