StartupBlink says Canada currently offers the world’s sixth most favourable business environment for building a technology startup.
The Swiss startup-ecosystem research firm’s new Innovators Business Environment Index (IBEI), released today, ranked Canada as one of the easiest nations from which to launch, operate, and scale a tech startup or innovative company.
StartupBlink’s IBEI assessed 125 countries, placing Canada’s business environment behind only the United States (US), Singapore, the United Kingdom (UK), Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), respectively.
Canada’s business environment placed sixth out of 125 countries.
“Overall, Canada’s results show a business environment with strong institutions, advanced digital infrastructure, high levels of mobility and international accessibility, and an enabling environment for running a business,” a StartupBlink spokesperson said.
This index measures how easy it is to start, manage, and sustain a business in each country. The IBEI also takes into account business incentives and how financially attractive that country is for entrepreneurs and investors, and how countries are viewed globally in terms of governance quality, credibility, transparency, stability, human capital, and international mobility.
The IBEI ranks business environments in five categories: regulation and governance; access to capital and financial infrastructure; taxation; digital infrastructure; and global mobility and openness.
StartupBlink found that Canada ranked third globally in terms of rewards and penalties, meaning strong use of “friction-reducing” policy levers, and fourth due to the ease of operating a business and regulatory and governance conditions.
Canada’s internet freedom, lending rate, credit access, and cross-border banking contributed positively to its placement on the IBEI. Meanwhile, StartupBlink identified room for improvement when it comes to the tax burden the country places on entrepreneurs.
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The US took the top spot on the IBEI, garnering a perfect score, despite its erratic investment environment under President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, China, Israel, France, South Korea, and India—which all cracked the top 20 on StartupBlink’s 2025 startup ecosystem performance rankings—failed to place among the IBEI’s top 20.
“These results suggest that, despite strong startup performance, the broader business environment in these countries has not yet fully caught up with the quality of their ecosystem outputs,” the StartupBlink spokesperson said.
Like the US, the UK, and Singapore, Canada ranked highly on both reports, placing fifth in StartupBlink’s latest startup ecosystem performance rankings after dropping from fourth, a position it held from 2021 until 2024.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Mwangi Gatheca.