Foreign investors
Bujumbura, Burundi
MABEVO is a business services firm based in Bujumbura. We support foreign investors from the first regulatory question through to a registered, operating company — without you having to coordinate a lawyer, an accountant and a consultant remotely, none of whom talk to each other.
Free initial call · English and French · Reply within 48 h
§ 00
In short
MABEVO is a foreign investor’s single point of contact in Burundi. We cover the regulatory diagnosis of your project, the choice and incorporation of the structure, registration formalities, trademark protection, contract drafting and funding file preparation. We work in English and French, from Bujumbura, and services constituting reserved legal acts are carried out or validated by legal professionals licensed in Burundi.
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Foreign investors
Rarely the regulation itself. Almost always discovering it out of order, remotely, in fragments.
Each contact answers for their own patch. Nobody gives you the full sequence, or what it costs in time.
One missing or badly translated document sends the file back to the beginning. That is where the delay comes from, not from the administration.
Legal form, capital split, trade name: these choices are hard to correct once made, and expensive to undo.
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Services
The same disciplines as for our Burundian clients, applied to setting up from abroad.
Before you commit anything, we check the conditions that apply to your sector and your situation, and hand you the full sequence with its timeline.
Legal form, capital split, governance, articles. We prepare the instruments and tell you which steps require your presence and which can be handled remotely.
File assembly, submission, follow-up with the administrations and chasing through to effective registration.
Prior-art search and filing before you enter the market. A mark known abroad is not protected here until it is filed here.
Commercial contracts, shareholders’ agreement, employment contracts, terms and conditions, and a compliance framework fitted to your activity.
Bank file preparation, introductions to local and international funders, structuring of collateral.
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Beyond Burundi: EAC and OHADA
An investor setting up in Burundi rarely targets the Burundian market alone. Two regional blocs matter, and they do not work the same way.
Burundi is a member. It is the framework that structures trade with Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, the DRC and Somalia — the natural market for a growing Burundian company.
Seventeen West and Central African states apply unified business law: the same rules for companies, security interests, debt recovery and arbitration. A company formed under those texts operates identically from Senegal to the DRC.
We support structuring into the OHADA zone — subsidiary, joint venture, contracts governed by OHADA law, arbitration clauses before the Common Court. That is support toward the zone, not the application of OHADA law in Burundi.
Burundi is not an OHADA member today: it is engaged in an accession process that would make it the 18th member state. We follow this file, because it would change the structuring framework for every company established here.
A useful clarification: OHADA law does not apply in Burundi today. Any claim to the contrary, from whatever source, is inaccurate.
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Frequently asked questions
The questions we most often receive from investors based outside Burundi.
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Tell us about your project and your target sector. We come back with the applicable sequence, its timeline and what it requires from you — before any commercial proposal.
