Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy Index 2026: Results Announced

Small Firms Lose About a Month of Work Every Year

A small firm with ten employees in Central and Eastern Europe spends on average 252 hours a year – about 31 working days – on paperwork required by the state. This is the main finding of the Bureaucracy Index 2026, prepared by INESS with partners from the 4liberty.eu network in Czechia, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine, with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation For Freedom Central Europe.

The index lists every administrative duty that two model micro businesses – a small hotel with a restaurant and a manufacturer of metal gates – must fulfil, and expresses it in hours of work.

RESULTS

The composition of the score shows different models: Moldova and Ukraine have the most demanding start (77 and 70 hours on average), and Ukraine then has the lightest recurring administration, while in Poland the quickest start (26 hours) is offset by the heaviest running costs (306 hours a year).

In most countries the bulk of the running costs comes from employment administration – payroll reports, sick-leave records, working-time evidence – which accounts for more than half of the burden in Moldova and around 44–45% in Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine.

In Czechia and Poland, operational tasks such as taxes and waste reporting are the main driver. Poland and Ukraine stand out with a large "other" category, mostly statistical reporting and archiving.

In Their Own Words

"Moldova has moved from bureaucracy by paperwork to bureaucracy by uncertainty. … A digitised absurdity is still an absurdity, delivered faster. Abolish first, then digitise what survives."

— IDIS Viitorul, Moldova

"The key problem of Polish bureaucracy is not the shape of the regulations themselves, but the toxic mix of exceptionally oppressive criminal law, abuse of pre-trial detention, and legal uncertainty, particularly in tax law."

— FOR, Poland

"A small company can spend a surprising amount of time repeatedly reporting fairly absurd information to several different public institutions."

— Institut liberálních studií, Czechia

"It is an example of how an unnecessary European regulation is further complicated by a member state through its own implementation – and then even that implementation is not handled well technically."

— INESS, Slovakia, on the e-invoicing obligation (translated)

About the Bureaucracy Index 2026

The Bureaucracy Index 2026 was prepared by INESS (Slovakia), Institut liberálních studií (Czechia), FOR (Poland), Free Market Foundation (Hungary), IER (Ukraine) and IDIS Viitorul (Moldova), with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom Central Europe.

Read the full findings: Bureaucracy Index 2026: Results Announced