Small entrepreneurs dedicate 222 hours a year to bureaucracy

A typical small entrepreneur in Slovakia, defined as a micro-company with 4 employees involved in manufacturing, has had to spend 222 hours to deal with bureaucracy this year. This is the conclusion of the Bureaucratic Index, carried out by the Institute for Economic and Social Analyses INESS; a think tank. Half of this time is spent on tasks related to "normal operation", such as paying corporate taxes, waste management, or various certifications and compulsory external services. Paperwork related to employment took 83.5 hours, other activities required 26 hours, and the cost of legislative changes was 11 hours. "We note that compared to 2017, bureaucracy in Slovakia has increased. However, this resulted from a one-time cost of 16 hours caused by the GDPR personal data management rules," said Martin Vlachynský, director of the INESS Research Center for Business Environment Support.