The Ethiopia Investment Climate Program, managed by the World Bank Group’s Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice aims at streamlining and simplifying high priority regulatory practices and processes burdensome to the private sector and address investment climate issues that are holding back investment and productivity growth in Ethiopia. This report presents a summary of the major findings about the business registration and licensing regime in Ethiopia and develops recommendations for streamlining and improving it. The report is based on an in-depth review of the country’s more than 1,300 licenses; a detailed analysis at a sector level is presented in Annex three. This report consists of two main parts: in Chapter two, we present an estimate of the costs which the registration and licensing regime in Ethiopia imposes on the business sector in the country. Chapter three then presents the key findings and recommendations based on the detailed analysis of Ethiopia’s licensing regime and implementation practice, the details of which are presented in the Inventory of Business Licenses. A brief concluding chapter summarizes the recommendations and provides an estimate of the positive effects which they could have both for businesses and Government.