Angola's Private Investment Law and AIPEX Explained

You do not need AIPEX to start a business in Angola. You need it to get tax benefits and to give your bank the legal basis for sending profits abroad. Registering your project produces a certificate called the CRIP, and without it neither is available to you.

That is the whole point of this page. For the wider picture, start with our guide to doing business in Angola; for the incorporation steps themselves, see how to register a company in Angola.

Last reviewed: 12 September 2026. Kwanza conversions use Kz 926 = USD 1, the approximate market rate in mid-September 2026.

What the Private Investment Law actually gives you

The governing text is Lei n.º 10/18, amended and republished by Lei n.º 10/21. Two features matter most to foreign investors, and both are recent.

There is no minimum investment. The law applies to private investment of any value. The old threshold — USD 1 million for foreign investors — is gone, and with it the idea that only large projects can be registered.

There is no compulsory local partner. The requirement to hand at least 35% of capital and a management role to an Angolan partner in strategic sectors no longer exists. Foreign investors can hold 100% of an Angolan company. Sectors governed by their own legislation — oil, mining, banking — keep their own rules, including local content obligations.

Beyond that, the law guarantees a set of things investors ask about early: property rights protected against expropriation except for public utility and against fair, prompt compensation; intellectual property rights; a prohibition on public interference in the management of private companies; and access to Angolan courts, with negotiation, mediation, conciliation and arbitration available as alternatives. Angola ratified the ICSID Convention on 21 September 2022, in force for Angola from 21 October 2022, and acceded to the New York Convention in 2017. In September 2024 the EU–Angola Sustainable Investment Facilitation Agreement entered into force — the EU's first such agreement anywhere.

The most useful change is one that rarely gets mentioned. Under the 2018 text, foreign investors could only transfer dividends abroad after the investment project had been fully executed. Lei n.º 10/21 removed that condition. Today the right to transfer arises once taxes are paid and mandatory reserves are constituted, with no requirement that the project be finished. If you are modelling cash flows across a phased build, that single amendment is worth more than most of the tax reductions.

The three regimes, and what separates them

Projects fall into one of three regimes. You choose freely between them, subject to qualifying.

Prior declaration (declaração prévia) is the default. You simply present the investment proposal to AIPEX for registration, and the benefits attach automatically — no negotiation, no investment contract. It is the route for anything outside the priority sectors, and for most trading and service businesses.

Special regime applies to projects in the priority sectors listed in the law, and its benefits scale by development zone. Registration is still a registration, not a negotiation, and benefits remain automatic.

Contractual regime, introduced in 2021, is the only one involving a negotiation with the Angolan State. The law says it is available in any sector. The threshold sits in the Regulation, not the law: the investment must be the kwanza equivalent of USD 10 million or more — about Kz 9.3 billion at current rates — and create at least 50 direct jobs for Angolan nationals. There is a second door that is frequently overlooked: projects classified as structuring can enter the contractual regime if they create at least 50 direct jobs, whatever their value. Structuring projects are defined by reference to their effect on a value chain and on cluster formation, particularly in energy and water, education, transport and communications infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, scientific research for industry, agriculture and biomedicine, innovation, and high-technology industrial production.

One rule applies across all three: the company through which the project will be implemented must already exist before you submit. This is not, as is often written, a peculiarity of the prior declaration route. Incorporate first, register the project second.

Priority sectors and development zones

Nine sectors are designated priority: education, vocational and higher education, scientific research and innovation; agriculture, food and agro-industry; specialised health units and services; reforestation, industrial processing of forest resources and forestry; textiles, clothing and footwear; hospitality, tourism and leisure; construction, public works, telecommunications and information technology, airport and railway infrastructure; electricity generation and distribution; and basic sanitation and solid waste collection and treatment.

The country is divided into four development zones, with benefits rising as you move away from the capital. Zone A is Luanda province plus the provincial capitals of Benguela and Huíla and the municipality of Lobito. Zone B covers Bié, Bengo, Cuanza-Norte, Cuanza-Sul, Huambo, Namibe and the remaining municipalities of Benguela and Huíla. Zone C covers Cuando Cubango, Cunene, Lunda-Norte, Lunda-Sul, Malanje, Moxico, Uíge and Zaire. Zone D is Cabinda. If a project spans more than one zone, benefits follow the zone holding the largest share of the declared investment.

The tax benefits, and where they now come from

This is where most English-language guidance is out of date, so it is worth being precise. The benefit percentages used to sit in the Private Investment Law itself. Lei n.º 10/21 rewrote that provision to say only that projects in all three regimes enjoy the benefits set out in the Código dos Benefícios Fiscais (the Tax Benefits Code), approved by Lei n.º 8/22. That is now the operative text.

Under prior declaration, a registered project gets a 50% reduction in property tax on acquiring the premises used for the office and the establishment of the investment; a 20% reduction in industrial tax for two years; a 25% reduction in the rate applying to distributions of profits and dividends for two years; and stamp duty halved for two years.

Under the special regime, the same categories scale by zone. Industrial tax, for example, moves from a 20% reduction for two years in Zone A, to 60% for four years in Zone B, to 80% for eight years in Zone C, with Zone D taxed at half the Zone C rate for eight years; depreciation and amortisation rates rise by 50% in the higher zones. The tax on distributed profits and dividends follows the same 25 / 60 / 80 pattern over two, four and eight years, with Zone D again at half the Zone C rate.

Under the contractual regime, what can be negotiated is broader: rate reductions across industrial tax, urban property tax, investment income tax and stamp duty for up to 15 years; a tax credit of up to 50% of the investment value for up to 10 years; and increased depreciation and amortisation rates of up to 80% for up to 10 years in Zones B, C and D.

Two points of housekeeping. Angola's Imposto de Sisa no longer exists as a separate tax — transfers of real property were folded into the property tax code in 2020 — so references to "Sisa reductions" in older material mean the property tax reduction on acquisition. And the ten-year ceiling on benefits that appears in many guides was removed from the law in 2021; benefits now end when the period for which they were granted expires, when the tax saved equals the investment made, when a resolutive condition is triggered, or when the registration is cancelled. For the underlying rates these percentages apply to, see our page on business taxes in Angola.

Special-regime projects also get one non-tax benefit worth having: exemption from fees and charges due for any service requested from a non-commercial public body, including customs services, for up to five years.

AIPEX: what the agency does, and what it does not

AIPEX — Agência de Investimento Privado e Promoção das Exportações, the private investment and export promotion agency — was created in 2018 by merging three predecessor bodies. It handles promotion, receipt and processing of investment registrations, issuance of the CRIP, and monitoring and inspection of projects once registered. It also has an export promotion mandate, which its predecessors did not.

What it does not do is approve your company. Incorporation runs through the Guiché Único de Empresas (the one-stop shop for companies), a separate body under the Ministry of Justice. AIPEX also does not issue your operating licences, though its One Stop Center brings representatives of the relevant ministries into one place with delegated authority to issue them.

AIPEX can refuse a registration — on legal grounds, where it has reasoned grounds to believe the investor lacks the human, financial or technical means to perform, where there is insufficient proof of capacity, where there are indications the investment conceals illegal activity, or where the investor appears on international sanctions lists or is reported as a fugitive from justice. Refusals can be appealed.

The CRIP, and why it controls your money

The Certificado de Registo de Investimento Privado is the certificate AIPEX issues when it approves your registration. It records the promoters, the vehicle company, the amount and form of the investment, where it will be implemented, the regime, the benefits granted, and the deadlines for starting and completing the project.

Three things follow from holding one. Benefits are granted automatically — CRIP holders receive them without any further administrative procedure, and AIPEX notifies the tax administration directly. The CRIP substitutes for provisional licences and other prior authorisations during implementation; where a public body fails to issue a permit within the deadline set in your agreed implementation schedule, approval is tacit and the CRIP stands in place of the missing document. And commercial banks require a copy of the CRIP as the legal basis for transferring dividends and liquidation proceeds abroad in foreign currency — the mechanics of which are covered on our page on foreign exchange and getting your money out of Angola.

The CRIP is also the document Angolan consulates and the migration service require before issuing an investor visa; see investor and work visas for Angola.

According to AIPEX, CRIPs have no expiry date and do not need to be reissued when the law changes.

JUI: the single investment window

The Janela Única do Investimento is the facilitation mechanism through which AIPEX concentrates the operations involved in making an investment, acting on the investor's behalf with other public bodies. It runs on an electronic platform, SETIP, reachable at jui.aipex.gov.ao, and lets an investor create an account, complete an application in stages, upload documents, correct deficiencies and track progress from anywhere.

The document set is short: the registration form; identification for individual promoters or a commercial registry certificate for corporate ones; proof of funds or of the other means by which the investment will be made; the training plan and plan for gradually replacing foreign workers with Angolans; a power of attorney where the applicant is represented; and the project implementation schedule. Documents issued abroad must be legalised or authenticated by an Angolan consulate in the country of origin, and documents in a foreign language need an official translation — the step that most often delays a file.

For the prior declaration and special regimes, AIPEX has five working days from a complete submission to communicate its decision. Under the contractual regime the clock works differently: AIPEX has up to 72 hours to open negotiations and must conclude within ten working days; if the proposal is deficient it must say so within 48 hours, and you then have ten days to fix it or the application is cancelled.

What registration commits you to

Registration is not a one-off filing. During implementation, the vehicle company files a quarterly progress report, due within 15 working days of each quarter's end. Corporate changes must be notified to AIPEX within 15 days, and where a change involves importing capital it requires authorisation rather than mere notice. Reinvestment benefits can be claimed only once, and only on proof that the original project was fully carried out.

If AIPEX finds you are off schedule, it notifies you to propose corrective measures and sets a deadline of no more than 180 days. Registration can be cancelled for a range of reasons, including the parent losing its licence abroad, insolvency, conviction for money laundering or terrorist financing, and international sanctions. Cancellation extinguishes the benefits and the special residence permissions attached to the project; the investor gets between 30 and 180 working days to settle obligations and make any transfers abroad they are entitled to.

Two obligations sit outside this page. Sectors with their own investment legislation must still register with AIPEX for statistical purposes and to obtain private investor status. And companies that invested without going through the Private Investment Law can regularise by registering the project afterwards — but they do not get the tax incentives.

Common questions

Is AIPEX registration mandatory? No. Foreigners can incorporate and trade in Angola without it. It is mandatory only if you want the tax benefits or the legal basis for repatriating profits.

How long does a CRIP take? Five working days for the prior declaration and special regimes, counted from a complete submission. The realistic delay is in assembling consularised and translated documents, not in AIPEX's decision.

Can I register the project before incorporating the company? No. The vehicle company must already be constituted when you submit, under all three regimes.

What is the minimum investment to qualify? There is none. The law applies to any amount. The USD 10 million figure applies only to the contractual regime.

Do I still need BNA approval to send dividends abroad? Transfers are executed through commercial banks against the CRIP, audited accounts and proof of tax payment, rather than through transaction-by-transaction central bank licensing. The practical detail is on our foreign exchange page.

Investment structuring interacts with sector licensing, tax residence and your group's own rules. Take Angolan legal and tax advice on the specific regime and benefit package before you commit to a schedule.