Every country comparison on NavviPal includes an Operational Ease Score: a relative ranking of how straightforward it is to set up and run a subsidiary in that market. This page explains exactly how that score is built, so you can judge it rather than just trust it.
Every score is built from 5 underlying facts. Each one comes from the same country data published on our individual country guides, never a separate or hidden dataset.
How long incorporation typically takes, from filing to a registered entity.
NavviPal's own flat formation fee for that country, from our published pricing.
How long it typically takes to open a corporate bank account once the entity is registered.
The percentage of a company foreign investors can own in standard, non-restricted sectors.
Whether the country requires a resident director, legal representative, or similar local presence on the company record.
For formation speed, formation cost, and banking speed, each country is ranked against the other 12 countries in our coverage, not against a fixed external target. The fastest or cheapest country in the group scores highest, the slowest or most expensive scores lowest. That means a score can shift over time even if one country's own facts haven't changed, if another country's facts have. Foreign ownership uses the published percentage directly. Local-presence flexibility is scored as a straightforward yes or no: no local-presence requirement scores highest.
Operational ease means something different depending on why you're setting up an entity, so every comparison lets you choose a setup lens. Each lens weights the same 5 dimensions differently:
| Setup lens | Formation speed | NavviPal formation fee | Account-opening speed | Foreign ownership, standard sectors | Local-presence flexibility |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales or marketing entity | 30% | 15% | 30% | 15% | 10% |
| Operating subsidiary | 20% | 20% | 20% | 10% | 30% |
| Talent or nearshore hub | 15% | 15% | 15% | 5% | 50% |
| Holding or IP company | 10% | 10% | 20% | 35% | 25% |
Sales or marketing entity
Prioritizes formation speed, banking speed, and ownership access.
Operating subsidiary
Prioritizes local-presence flexibility, formation, and banking.
Talent or nearshore hub
Uses local-presence flexibility as an entity-operations proxy; payroll is shown but not scored.
Holding or IP company
Prioritizes foreign-ownership access, local presence, and banking.
Payroll cost and complexity are shown on every comparison but deliberately left out of the score. The underlying country data isn't yet consistently scoped across all 13 markets in a way that would make a payroll score comparable rather than misleading, so it's shown as reference information instead of folded into the composite.
Every fact and scoring input comes from the same localized country guides published throughout this site, not a separate research process. When a country's guide is updated, that country's score updates with it.
Compare any two of our 13 LATAM markets and switch between setup lenses to see how the weighting changes the result.
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