This research is a survey of unregistered businesses conducted in Afghanistan between October and December 2008 at the same time with Afghanistan 2008 Enterprise Survey. 419 informal businesses were interviewed.

The objective of World Bank firm-level surveys is to obtain feedback from enterprises in client countries on the state of the private sector, assess constraints to private sector growth and create statistically significant business environment indicators that are comparable across countries.

The same survey instrument was used for formal and informal establishments in Afghanistan.

The standard Enterprise Survey topics include firm characteristics, gender participation, access to finance, annual sales, costs of inputs/labor, workforce composition, bribery, licensing, infrastructure, trade, crime, competition, capacity utilization, land and permits, taxation, informality, business-government relations, innovation and technology, and performance measures. Over 90% of the questions objectively ascertain characteristics of a country’s business environment. The remaining questions assess the survey respondents’ opinions on what are the obstacles to firm growth and performance. The mode of data collection is face-to-face interviews.

Sample survey data [ssd]

An unregistered establishment is the main focus of the research. An unregistered establishment is a business not registered with a central government body, such as Afghanistan Investment Support Agency, and/or any government ministry (the Department of Commerce, the Department of Economy, the Department of Education, etc.) Any business, registered only with a local municipality, a business association or a union, was also considered informal.