Clients setting up in West Africa often arrive with a shortlist of three, and usually with a preference formed in a boardroom a long way from all of them. Accra, Abidjan and Lagos are each credible regional bases. They are also very different places to run a business from, and the right choice depends far more on what you sell and to whom than on any ranking.
I write from Accra, which is a reason to be careful rather than a reason to favour it. What follows is how we compare the three when a client asks, and the framework we use to decide.
Markets and money
Lagos is the gateway to Nigeria, a market of more than 200 million people with a depth in consumer goods, financial services, technology and media that no other West African economy matches. If Nigeria is your main market, there is a strong case for a presence in Lagos whatever else you decide. Abidjan sits at the centre of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, eight countries sharing the CFA franc and a single central bank, and is the natural base for francophone West Africa. Accra serves a smaller domestic market but has positioned itself as a stable, English-speaking hub, and it hosts the AfCFTA Secretariat.
Currency is where the three differ most. The CFA franc is pegged to the euro, which removes exchange rate risk against Europe and makes regional budgeting far simpler. Transfers outside the union go through approved banks with declaration and documentation requirements, and are routine when the paperwork is in order.
The naira was floated and its rates unified in 2023, after years in which repatriating dividends could take many months. Liquidity has improved markedly. Investors should still bring capital in through a bank that issues a certificate of capital importation, because that document is what supports repatriation later. The cedi has had a volatile few years, losing a large part of its value in the 2022 debt crisis and recovering strongly in 2025. Ghanaian law guarantees free transfer of profits and dividends; what clients worry about is the swings in value rather than access.
Setting up, talent and cost
Company formation is manageable in all three. In Côte d’Ivoire, the investment promotion centre, CEPICI, brings most formalities together in one place, and business law follows the OHADA uniform acts used across francophone Africa. Ghana’s new investment promotion law, passed in 2026, removes the minimum foreign capital requirement for non-trading businesses and lowers it for traders, while tightening local employment rules for trading companies. Nigeria’s company registry is largely online; the extra work comes afterwards, with expatriate quotas, sector licences and the capital importation records described above.
Talent is deepest in Lagos, particularly in finance, technology, law and marketing, and competition for it is intense. Accra has a strong professional base and good universities, and senior people relocate there readily. Abidjan’s pool is excellent for francophone roles and steadily improving in English.
On cost, Lagos is expensive in ways that do not appear in a rent quote: time lost to traffic, back-up power and security. Abidjan’s prime offices and housing are costly, partly because of demand from international organisations. Accra is not cheap either, and expatriate housing and schooling there cost more than many clients expect.
Choose the city that matches where your revenue will be in five years.
Stability, incentives and connections
Ghana has a long record of peaceful transfers of power between parties, most recently after the December 2024 election. Côte d’Ivoire has had more than a decade of strong growth and steady institutions since the post-election crisis of 2010 and 2011, although the 2025 presidential election was contested over the exclusion of leading candidates. Nigeria’s federal reforms since 2023, on the currency and on tax, have been significant and broadly welcomed by investors. Policy there has historically moved quickly in both directions, as the land border closure of 2019 and 2020 showed.
None of the three has built its offer around a regional headquarters tax regime. Incentives are mainly sector- or zone-based: Ghana’s free zones, the declaration and approval regimes under Côte d’Ivoire’s investment code, and Nigeria’s free trade zones together with the capital-spending incentive that replaced pioneer status under its 2025 tax reforms. They can matter a great deal for a factory. They rarely decide where a regional office goes.
All three have good links to Europe and the Gulf, and patchier ones within the region. Lagos has the widest long-haul network. Accra and Abidjan are about an hour apart by air. Reaching Central or East Africa from any of them can still mean a connection. Language decides more than people admit: an anglophone team in Abidjan, or a francophone one in Accra, will need deliberate effort to work across the region.
A framework for deciding
We ask clients five questions, in this order.
- Where will most of your revenue come from in five years? If the answer is Nigeria, start in Lagos.
- Do you need to price and hold cash in a stable currency across several countries? If so, Abidjan and the CFA zone have a real advantage.
- Which language will your customers, regulators and partners use? Base the team where that language is native.
- Is this a regional office, a sales operation or a plant? Offices follow talent and flights; plants follow incentives, land and power.
- How much currency and policy volatility can the business absorb, and for how long?
Many of our clients end up with more than one base: an entity in Lagos for the Nigerian market and a regional team in Accra or Abidjan for the rest. That is often the right answer. What we would advise against is choosing on reputation alone. Spend a week in each city with the people who will run the business, and the decision usually becomes clearer than any comparison table can make it.