What It Really Costs: Doing Business in Maputo vs. Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg and Lusaka

Ask an investor choosing between Maputo, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg and Lusaka what matters, and the answer is rarely one number. It is the combination: what power and fuel cost, how much tax is due, what workers must be paid, what credit costs and — in Mozambique's case above all — whether you can buy the dollars you need.

This article compares the four markets on the costs that can be measured, and scores Maputo on those that cannot. The verdict: Mozambique's operating costs are competitive; its financial costs are not.

Thanks to Cahora Bassa, Mozambican businesses pay about $0.08 per kWh for electricity, according to GlobalPetrolPrices data for mid-2025 — roughly 45% less than South African businesses pay ($0.143). Only Zambia, with its own large hydro base, is cheaper at about $0.045. Tanzania's most recent comparable figure, from 2022, was $0.094.

Fuel is broadly similar across the region: diesel cost about $1.25 a litre in Mozambique in February 2026, against $1.29–1.30 in South Africa and Zambia. Mozambique's regulated fuel prices have been held steady by the stable exchange rate — an advantage that a devaluation would erode.

The caveat is reliability. Price matters less than supply: the 2025 drought cut Cahora Bassa's output by 30% and contributed to the shutdown of the Mozal smelter, and many businesses still rely on backup generators.

Mozambique's standard corporate income tax rate of 32% is the highest among the four, against 30% in Tanzania and Zambia and 27% in South Africa. Its 16% VAT sits in the middle: above South Africa's 15%, equal to Zambia's 16% and below Tanzania's 18%.

Large investors can often negotiate incentives — special economic zones, the Rovuma LNG regime, industrial free zones — but small and medium firms generally pay the headline rates.

Mozambique sets minimum wages by sector. From April 2026 they range from about $110–111 a month in agriculture, fishing and cashew processing to $135 for security and construction, $166 for tourism and manufacturing, $200 for electricity and gas, $254 for mining, and $281–319 for banking and insurance. The increases were small, and most minimums sit only slightly above the national poverty line for a family of five.

Low wages are an advantage for labour-intensive sectors such as agro-processing, garments and hospitality. But skills are scarce and productivity low; employers in gas, finance and engineering often pay far above the minimum, and the large LNG projects will compete hard for trained technicians.

Credit is expensive. The banks' prime lending rate peaked at 24.1% before falling from January 2024, and stood at 15.5% in August 2026 — about six points above the central bank's 9.25% policy rate. Actual loan rates for small businesses are higher still.

Foreign exchange is the larger problem. The metical has been held near 63.9 to the dollar for five years, but dollars are rationed; a 2026 study estimated that firms' import capacity fell by about 40% because of FX shortages. New import controls on 16 products and the state monopoly on rice and wheat imports add administrative risk for traders.

In Mozambique the price of a dollar is predictable. Its availability is not.

Pulling the measurable and the qualitative together, Maputo scores well on energy cost, labour cost and port access, and poorly on cost of capital, foreign-exchange access and tax. For investors, that points to a clear profile: businesses that earn hard currency, use a lot of power or labour, and need little imported working capital — exporters, agro-processors, LNG suppliers and tourism operators — fit Mozambique's cost structure best.