🇻🇪 Venezuela · 2026 edition
Investing in Caracas
Caracas ranks 13 of 13 Latin American cities on the ProLatam Data Index with 30.5 of 100, and 13 of 13 on the ProLatam Score. Its strongest pillar is english proficiency (52), its weakest is innovation (6). A foreign shareholder pays 34.00% in total on repatriated profit. Coverage is 85%, since some sources do not reach this city.
ProLatam Data Index
30.5
Rank 13 of 13, balanced weighting
ProLatam Score
30.1
Rank 13 of 13, market-entry weighting
Strongest pillar
English Proficiency
52 of 100
Weakest pillar
Innovation
6 of 100
How Caracas scores on each pillar
Eight pillars, each normalized to 0 to 100 by a fixed published rule. A dash means the source does not cover Caracas, which is not the same as a zero. Coverage of the weighted index for this city is 85%.
Swipe the table sideways for the reported value, the weights and the source.
What a foreign shareholder pays in Venezuela
Corporate income tax plus the standard non-treaty withholding on the dividend paid out of what is left, which is the figure that actually reaches an owner abroad.
Total on repatriated profit
34.00%
Corporate income tax
34.0%
Dividend withholding
0.0%
Standard non-treaty rate
Compliance hours per year
920
World Bank Paying Taxes, 2018 data
Venezuela taxes on a worldwide basis, so worldwide income is in scope. The apparent burden is not comparable to the rest. Brackets are denominated in Tax Units whose value moves by administrative decision under hyperinflation, banking pays 40% and oil 50%, dividends are taxed only on profit not already taxed at the corporate level, and Venezuela ranked 189th of 190 on Paying Taxes with 99 payments and 920 hours a year.
Context, published but not scored
These shape a decision without belonging in the index. FDI inflows track the size of an economy rather than the appeal of a city, and a sovereign rating measures a government's ability to repay debt rather than a company's ability to operate.
GDP growth 2026
n/a
IMF World Economic Outlook, national
FDI inflows
n/a
Neither ECLAC nor the Banco Central de Venezuela publishes current FDI figures for Venezuela.
Sovereign rating
C (Moody's)
Long-term foreign currency
English proficiency
529 (Moderate)
EF EPI city score, 1 to 800
Where Venezuela has moved since 2021
The rule of law pillar is the only one of the eight with a series comparable across five editions, so it is the only place this profile shows a direction rather than a snapshot. Scores are national, 0 to 1, higher is better.
2021
0.265
2022
0.261
2023
0.264
2024
0.261
2025
0.260
Over the period Venezuela weakened, -0.005 points. A move under 0.005 is reported as flat rather than as a trend. Compare all 10 economies.
Sectors with a documented presence
Oil & Gas Reopening
Output reached 1.23 M barrels per day in August 2026 and Chevron announced USD 7 bn over five years to lift its own production to about 600,000 bpd, after OFAC licensed operations for BP, Chevron, Eni, Repsol and Shell in February 2026.
SourceCapital Markets Reactivation
The Caracas Stock Exchange traded USD 689.8 M, up 422%, passing 1,000 annual operations for the first time since 2007, and international airlines resumed flights after airspace reopened in February 2026.
SourceHigh-risk frontier market. The IMF excludes Venezuela from the World Economic Outlook and S&P withdrew its rating in 2021, so several indicators cannot be scored.
Citing the Caracas figures
Published under CC BY 4.0. Reuse is welcome, including commercially, with credit and a link.
Pro Latam. (2026). ProLatam Latin American City Investment Index 2026 (Version 2026.4) [Data set]. https://invest.pro-latam.orgSource: Pro Latam Investment Hub, ProLatam Data Index 2026 (https://invest.pro-latam.org). Updated 2026-09-04.
Considering Caracas for a market entry?
Pro Latam has been placing international companies in Latin America since 2010. The ranking is the public part of the work, and the rest is the part that depends on what you are actually trying to build.