Consortio Law Firm

23/08/2026

A fully licensed factory in Egypt can still be shut down.

That surprises a lot of foreign manufacturers. Under Egypt's Industrial Establishment Licensing Facilitation Law (Law 15/2017), the licence is where compliance begins — not where it ends. Three recurring issues are what actually put a plant at risk:

1️⃣ 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗿𝗲-𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴. An expansion, a new product, or a relocation each re-trigger the licensing process — and can push you into a stricter regime. Operating without the right approval can mean fines up to EGP 5 million and closure.

2️⃣ 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. Your fire, safety and environmental requirements are set by a licensing committee and published in an online guide that changes over time — and inspectors can arrive with no notice at all.

3️⃣ 𝗟𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗹𝘆. An unauthorised material change, a two-month lapsed renewal, or a grave violation can trigger revocation — and operating a sealed plant carries criminal liability and fines up to EGP 10 million.

The through-line: an industrial licence in Egypt is a living obligation, not a one-time approval.

Our new article breaks down all three — and what to do about each.

👉 https://consortiolawfirm.com/industrial-compliance-egypt/

For a foreign manufacturer, obtaining an industrial licence in Egypt is the beginning of compliance, not the end of it. Under Law No. 15 of 2017 — the Industrial Establishment Licensing Facilitation Law — a factory that is fully licensed on day one can still be fined, sealed, or expose

15/08/2026

You can build a factory in Egypt, hire your team, and switch on the line — and still be operating illegally.

Under Egypt's Industrial Establishment Licensing Facilitation Law (Law 15/2017), every factory runs under one of two licensing systems. And the choice isn't yours to make — it's decided by how your activity is classified.

→ Notification system (lower-risk activities): you notify, and you can operate immediately. The state inspects afterward.

→ Prior-licence system (higher-risk activities — cement, steel, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and more): you must be approved before you produce a single unit.

Get the classification wrong and the exposure is real: fines reaching EGP 5 million, mandatory closure, and personal criminal liability — with surprise inspections permitted on any working day.

For international manufacturers entering or expanding in Egypt, licensing isn't paperwork. It's the line between a compliant plant and an unlawful one.

Our latest article breaks down both systems — how to tell which one applies to your project, and what's at stake if you get it wrong.

Read it here 👉 https://consortiolawfirm.com/industrial-license-egypt/

Building a factory in Egypt is a major commitment — but pouring the foundations is not the same as being allowed to operate. A foreign manufacturer can install its machinery, hire its workforce, and still be running an illegal plant if it holds the wrong authorization. That is because an

09/08/2026

Egypt just replaced its 2017 Importers' Register regulations.

Ministerial Decree 271/2026 came into force on 22 July 2026. If you import into Egypt — or plan to — the conditions for registration, financial thresholds, and ongoing reporting have all shifted.

Three points that matter for foreign investors:

Foreign-owned importers have a defined path. Companies where Egyptians hold less than 51% may still register — for up to 10 years, extendable by Cabinet decision for one further 10-year period.

Higher financial thresholds. LLCs and partnerships need EGP 2M paid-in capital; joint-stock companies need EGP 5M issued capital. All companies must show EGP 5M in business volume and post EGP 200,000 in cash security or a bank guarantee.

Continuous reporting. Registered importers must now file audited annual financials within four months of year-end, plus quarterly statements with an auditor's limited-review report within 45 days.

We've published the full English translation of the decree — every article, chapter, and fee — as a working reference for market entry teams and in-house counsel.

Read it here: https://consortiolawfirm.com/egypt-importers-register-decree-271-2026/

UNOFFICIAL ENGLISH TRANSLATION Decree of the Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade No. 271 of 2026 Issuing the Executive Regulations of Law No. 121 of 1982 on the Importers' Register Published on 21 July 2026 in the Egyptian Waqai (Official Gazette), Issue 157 (Supplement) Effective

29/07/2026

Here is a scenario most foreign companies would not recognise as a compliance problem.

A German manufacturer with a single distributor in Cairo. A UK software vendor whose platform is used by Egyptian customers. A regional parent holding the HR records of its Egyptian affiliate.

None has a "presence" in Egypt in the ordinary commercial sense.

All three sit squarely inside Egypt's Personal Data Protection Law.

The PDPL applies by reference to whose data is processed — not where the company sits. Article 2 extends the law to any natural or legal person processing the personal data of individuals located in Egypt, whether the processing happens inside the country or outside it.

Once you are in scope, the next question is whether you have a foothold in Egypt. If you do not — no branch, no representative office, no local subsidiary — the law requires you to appoint an accredited representative inside Egypt.

The consequence of not doing so is not a tidy standalone fine you can budget around. It is structural. Without the representative, you cannot complete the licensing the law requires — controller or processor registration, cross-border transfer licence, sensitive data licence. Which means you are processing Egyptian data unlicensed.

That is where the PDPL's administrative and criminal penalties bite hardest.

The grace period closes around the end of October 2026. The accreditation process is still coming online. That is a reason to move early, not to wait — because the companies ready when the window fully opens are the ones that avoid the year-end bottleneck.

The full article explains who falls in scope, what the representative appointment involves, and the three steps to take before the deadline.

🔗 https://consortiolawfirm.com/pdpl-local-representative-foreign-companies-egypt/

By Karim El Sayed The cleanest assumption an international company can make about Egypt is also the most expensive one to get wrong: we have no entity there, so Egyptian law does not reach us. It is not true of the Personal Data Protection Law. If your company processes the personal data of people l...

25/07/2026

We've moved!

Consortio Law Firm is now settled into our new home in Nasr City, Cairo — and
we couldn't be more glad to welcome you. Take a look inside. The same team you
know, in a space built to serve you better. Still your safe house.

Come see us:
Unit 62, 6th Floor, Administrative Building No. 62
Ahmed El-Zomor Street, 8th District, Nasr City, Cairo — 11762

Call or message: +20 102 880 6061
[email protected] · consortiolawfirm.com

15/07/2026

Many businesses use fingerprint or facial recognition systems to manage employee attendance without realizing these systems process sensitive personal data under Egyptian law.

The Egyptian Personal Data Protection Law places biometric and certain financial employee information under a stricter legal framework than ordinary personal data. Companies should review how they collect, process, and protect this information to ensure their HR practices align with local legal requirements.

This carousel explains the key compliance considerations and practical steps businesses should take.

08/07/2026

Walk into almost any office in Egypt and you pass the same device on the way in: a small scanner that reads a fingerprint or a face to log who arrived and when.

No one thinks of it as a legal matter.

Under Egypt's Personal Data Protection Law, it is one of the sharpest.

A fingerprint is biometric data. Biometric data is sensitive personal data. And processing sensitive personal data in Egypt requires two things most companies have neither of: a separate license from the regulator, and the explicit written consent of every person scanned.

Getting it wrong is not an administrative slip. It is a criminal offence.

Here is the part that catches international companies specifically. Your HR system was almost certainly designed in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, or London — configured to a European understanding of what counts as sensitive. That system holds exactly the categories Egyptian law treats as sensitive:

biometric attendance data, payroll figures, employee bank details, medical records. The group template does not flag any of it, because under GDPR the exposure looks managed.

The result is a company that believes its HR data is well governed because it is GDPR-compliant — sitting on a body of data that is sensitive by the Egyptian definition, unlicensed, and processed without the required consent.

The regulator's licensing portal is coming online through 2026, and the posture so far is compliance-first rather than immediate enforcement. That is precisely the reason to start now: classifying the data, fixing the consent mechanism, and preparing the license application all take time — and none of it can begin until you know which of your systems hold sensitive data in the first place.

The full article explains what Egyptian law treats as sensitive, why the attendance scanner is the most common breach of it, and the three steps a company actually has to take.

🔗 https://consortiolawfirm.com/pdpl-sensitive-data-biometric-attendance-egypt/

Walk into almost any office in Egypt and you pass the same device on the way in: a small scanner on the wall that reads a fingerprint, or a face, to log who arrived and when. It is so ordinary that no one thinks of it as a legal matter at

21/06/2026

A medicine can pass every quality check — correct formula, valid shelf life, clean batch release — and still be illegal to sell in Egypt.

Under the Egyptian Drug Authority's National Unified Electronic Drug Track-and-Trace System, compliance is no longer only about the medicine. It is about the data that travels with every pack.

Miss the 2D DataMatrix, duplicate a serial number, or fail to record a single supply-chain event, and the product becomes a "Non-Compliant Product." The consequences are not a paperwork fine:

Circulation of the product suspended
Supply to the company suspended
Seizure — and potentially destruction — of the stock
All without prejudice to criminal and disciplinary liability

And the timeline is no longer theoretical. Imported finished products have been in scope since 1 February 2026. Locally manufactured products follow from 1 August 2026 — only weeks away.

This binds the entire chain: manufacturers, importers, distributors, 3PLs, pharmacies and hospitals. A perfectly serialized batch can still expose a manufacturer if its distributor never records the right event.

In our latest analysis, we set out precisely what the law requires — citing the specific articles of EDA Decrees No. 475 and No. 804 of 2025 — and what a realistic readiness programme looks like before the August deadline.
Read the full breakdown here:

https://consortiolawfirm.com/egypt-drug-track-and-trace-compliance/

Consortio — Your Safe House.

Egypt's drug track-and-trace regime has moved from aspiration to enforcement. Under the Egyptian Drug Authority's Decrees No. 475 and No. 804 of 2025, a single coding or data failure can render an otherwise sound product legally "non-compliant" — and that status can suspend the product's circulati...

31/05/2026

Most foreign companies entering Egypt assume that ending a contractual relationship is a matter of giving notice and moving on.

It rarely is.

Egyptian law treats termination as a substantive legal event — not an administrative one. The right to terminate is not the same as the right to terminate without financial consequence. And the gap between those two things is where the exposure lives.

In this article I cover the three categories that consistently catch foreign companies off guard: commercial agency, employment, and service contracts.

Each has a different legal source, a different cost structure, and a different set of procedural requirements that most foreign-drafted contracts simply do not reflect.

A few things that tend to surprise international companies:
A termination-for-convenience clause in an indefinite commercial agency agreement is void under Egyptian law — regardless of what it says.

Dismissing an employee for serious misconduct requires a labour court judgment.

A unilateral termination letter, even for genuine misconduct, is an unlawful termination.

Workforce reduction on economic grounds requires a formal application to a regulatory committee. There is no such thing as a unilateral redundancy decision under the new Labour Law.

The article is seventeen minutes. Worth reading before the next termination decision — not after.

🔗 https://consortiolawfirm.com/contract-termination-egypt-foreign-companies/

By Karim El Sayed — Managing Partner, Consortio Law Firm The decision to end a contractual relationship in Egypt — whether with a commercial agent, an employee, or a service provider — is almost never as straightforward as it appears from a foreign company's perspective. The contracts look