Data-center law in Burkina Faso

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-04

Burkina Faso has no data-center-specific land-use, environmental-review, energy-grid, water-utilities, construction, or air-operations statute; a data center would be sited and permitted under the country's general regulatory apparatus rather than a dedicated regime, and none of those five dimensions was independently researched beyond confirming no data-center-specific instrument exists.

The one dimension with a citable instrument is investment incentives: Loi n°038-2018/AN du 30 octobre 2018 portant Code des investissements au Burkina Faso establishes a special fiscal and customs regime (Titre V) for projects sited within a designated "pôle de croissance" (growth pole) or "zone économique spéciale" (special economic zone), defined as a delimited geographic area dedicated to one or more sectors of activity to promote exports.

A project inside such a zone is exempt, without regard to the ordinary investment-size and job-creation thresholds that gate the Code's general privileged regimes, from value-added tax and customs duties on imports needed strictly for the project, and from corporate income tax, the business license tax, the corporate property tax, the payroll and apprenticeship tax, and the tax on income from debt claims during the investment phase; the Code's general privileged regimes (Régimes A through E) separately grant customs and tax exemptions to any qualifying new enterprise, scaled to investment size and employment created, without regard to sector.

Neither the special-zone regime nor the general regimes name data centers specifically, and the geographic delimitation of any growth pole or special economic zone is set by a decree of the Council of Ministers rather than by the Code itself, so whether a given site qualifies is a fact to confirm per project rather than a standing statutory list.

01

Instruments on record

1 instrument on record, grouped by the family of approval each one governs.

Public agreements

What fiscal agreements attach a data center to its host jurisdiction?

Loi n°038-2018/AN du 30 octobre 2018 portant Code des investissements au Burkina Faso, growth-pole and special-economic-zone regime

In force

Loi n°038-2018/AN du 30 octobre 2018 portant Code des investissements au Burkina Faso Titre V (régime spécial: pôles de croissance et zones économiques spéciales, Arts. 34 à 37)

Effective 2018-12-03 · Applies to both

Title V of Burkina Faso's Investment Code institutes a special fiscal and customs regime for enterprises investing inside a designated growth pole or special economic zone (Art. 34), defined elsewhere in the Code as a delimited geographic area dedicated to one or more sectors of activity to promote exports, with a growth pole specifically referring to a zone organized around a driving activity that produces knock-on effects for subordinate units in the same location and elsewhere.

Article 35 grants a qualifying project, regardless of the investment-size, project-duration, or job-creation thresholds that otherwise gate the Code's general privileged regimes, exemption from value-added tax, customs duties, and other import levies on goods and services strictly needed for the project during the investment phase, and, during that same phase, exemption from corporate income tax, the business license tax, the corporate property tax, the payroll and apprenticeship tax, and the tax on income from debt claims.

A subcontractor working exclusively for a project holder inside such a zone is eligible for the same import-stage exemptions. Article 36 leaves the regime's detailed conditions to further regulation, and Article 37 sets the geographic boundaries of any growth pole or special economic zone by decree of the Council of Ministers, so the regime applies only where such a decree has actually designated a site.

Article 1's general definition of "entreprise" does not itself limit Title V to privately owned projects, and Article 35's own investment-phase duration cap is stated specifically for private promoters, which does not foreclose the regime also reaching a public or parastatal promoter on different terms not spelled out here.

Source: Full text of law

Every entry cites the instrument it describes. None of it is legal advice: verify a citation before relying on it. Full sourcing: read the methodology. The rest of the record: all jurisdictions.