In 2017, the global framework regulation costs indicator, which aggregates nine costs domains, registered an intermediate value of 3.05 on a 1 to 5 scale, similar to the value observed in 2014. By economic activity, Accommodation and food services continued to show the highest indicator (3.16), despite the decrease when compared to 2014 (-0.05). By enterprise size-class, small and medium enterprises continued to be the ones that presented the highest indicator, 3.09 (+0.02 than in 2014), while those of micro-dimension perceived lower framework regulation costs levels (2.94 in 2017, 0.4 less than in 2014).
Among the nine domains analysed, the main constraints to business activity were identified in the judicial system, in licensing and in tax system, similar to what was considered by companies in 2014. However, it was the human resources domain which recorded the largest increase between 2014 and 2017, +0.17 points, mainly reflecting difficulties in hiring workers (+0.28) and access to qualified technicians (+0,23).
In 2017, in the set of costs associated with compliance with the information obligations, 88.5% were supported by the company's own means and 13.5% fulfilled by outsourcing. The provision and delivery of business and fiscal information recorded the greatest weight in the annual average cost with the fulfilment of the information obligations (37.5%), followed by the licenses, certificates, authorisations or permissions (23.2%).