Feasibility Study for an Outsourcing (BPO) and Call Center Company in Egypt

How an outsourcing or call centre company makes money, and where it loses it

An outsourcing (BPO) or call centre company sells productive hours from a team you manage: answering another company's customers, technical support, or data processing. Revenue is charged per hour, per seat or per call, while cost is paid for every occupied seat, whether or not you bill it in full.

So a BPO and call centre feasibility study starts with the monthly cost per seat, not with the number of clients: the agent's salary and the employer's social-insurance share, the agent's share of team leaders and quality analysts, rent, systems and backup internet, and the cost of replacing people who leave. The real risk sits in two places: a foreign client who pays 45 days after month end while salaries are monthly, and a large client who cuts seats at short notice while you cannot shrink your team as fast.

Call centre licensing and labour law

In April 2023 the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) issued a regulatory framework that requires a licence to establish and operate call centres and provide call centre outsourcing services to clients in or outside Egypt; the licence runs for 5 years¹. The published fees are a one-off licence fee of EGP 100,000, an annual fee of EGP 50,000 and a licence-burden fee of EGP 10,000, each plus 14% VAT, and a letter of guarantee of EGP 100,000, which may be replaced by a bank transfer¹. The framework also requires the NTRA's prior written approval to use a cloud call centre¹, so get it before you sign for a cloud platform, and check the fees in force when you apply.

Under Labour Law No. 14 of 2025, Article 45 provides that, subject to Article 40, establishments may not employ workers through a labour contractor or a labour-supply contractor, and the law defines a worker as a person working for a wage for an employer under its management or supervision². The text does not say when an outsourcing contract counts as labour supply, and it does not deal with seats dedicated to a single client. The cautious reading is to keep agents under the management of your own team leaders and to have the contract define the service, its performance standards and its price, not a headcount the client manages; this is a judgement that needs legal advice before you sign, especially if agents will work at the client's premises or under its day-to-day direction. See the HR services feasibility study. MaherCF can handle the company formation.

The working-hours and leave articles shape the shift²:

• Actual work may not exceed 8 hours a day or 48 hours a week, excluding meal and rest breaks (Article 117).
• Breaks totalling at least one hour, no more than 5 consecutive working hours (Article 118), and no more than 10 hours between the start and end of the working day (Article 119).
• Overtime is allowed to meet unusual work needs or exceptional circumstances, with notice to the administrative authority within 7 days, and is paid at no less than the wage plus 35% for a daytime hour and 70% for a night hour (Article 121). Night is the period between sunset and sunrise (Article 1), so an overtime hour after sunset is a night hour.
• Annual leave is 15 days in the first year and 21 days from the second year (Article 124).
• Official holidays set by the minister are paid leave; a worker who works on one is owed twice the day's wage on top of it, or another day off at the worker's written request (Article 129).

In practice, covering a US client's hours needs planned night shifts with a separate team, not recurring overtime. A European client does not stop for Egyptian public holidays, so price that cover or agree it in the contract.

Monthly cost per seat: from salary to backup internet

The private-sector minimum wage is EGP 7,000 a month from 1 March 2025³. The employer pays 18.75% of the insurable wage and the employee 11%⁴, and the insurable wage ceiling is EGP 16,700 from 1 January 2026⁵. An English-speaking agent on EGP 20,000 is insured on EGP 16,700 only, so the employer's share is EGP 3,131.25. This is the cost of one foreign-client seat in the example below (assumptions except social insurance and the licence fee):

Fixed monthly costs are EGP 493,143.75: an operations manager, a trainer, a network engineer and a scheduler on salaries of EGP 118,000 plus EGP 12,393.75 of social insurance; rent 200,000; electricity 45,000; internet from two providers plus a backup line 35,000; generator fuel 10,000; security, cleaning, accountant, sales and miscellaneous 68,000; and the annual licence fee with VAT, 4,750 a month.

Illustrative example: a 50-seat centre ramping to 40 seats for a foreign client

The figures are assumptions, not market prices:

• Capacity: 50 equipped seats, one day shift aligned with a European client's hours.
• Foreign client: 20 billable seats in month 2, 30 in month 3 and 40 from month 4, at USD 7.5 per productive hour. The monthly invoice is paid 45 days after month end, so the cash arrives in the second month after the service month. The exchange rate of EGP 53 per dollar is an assumption, not an official rate; use the Central Bank's rate on the day of your study.
• Productive hours: 176 paid hours a month (8 × 22 days), of which 85% are billable, or 149.6 hours; the rest is leave, ongoing training, meetings and absence. Revenue per seat is therefore 149.6 × 7.5 = USD 1,122, or EGP 59,466.
• Local clients: 6 seats from month 2 at EGP 32,000 per seat per month, collected after 30 days, with agents on EGP 9,000.
• Training and attrition: every new agent trains for a full paid month before being billed, with a hiring fee of EGP 2,500. 3% of agents leave each month, and a leaver's seat stays unbilled for half a month on average. In the cash table, team leaders and quality analysts are counted as whole people.
• Start-up costs: EGP 4,055,400: fit-out and furniture 1,000,000, computers and headsets 1,500,000, network and firewall 250,000, generator and UPS units 600,000, rent deposit 400,000, NTRA licence with VAT 125,400, letter of guarantee covered in cash 100,000, incorporation 30,000, launch and hiring campaign 50,000.

Break-even: after its variable cost and the half-month of lost billing, a foreign seat leaves EGP 26,096.32 and a local seat EGP 11,859.38. With the six local seats you need about 16.2 foreign seats, or about 22 billable seats, 44% of the equipped seats. The full cost of a productive hour is EGP 288.76, about USD 5.45, against a price of EGP 397.5.

(The balance starts from minus the start-up costs; figures are rounded to the nearest pound.)

The value of service for the year is EGP 26,095,664 and the operating profit EGP 3,901,941 before depreciation and taxes. From month 4 the centre earns EGP 598,752 a month, 23.6% of its revenue, while net cash does not reach that figure until month 6. Two points stand out:

• The deepest cash need is EGP 9,232,773 in month 4, more than twice the start-up costs, because one training month followed by a 45-day wait means three months of salaries are paid before the first dollar arrives.
• At year end the balance is still minus EGP 5,028,500, and clients hold EGP 4,875,041 not yet collected. At the same monthly profit the balance returns to zero in month 21.

The difference between profit and cash is covered in cash flow for small businesses, and the break-even method in break-even and working capital.

What if attrition rises, the client cuts seats or the dollar falls?

In the seat-cut scenario we assumed the team shrinks only through people leaving, so about 33 agents remain on 30 seats in month 12. Article 157 does not allow an open-ended employment contract to be terminated except for a legitimate and sufficient reason, Article 156 requires three months' written notice before termination, and downsizing for economic necessity goes through an application to a committee that decides within 45 days at most (Articles 236 and 237)². Whether a client's seat cut is a sufficient reason is a question for your lawyer. So require in the client contract advance notice of seat reductions at least as long as you need to adjust your team. A 10% fall in the dollar cuts the year's profit by about 62%, because every cost is in pounds and most revenue is in dollars.

The levers specific to an outsourcing company

• Payment terms: if the foreign client paid after 30 days instead of 45, the deepest cash need would fall to EGP 7,488,564; at 75 days it would rise to EGP 10,976,982. Each month of delay costs about EGP 1.74 million of capital.
• Productive-hour ratio: each percentage point is worth about EGP 27,564 a month on 40 seats, and at 80% instead of 85% monthly profit falls from EGP 598,752 to EGP 460,930.
• Pricing method: per seat, the client carries absence; per productive hour, you carry it; per call, you carry absence, call volume and call length. At an average call of 6 minutes and 80% occupancy an agent handles 8 calls per productive hour, so USD 7.5 an hour equals about USD 0.94 a call. If calls stretch to 7 minutes at that per-call price, revenue per hour falls 14.3% to about USD 6.43. See how to price your product.
• Service continuity: internet lines and generator fuel cost EGP 45,000 a month in the example, less than half the value of one day of service (about EGP 115,095), so do not economise on them.

VAT on services to a foreign client

The general rate is 14%, the rate is zero on exported goods and services under the conditions set by the Executive Regulations, and Article 16 requires an exporter to register whatever the size of its transactions⁶, while the mandatory registration threshold for others is EGP 500,000⁷.

The Tax Authority's guideline for exported services, issued with Executive Instructions No. 45 of 2025, makes the location of the business customer the determining factor for the place of taxation: remote services to a business customer not located in Egypt are zero-rated unless they relate to real estate in Egypt or require the physical presence of both parties there⁸. Its examples include marketing services that an Egyptian company provides within Egypt to a company abroad, which are zero-rated; but if the contract names the client's branch in Egypt as the recipient and user of the service, it is a local service at the statutory rate even if paid from abroad⁸. The guideline requires a written contract, a detailed electronic invoice and bank proof of payment⁸, and input tax on exported services is refunded within 45 days of the request, provided the export proceeds are remitted to a bank supervised by the Central Bank⁶. The general rules are covered in the software company feasibility study; check your case with your accountant.

Common mistakes in a BPO and call centre feasibility study

1. Calculating revenue on 176 hours instead of the hours actually productive, 149.6 in the example.
2. Leaving out the training month: 26 agents on full pay in month 1 with no billing.
3. Capital that covers fit-out only, when the deepest need in the example is more than twice the start-up costs.
4. Building profit on the exchange rate of the signing day with no scenario for a falling dollar.
5. Leaving out the NTRA licence and its prior approval for a cloud platform.
6. A contract that puts agents under the client's management without legal advice, which may move the model towards the labour supply that Article 45 prohibits.

Frequently asked questions about a BPO and call centre feasibility study

Sources

1. National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA). أهم ملامح الإطار التنظيمي الخاص بمراكز الاتصال في جمهورية مصر العربية (صادر في أبريل 2023) (in Arabic). Checked 22 October 2026.
2. Alberonsy (law text from the Official Gazette, issue 18 cont.). قانون رقم 14 لسنة 2025 بإصدار قانون العمل (المواد 1 و45 و117 و118 و119 و121 و124 و129 و156 و157 و236 و237) (in Arabic) (2025-05-03) — secondary source; Manshurat. قانون العمل الجديد 2025 (القانون رقم 14 لسنة 2025، المواد 1 و45 و117 و118 و119 و121 و124 و129 و156 و157 و236 و237) (in Arabic) (2025-05-03) — secondary source. Checked 22 October 2026.
3. Ministry of Planning and Economic Development. الاجتماع الأول للمجلس القومي للأجور: رفع الحد الأدنى لأجور القطاع الخاص إلى 7000 جنيه (in Arabic) (2025-02-09). Checked 22 October 2026.
4. Andersen Egypt. Social insurance in Egypt (contribution rates under Law 148/2019) (2026-06-30) — secondary source. Checked 22 October 2026.
5. National Organization for Social Insurance (NOSI). التأمينات: رفع الحدين الأدنى والأقصى لأجر الاشتراك التأميني بدءًا من أول يناير 2026 (in Arabic) (2025-11-30). Checked 22 October 2026.
6. Financial Regulatory Authority. قانون الضريبة على القيمة المضافة رقم 67 لسنة 2016 وفقًا لآخر تعديل (in Arabic). Checked 22 October 2026.
7. Egyptian Tax Authority. ما هو حد التسجيل الإلزامي لضريبة القيمة المضافة، وما هي الأنشطة المعفاة منها؟ (in Arabic). Checked 22 October 2026.
8. Egyptian Tax Authority. آلية تعامل المكلفين مع الخدمات المصدرة (التعليمات التنفيذية 45 لسنة 2025 والدليل الإرشادي) (in Arabic); Egyptian Tax Authority. Guidelines for Exported Services in Egypt (First Edition). Checked 22 October 2026.