In Benin, small businesses devote a share of their sales to electricity roughly four times higher than that of large companies, according to the Benin Economic Update published by the World Bank in September 2026. The gap relates to the bill as a proportion of turnover, not to the absolute amount paid.
Across all the formal businesses surveyed, electricity spending accounted for 3.1% of turnover in 2024, compared with 6.3% in 2009. The average remains higher than that observed in Senegal (2.7%), but close to that of Rwanda (3.0%) and below the level in Togo (4.3% in 2023).
Manufacturing particularly exposed
Electricity bills for Beninese manufacturing firms reached roughly 5% of their sales in 2024, compared with 3.4% in structural peer countries and 2.7% in aspirational peer countries. The World Bank regards this differential as a brake on competitiveness and on the development of higher-productivity activities.
Beyond tariffs, small businesses must contend with service interruptions. In the survey cited, 86.1% of firms experienced outages in 2024 and nearly 60% relied on generators, which entail additional spending on purchases, fuel and maintenance.
Connections still lengthy
The average time to obtain an electricity connection is put at 48.2 days for businesses. At the same time, 76% of the connections needed to reach universal access targets are located within three kilometres of the existing grid, according to the report.
The World Bank recommends digitising connection procedures, reducing grid losses and diversifying electricity generation. It estimates that a rise in energy costs is associated with a decrease of about 0.3% in jobs in formal businesses and of 0.5% in their productivity, based on its analysis of 529 firms.