Filter by capital, district and kind of work. Every number uses the same units, so you can compare businesses side by side.
115 businesses
Light manufacturing & workshopTurning a manuscript into a printed book and getting it to market. White writing paper is Tk 34-40 per dista, and keeping a press requires a declaration before the District Magistrate.
Retail & wholesaleA DGDA-accredited pharmacy. 300 sq ft, air-conditioning, a pharmacy-grade fridge and a Grade A pharmacist are compulsory; the drug licence runs two years.
Light manufacturing & workshopSmall-workshop candle and soap making on low capital. Soap is on BSTI's mandatory certification list and cannot be sold without a CM licence; candles are not on the list.
Digital & B2B servicesA client's ad money is not your revenue - the retainer is. Bangladesh runs about Tk 7,400 crore a year of digital advertising at 15 percent VAT, and bKash on Facebook ad accounts is ending the middleman income.
Food processingGoods go to shops on credit and the money comes back in 15-30 days, so working capital is the limit, not the machine. Branded chanachur is Tk 300-333 a kg; a small maker has to sell at Tk 200-250.
Home & local servicesChair count, daily customers and rent decide everything. A Dhaka haircut is Tk 120 and a shave Tk 80-130, against one blade of material at Tk 6-23.
Home & local servicesA room, benches and someone who can teach; the capital is close to nothing. But government orders close every coaching centre for two to three months a year around the public exams.
Retail & wholesaleA shop selling fabric and ready-made clothes. Cotton runs Tk 300-700 a yard in Dhaka, and most of the year's takings arrive in the last ten days of Ramadan.
Home & local servicesHair, skin and makeover services. In Dhaka an at-home facial starts at Tk 820 and a party makeover runs Tk 2,350-2,950. Starting at home costs little; taking a shop costs a great deal more.
Light manufacturing & workshopBuying, sorting and reselling discarded plastic. The margin is Tk 2-20 a kg, and Dhaka scrap shops pay about Tk 22 a kg at the door.
Light manufacturing & workshopBuying waste paper, folding bags by hand and supplying shops. Khaki bags sell at Tk 135-140 a kg and white at Tk 80; 60 kg of paper costs Tk 7,500 and yields 70 kg of bags for Tk 2,300 profit.
Retail & wholesaleA stationery and book shop with photocopying. A 204-page exercise book is Tk 68, a 300-page one Tk 169, and white paper Tk 34-40 a dista. Textbooks come free from the government, so the season's money is in exercise books and photocopies.
Food processingMaking and bottling fruit juice and fruit drinks. A litre retails at Tk 80-90. Selling without a BSTI CM licence draws fines - recently Tk 30,000 to Tk 1,00,000.
Food processingMaking raw paratha, samosa and singara, freezing them and selling them in packs. Retail is Tk 12.5-19 a paratha and Tk 8.6-9.4 a mini samosa. The cold chain from factory to shop is the real condition of the business.
Food processingBoiling date palm or sugarcane sap into gur and patali through the three winter months. Gur was Tk 340/kg in Jashore and patali up to Tk 500. The hardest fight is not price but adulteration.
Home & local servicesA shop that washes, dries and irons clothes. In a mofussil town it is Tk 10 a garment and Tk 1,000 on a hundred-garment day, but load-shedding drops that to Tk 300-400.
Light manufacturing & workshopCutting, folding and binding paper into exercise books. A 300-page khata sells online at Tk 169 and a 120-page one at Tk 75, while a packet of paper costs Tk 100-150 more than a year ago.
Food processingCooking and serving for three to five hundred guests at events. The booking advance comes first, but catering services carry 15 percent VAT, not the restaurant's 5 percent.
Retail & wholesaleBuying potatoes at harvest, storing them cold and selling later. Rent is capped at Tk 6.00/kg, but in 2026 a 60 kg sack cost Tk 1,150-1,300 and sold for Tk 800-870.
Agriculture & farmingGrowing betel vine inside a bamboo-and-thatch boroj. About Tk 1 lakh a bigha to run, and in Rajshahi a bira of 64 leaves has gone from Tk 100-120 to Tk 4.
Agriculture & farmingGrowing dragon fruit on posts. One to four lakh taka a bigha up front, first fruit about a year later, and a price that has fallen from Tk 500 to Tk 80-100 a kilo in Karwan Market.
Light manufacturing & workshopPrinting designs on cloth. Low capital, but every design and every colour needs its own screen, so the per-piece cost climbs steeply as the order gets smaller.
Light manufacturing & workshopBuilding beds, wardrobes and tables to order. An MDF bed starts near Tk 12,000 and a solid teak king bed runs to Tk 1,80,000 - but the timber is paid for first and the money comes after delivery.
Digital & B2B servicesA small team taking foreign client work and routing the money home legally. Income tax and VAT are both waived and legal-channel earnings carry a 2.5 per cent cash incentive - but the first year pays close to nothing.
