South Korea has maintained its position among the world’s top entrepreneurial ecosystems, ranking 8th out of 53 countries in the 2025 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey, according to results released by the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association (GERA) on February 26.
The country recorded a National Entrepreneurship Context Index (NECI) score of 5.9 out of 10, surpassing the participating countries’ average of 4.8 by 1.1 points. South Korea has participated in the GEM survey since 2008.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is a non-profit international research project jointly initiated by London Business School and Babson College. It tracks entrepreneurship levels across roughly 50 nations — including the US, UK, France, Germany, Israel, and Japan — assessing startup environments, government policy, education and training, and public attitudes toward entrepreneurship.
Among the 13 expert-evaluated indicators measuring startup conditions such as government policy, financial environment, education, and infrastructure, South Korea improved year-over-year in five categories: market dynamism (7.9 points, +0.4), physical infrastructure including internet and transportation (7.6 points, +0.4), post-secondary education and training (5.5 points, +0.2), primary and secondary education (4.9 points, +0.1), and cultural and social norms (6.0 points, +0.1).
The adult population survey painted an encouraging picture of entrepreneurial sentiment. The share of respondents planning to start a business within three years rose to 24.6%, up 1.9 percentage points from the previous year. Notably, only 27.0% of respondents who identified startup opportunities said fear of failure was holding them back — the lowest figure among all participating countries.
Awareness of entrepreneurship within personal networks also grew, with 38.7% of respondents saying they personally knew someone who had started a business in the past two years, a 1.8 percentage point increase.
Among early-stage entrepreneurs, 44.8% said they prioritize the social and environmental impact of their business over profits or growth — reflecting a broader shift toward purpose-driven entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, digital technology adoption surged dramatically: 63.8% of respondents reported using digital tools such as websites, social media, data analytics, cloud services, or AI to sell products and services, a remarkable jump of 44.7 percentage points compared to the prior year.
On the challenges side, 59.6% of early-stage entrepreneurs said starting a business had become harder compared to a year ago, up 4.0 percentage points — a reminder that despite strong rankings, structural barriers remain.
