Every business activity is influenced by many external and internal factors that influence it more or less. The conditions for business units are usually different from one country to another, and this is either positive or negative for their development. The aim of this paper is to compare the business environment in selected EU countries. The first part of the paper focuses on the comparison of macroeconomic indicators in selected economies. The next part of the article focuses on the basic factors that are considered when starting a business through the Doing Business database and Eurostat. The period analyzed is from 2004 to 2019. Within that period, it is expected that the individual economies of the countries in question have diverse economic performances, which were largely affected by the economic recession in 2009 and 2010.