Law No. 16-95 on Foreign Investment in the Dominican Republic permits full foreign ownership (100%) across all sectors relevant to digital trade.

The Dominican Republic is a signatory of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Information Technology Agreement (ITA) of 1996, but is not a signatory of its 2015 expansion (ITA II).

Art. 61 of Law No. 47-25 establishes a sequencing requirement that prioritises nationally issued tenders and conditions recourse to international tendering upon the fulfilment of specified procedural thresholds, thereby functioning as a limitation on the immediate participation of foreign suppliers in public procurement. It stipulates that the call for a public tender may be issued at either the national or international level, with an international call required in any of the following circumstances: when the procurement falls under an agreement or treaty in force between the Dominican Republic and another State or a multilateral or bilateral credit organisation; when, on the basis of a market study and an accompanying technical report, it is determined that national bidders lack the capacity to supply the goods, provide the services, or execute the works in question; or when a nationally issued call has been declared void on two occasions due to non-compliant submissions or the absence of proposals, in which case a technical report must attest that enhanced efforts were made to notify and invite domestic suppliers. Notwithstanding the above, when a national call has been declared void twice, the contracting authority retains the power to issue further national calls.
Law No. 47‑25 repeals Law No. 340‑06, which establishes a similar restriction in Art. 16. The new legislation will take effect in January 2026.

Art. 172 of Law No. 47-25 stipulates that contracting institutions, when preparing their budget allocations, must reserve at least 30% of the funds designated for procurement for procedures exclusively intended for Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs), allocating 20% to MSMEs in general and 10% to MSMEs led by women; furthermore, Art. 173 provides that procurement processes reserved for MSMEs shall require interested suppliers to have an established domicile within the municipal district, municipality, province, or region where the goods are to be supplied, the services rendered, or the works executed.
The preference regime in Law No. 47-25 differs somewhat from that in Law No. 488-08, which nevertheless remains in force. According to Art. 25, state institutions must reserve 15% of purchases of goods and services to national MSMEs. Moreover, Art. 26 establishes that when MSMEs are managed by women who have a shareholding or capital stock of more than 50%, then the percentage of purchases by state institutions reserved for MSMEs goes up to 20%.

Art. L.1211-6 of the Commercial Code provides that any legal entity whose head office is located abroad and which undertakes a commercial activity in the Republic of Djibouti must, within one month from the start of this activity, require the registration of a branch in the Republic of Djibouti. This request is to be filed with the registry responsible for maintaining the Register of Commerce and Companies. The Code defines commercial activity as including e-commerce.

Djibouti does not implement any de minimis threshold, which is the minimum value of goods below which customs do not charge duties.

Djibouti does not possess a comprehensive regulatory framework for consumer protection in the context of online transactions. Neither the provisions of Law No. 28/AN/08/6th L on the Protection, Suppression of Fraud and Consumer Protection (Loi N°28/AN/08/6ème L portant sur la protection, la répression de la fraude et la protection du consommateur), nor any other existing legislation, address transactions conducted by consumers via digital platforms.

Djibouti has not signed the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts.

Djibouti has not adopted national legislation based on or influenced by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Electronic Commerce.

Djibouti has not adopted national legislation based on or influenced by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Electronic Signatures.

It is reported that passport registration is required when buying a SIM card in Djibouti, a copy is taken in the shop.

It was reported in 2024 that the government blocks access to social media platforms such as Facebook and Messenger. This restriction has been in place for the past three years, with access limited to individuals who use virtual private networks (VPNs) on their mobile devices.

The indicator "7.2.4 - Government Internet shut down in practice" of the V-Dem Dataset, which measures whether the government has the technical capacity to actively make internet service cease, thus interrupting domestic access to the internet or whether the government has decided to do so, has a score of 3 in Djibouti for the year 2024. This corresponds to "Rarely but there have been a few occasions throughout the year when the government shut down domestic access to Internet."

It is reported that Djibouti has import restrictions in place on transceiver devices, which require authorisation from the Ministry of Communication, which is in charge of Posts and Telecommunications. A transceiver is a combination transmitter/receiver in a single package. While the term typically applies to wireless communications devices, it can also be used for transmitter/receiver devices in cable or optical fibre systems. For fibre optic transceivers, the most widely used HS Code is 851762, falling under “Machines for the reception, conversion and transmission or regeneration of voice, image or other data, including switching and routing apparatus”, a code included in the original Information Technology Agreement.