Côte d'Ivoire Sole Trader (Individual Entrepreneur) Business Registration

Candidate selection

GOV-4561 ("GovSchema Standard Research"). Côte d'Ivoire's Business Formation vertical was the sole item left open in Known Gaps entry 0l after Visa (GOV-4539), Taxes (GOV-4547), and Passport (GOV-4554) were each authored in prior cycles this same week — CEPICI's own "formulaire unique" sole-trader candidate and DGI's Formulaire_Enregistrement_des_Entreprises_FNE.doc were both flagged real but CEPICI's live host was recorded as sitting behind a Sucuri Cloudproxy JS challenge that a plain curl/fetch cannot pass — "not a login wall, but not authorable without real-browser-automation access this cycle."

Reaching the live source

Real-browser automation access was available this cycle. A Playwright/ Chromium session (this registry's own standing browser-playwright-sandboxed-env-setup recipe: vendored Chromium binary, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/FONTCONFIG_FILE environment fixes, realistic desktop Chrome User-Agent) navigated https://cepici.gouv.ci and https://www.cepici.ci — both redirected (HTTP 307) to https://cepici.ci, which loaded past the Sucuri challenge cleanly in the real browser (title "Bienvenue CEPICI", full page content rendered, no challenge page).

From the homepage: "Services" → "Guichet Unique des Formalités d'Entreprise" → "Création d'entreprise" (https://cepici.ci/infos-creation-entreprise) → "SERVICE A LA CREATION D'ENTREPRISES" card → "VOIR PLUS" link → https://cepici.ci/creation-entreprise, which lists CEPICI's own document library for business creation, organised by legal form. Under the "PERSONNE PHYSIQUE" (individual/sole-trader) heading, "Formulaire unique" links to https://cepici.ci/admin/pdf/codeinvestir/1752162607.pdf.

That PDF asset URL itself is not behind the Sucuri challenge — confirmed by fetching it directly with a plain, unauthenticated curl request (no browser, cookies, or session needed), using a realistic desktop Chrome User-Agent:

`` HTTP/2 200 content-type: application/pdf content-length: 29145 server: Sucuri/Cloudproxy ``

sha256 a55c3a61d8e0b3f609085746841cdac7561df01568947825ed4a32a8593b970d.

A companion document from the same page, the "Liste exhaustive des pièces à fournir pour l'Entreprise individuelle" (https://cepici.ci/admin/pdf/codeinvestir/1767862894.pdf), was also independently fetched directly (HTTP 200, 300,464 bytes) and read in full — it supplies this schema's documents[] checklist and the blanket requiredness instruction discussed in Finding 1 below.

Extraction method

Text extracted via pdfjs-dist's getTextContent() API (vendored at /tmp/node_modules/pdfjs-dist), reading each item's raw string and x/y transform position, grouped by y-coordinate row to reconstruct reading order. getAnnotations() confirmed zero /Widget annotations across all 3 pages — a flat (non-AcroForm) specimen, consistent with every other document in this jurisdiction's family.

All 3 pages were additionally rendered to PNG via pdfjs-dist + node-canvas (vendored at /tmp/node_modules/canvas) at 2.5x scale. As with several prior specimens in this registry, this document's glyphs render as blank/invisible in the rasterized PNG despite extracting correctly through the text layer — a broken-glyph-mapping/correct-underlying-text-extraction pattern, not missing content. Box and table gridlines (vector-drawn, not glyphs) render correctly regardless, and were used to independently corroborate the Section V table's column/row counts against the text layer's own x/y-coordinate groupings (see Finding 4).

Document structure

3 pages:

• Page 1: the office-only "CADRE RESERVE AU CEPICI" box (excluded); the "DECLARANT RESPONSABLE POUR L'ACCOMPLISSEMENT DES FORMALITES" block; a three-year (ANNEE 1/2/3) investment-amount and employment-count projection table. Footer stamp "FU/PP-1/2".
• Page 2: Sections I (entrepreneur identification) through V (persons empowered to bind the business), and the declaration date/place/signature line.
• Page 3: footer page-number stamp only ("FU/PP-2/2"), no further content.

Models 71 fields[] across 7 steps (27 statically required) and 11 documents[] entries.

Fields modelled

See schema.json's own steps[]/fields[] for the full list; summarized by step:

1. Declarant and Investment Projections — the responsible declarant's own identity/contact particulars, plus the three-year investment-amount and employment-count projections.
2. Entrepreneur Identification — the individual entrepreneur's own name, date/place of birth, domicile, nationality, and marital status.
3. Spouse Identification — a conditionally-applicable cluster, entirely optional (Finding 2).
4. Business Activities — activities, operating form, employee/ establishment particulars, projected turnover, trade name/purpose.
5. Localisation — head-office and establishment address particulars, cadastral references, postal address and phone.
6. Persons Empowered to Bind the Business — a bounded 3-slot repeating group (Finding 4).
7. Declaration — declaration date and signature.

Disclosed source-fidelity findings

1. The companion pièces-à-fournir document's blanket "toutes obligatoires" ("all of it is mandatory") instruction is applied to every Section I/III/IV/declarant field that is unconditionally applicable to any filer. The pièces-list states: "Il est important de remplir toutes les informations contenues dans le formulaire unique ; elles sont toutes obligatoires (exemple : chiffre d'affaires prévisionnel, régime d'imposition, numéros de téléphone …)" — an authority-issued blanket- required instruction. This is the only document in this registry's Côte d'Ivoire family to carry such an explicit statement (the sibling ci/dst/visa-application and ci/dst/passport-application schemas rely on per-field judgment calls in the absence of any such statement). It is NOT extended to the two structurally-conditional clusters modelled optional per Findings 2 and 4 (spouse identification; additional empowered persons), since a blanket instruction to complete "all the information" cannot literally require information that does not exist for a given filer (an unmarried entrepreneur has no spouse to declare), nor to sub-components of a premises description that may not apply to every property type (floor number, door number, cadastral references — see Finding 3).
2. The "II- IDENTIFICATION DU CONJOINT" (spouse identification) cluster is modelled entirely optional, with no visibleWhen/requiredWhen gate to maritalStatus. Unlike this registry's sibling ci/dst/passport-application schema (whose source form prints a literal C/M/D/V marital-status checkbox/box-grid enum that schema's own spouse cluster gates on), this form's "Situation matrimoniale" is a single free-text blank line with no printed options — there is no discrete, enumerable value to construct a reliable machine condition against, so maritalStatus is modelled as a plain string field and the spouse cluster is left ungated (optional throughout), rather than fabricating an enum this specimen does not print.
3. The premises/localisation sub-fields describing a specific building's internal layout or land-registry references (headOfficeFloorNumber/headOfficeDoorNumber, establishmentFloorNumber/establishmentDoorNumber, lotNumber, ilot, cadastralSection, cadastralParcelle, titleFoncierNumber) are modelled optional, since these are conditional on the specific property (an unbuilt or non-multi-story premises may have no floor/door number; a leased office may have no land-title/cadastral references of its own) — city, commune, and quartier (the form's own three primary location-identification captions) are modelled required per Finding 1's blanket instruction, since every business has a city/commune/quartier regardless of building specifics.
4. "V- IDENTIFICATION DES PERSONNES AYANT LE POUVOIR D'ENGAGER L'ENTREPRISE" is modelled as a bounded 3-slot repeating group, all fields optional. The rendered page shows a 4-column, 5-row table — one label column ("Nom"/"Prénoms"/"Date et lieu de naissance"/"Nationalité"/ "Domicile", confirmed via the text layer's own x-coordinate grouping: all five labels share the identical x=59 left-margin position, meaning they are row labels, not column headers) plus three further data columns — matching the companion pièces-list's own "NB : En cas de désignation d'une personne pouvant engager l'entreprise, produire..." note, which frames this as a conditional designation, not a mandatory one. This schema's own documents checklist (Finding 6) does not separately duplicate the near-identical identity/criminal-record/residence- certificate document set the pièces-list's own "NB" sub-items (a/b/c) describe for such a designated person, since it is structurally identical to the entrepreneur's own already-modelled document set and this bounded table is itself optional.
5. dateAndPlaceOfBirth and its spouse/representative-table counterparts are each modelled as a single combined string field, not split into separate date-of-birth and place-of-birth fields. Unlike this registry's sibling ci/dst/passport-application and ci/dst/visa-application schemas (whose source forms print separate "J M A" day/month/year box grids and a distinct "Lieu de naissance" caption), this specimen prints one shared blank line captioned "Date et lieu de naissance" throughout (Section I, Section II, and the Section V table) with no internal box/caption split — splitting it would fabricate a structure this specimen does not present.
6. The documents[] list is drawn from the companion pièces-à-fournir document, not from this form's own text (this form prints no attached-documents checklist of its own, unlike the sibling passport/visa schemas' printed "Documents joints" sections). identityDocumentCopy, birthCertificateOrFiliationDocument, residenceCertificate, leaseContractOrPropertyProof, and locationPlan are modelled required: true (the pièces-list states production of every listed document is mandatory for the dossier to be processed, and these five apply to every individual-entrepreneur filer regardless of circumstance). criminalRecordExtractAbidjan and swornDeclarationOfHonorWithCriminalRecord are modelled required: false as a disclosed either/or pair (the pièces-list itself conditions which applies on whether the entrepreneur/manager was born within the Abidjan Commercial Court's own territorial jurisdiction, a condition this schema has no field to test). emancipationAct, marriageCertificateOrFamilyRecordBook, regulatedActivityAuthorization, and powerOfAttorneyOrOtherDocument are modelled required: false, matching the pièces-list's own "Autres" framing (emancipated minor / legally married / regulated activity / procuration, each conditional on the filer's own circumstances).
7. The three-year investment- and employment-projection figures (investmentYearNAmount/employeesYearN for N=1..3) are all modelled required: true, per Finding 1's blanket-required instruction — the source prints all three years' columns identically, with no asterisk or note distinguishing any one year as optional, and the pièces-list's own worked example of a mandatory field ("chiffre d'affaires prévisionnel") is a structurally identical projected-figure field.
8. The signature is modelled as a plain signature string field, not a documents[] entry, matching this registry's ci/dst/visa-application and ci/dgi/microenterprise-tax-declaration precedent for this jurisdiction's own signature-block convention.

Conformance

3 valid mock scenarios (an unmarried sole entrepreneur with no additional empowered representative and no CNPS-registered employees; a married entrepreneur declaring a spouse under the séparation de biens regime with one additional empowered representative; a multi-establishment entrepreneur declaring two additional empowered representatives and secondary- establishment details) plus 29 mutation-control fixtures (a missing-required- field fixture for each of this schema's 27 statically-required fields, an invalid-type fixture, and an unknown-field-rejected fixture) are committed under conformance/ci/cepici/sole-trader-registration/1.0.0/.

An ephemeral, from-scratch conformance checker (deriving required/type rules directly from this schema's own fields[], discarded after use, not committed) ran all fixtures: all 3 valid scenarios at 0 errors, and all mutation controls each raising exactly 1 error of the expected kind. Validated clean with node tools/validate.mjs and node tools/validate-ajv.mjs, individually and as part of the full registry run. registry-index.json regenerated via npm run build-index in tools/govschema-client/.