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barriers to entry

obstacles making it hard to enter a market

In Business & Marketing

In more detail

1. (noun) obstacles or factors that make it difficult or expensive for new companies to enter and compete in a particular market or industry

Examples

• High capital costs and strict regulations are significant barriers to entry in the pharmaceutical industry.

How to use barriers to entry

Barriers to entry is an economics and business term referring to structural or regulatory challenges that prevent new competitors from easily accessing a market. It is used in formal business analysis, academic discourse, and competitive strategy discussions. The phrase is typically paired with 'high' or 'low' to indicate the degree of difficulty for newcomers entering the market.

Register: formal

Common phrases

• high barriers to entry
• low barriers to entry
• create barriers to entry
• reduce barriers to entry
• barriers to entry exist
• significant barriers to entry

Synonyms

obstacles to entry · entry obstacles · market barriers · competitive barriers · impediments to market entry

A common mistake

Learners sometimes use 'barriers for entry' or 'barriers in entry' instead of the correct preposition 'to'.

Nearby in Business & Marketing

vertical, scalable, grassroots marketing, bottom line, brainstorming, break-even

Keep going

How to remember the words you read · Spaced repetition, explained