The study focuses on Perception towards the burden of regulations on small and mediumrnenterprises in Gulele sub-city: Addis Ababa. The study adopts a mixed methods researchrnapproach to address the broad objective through answering research questions andrntesting the hypotheses developed from the literature review. Specifically, the study usesrnquantitative surveys of SMEs, in-depth interviews with a sample of SMEs owners,rnmanagers or employees. The study statistically analyzes the data elicited from surveys ofrnSMEs. It also supports the result from survey questionnaire by triangulating the resultsrnwith in-depth interviews and document studiesrnThe result of this mixed approach methodology explores that SMEs face challenges fromrndifferent factors but, they perceived challenges from regulatory burden outweigh otherrnfactors.rnThe result also identifies mechanisms mostly used by SMEs to mitigate problems fromrnregulations and how much the regulators have smooth contact with them and to whatrnextent the regulators made inspection, consultation and communication. Moreover, thernresult identifies the relation between regulations and SMEs performance and growthrnbased on their view i.e. they have positively related each other.rnAs a whole, the study suggests a series of measures which could be taken by the governmentrnpolicy makers/regulators and for SMEs. This measure includes to adopt government impactrnassessment task force and review the existingrnregulations how much they enable andrnconstrain businesses and at the same manner suggest for SMEs to incorporate differentrnmechanisms to comply with regulation rather than rely more on specific mechanisms