ABSTRACT Understanding the institutional context in each country that influences entrepreneurship is essential. This study examines a functional form of property rights in entrepreneurship by legal origin. Our study uses data published by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. We explored the correlation between entrepreneurship and property rights using macro data for 51 countries from 2001 to 2020, categorizing the countries into four types of legal origin. The results showed that the form of function between entrepreneurship and property rights differs according to the legal origin. The association between entrepreneurship and property rights showed an upward trend in English and German legal-origin countries but a gradual quadratic bell curve trend in French legal-origin countries. The association between property rights and entrepreneurship was irrelevant in countries with inherited Scandinavian legal origins. The observation of countries by legal origin revealed that expanding property rights does not necessarily promote entrepreneurship. Therefore, the study recommends that the level of property rights that can be adjusted to one’s institution be determined according to the variety of capitalism.