In this study, we investigate the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs), represented by ICT capital services, on total entrepreneurial activity (TEA) in developing, emerging and developed countries with particular attention on countries’ absorption capacities over the period 2006-2016. First, our results suggest a positive relationship between ICT capital services and entrepreneurship in the whole sample. Second, while the results concerning subsamples are larger in developing and emerging countries than in developed countries, the comparisons do not reveal statistically significant differences in the contribution of ICT capital services to entrepreneurship in these three groups of countries. Thus, regarding the benefits of ICTs in promoting entrepreneurship, developing and emerging countries are not earning more than the developed economies. This challenges the argument that these countries are ‘leapfrogging’ through ICT. Concerning the absorption capacity, we find that secondary school enrolment is the best channel of ICT entrepreneurial effect, not tertiary school enrolment, and innovation is a complement to ICT in promoting entrepreneurship only in emerging countries and developed countries, but not in developing countries.