Insights

Most founders plan the setup carefully and give the exit about ten minutes. Closing a UAE free zone company is more than letting the licence lapse. For most companies it means a full liquidation, with a notarised shareholder resolution and a creditor notice period before the licence can go. Exactly what that involves is set by your own zone. One thing is not: Corporate Tax deregistration sits with the Federal Tax Authority, on a three-month deadline that applies wherever you

Services get a professional licence, goods get a commercial one. That shorthand is where most founders start, and it is not what decides your legal form or whether you need a Local Service Agent. Dubai Law 13/2011 lists four legal forms and ties none of them to a licence class, and it keys the Local Service Agent requirement to the activity plus the owner's nationality. Here is what the statute says, and where the answer is still genuinely open.

The UAE eTrader licence works well at the right scale, but it has firm limits. The most common planning mistake is treating the move to a mainland company as a simple upgrade. This post covers the main trigger points and corrects a widespread misconception about how the process works.

Getting a UAE trade licence is the easy part. Getting a corporate bank account is where a lot of companies quietly stall - and in most cases, the problem started long before the banking application was submitted. The decisions you make at setup, on structure, activities, office type and ownership, determine how a bank sees your company before you've sent a single document.

The UAE Golden Visa has been running since 2019. You would think the rules were well understood by now. They're not. Outdated information, half-understood rule changes and outright myths are still circulating online, and they're causing real people to either miss out on eligibility they have or apply for routes that won't work for their situation. This post clears up the most persistent ones.