Choose the right location for your business in UAE

Whether you are entering the business community of the United Arab Emirates for the first time or starting your next business venture, choosing a location for your business is one of the most important decisions. You may ask, what are the seven emirates in the UAE? Or, you may go further in this process and want to know which jurisdiction will best drive you to achieve your goals. In our entire experience of evaluating customers interested in the establishment of UAE companies, the factors involved will guide you to make the right choice or major mistake. What are our main criteria? We will guide you to solve these problems.

Questions you should ask when planning to register a company in the UAE?

In a previous article on various options for company formation in the UAE, we delved into the complexity of making the UAE a business-friendly jurisdiction. For the company structure you can use, not every field offers the same choice. To increase your understanding of decision-making standards, we introduced you to the points to consider when determining where to register your business.

What is the ultimate purpose of setting up a company in the UAE?

Everyone in the On Demand International has a unique answer to this question, because many other details can be drawn from this answer. Perhaps you are considering moving to the UAE to maximize the conglomerate ’s expenditure and simplify the tax structure through a double taxation agreement. Or, you may want to enter the UAE or any other country that is part of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Moreover, if you want to use the UAE as a headquarters to expand your global business, then you will have a unique ultimate goal, which will enable us to provide fundamentally different solutions for your company formation.

There are two main options for foreign investors to set up companies in the United Arab Emirates. If you want to conduct business in the UAE, you need to establish a mainland company. There are also many free economic zones throughout the seven emirates, called free zones. There are some limited offshore options, but the main types are mainland companies and free zone companies.

What activities are you going to do?

How do you choose the right location for your mainland company? How do you know what a suitable free zone is? The answer to this question stems from the concept of activity licensing. Most duty-free zones focus on the industrial sector, so if you have financial experience, the Dubai Media City duty-free zone will most likely not provide the event permit you need. However, if you are accidentally incorporated in Dubai Media City, you must re-clear the entity and then restart the process because most jurisdictions in the UAE do not allow the transfer of residence from one free zone to another.

Where are you planning to conduct activities?

Do you need to access the free zone and easily access the port? Do you need Sheik Zayed Road in Dubai? Or will Sharjah make more sense? You can have separate regional access rights for each place where you register your company in the UAE. How does this work in practice? If you just want to do business outside the UAE, the free zone will make more sense, and if you need to enter the local market, you need a mainland company. From there, you will evaluate the various emirates to decide where to go.

How do you plan to commercialize the service or product?

Are you an e-commerce company or your main point of sale through physical retail outlets? Are you seeking government bidding? These considerations and more are some points to consider. A physical point of sale in the UAE may lead you to choose to conduct business on the mainland, and because you can save customs duties, for companies that export freely, the free zone will bring you the greatest benefits.

What commercial space might your event require?

If your company wants to have an office in Dubai, then your registered location should be one of the inland Dubai or Dubai's free zone. Some duty-free zones will require an office space as part of the company's license, and this will depend on the specific free economic zone you want to inspect. Not every duty-free zone has the same facilities. If you need warehouse space and optimal logistics, there will be some duty-free zones that are more suitable for your needs. If you need an office, you also need to take this into consideration, because you can narrow your choice of free zones through free activities.

Ready to assess the correct location of your UAE business?

Our UAE company formation experts at On Demand International are ready to assist you in choosing the right UAE jurisdiction for your enterprise. If you would like to go over Article 255 of the UAE Company Law, or start the process right away, do not hesitate to contact us.