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Insights

Working notes from the people who file the applications — what the rules actually say, what they cost, and where founders lose time. Written against the authorities, not against a brochure.

The archive

Briefings on Licensing & approvals

17 pieces Clear filter
  1. Licensing & approvals Woman holds up a card printed with a person icon beside three lit panels showing person, building and group marks

    Three licences let you sell online in the UAE, and they disagree about who you may sell to

    No UAE authority licenses the internet. 20 min read
  2. Licensing & approvals Man reads a sheet of car icons at a counter stacked with files, key fobs and a stamp beside him

    Dubai’s car rental permit is written about every car in the fleet

    A Dubai car rental company is licensed car by car as much as company by company. 18 min read
  3. Licensing & approvals Woman reads an official letter beside a tray holding a lightbulb, trademark and copyright symbols and a memory stick

    What you call your intellectual property sits outside the licence file

    Free zone material has promised strong intellectual property protection for two decades, and no free zone authority grants a single intellectual property right. 14 min read
  4. Licensing & approvals Woman in a black hijab lifting a page from a navy binder beside a maroon one at a marble counter

    Your licence made a company. Hiring the first person opens a second file, held by a different ministry.

    Every Dubai setup page sells the labour market — skilled people from everywhere, already here, ready to join. All of that is true, and none of it is permission. 18 min read
  5. Licensing & approvals Seated woman in hijab holds a sealed certificate while a man in kandura points at the paperwork

    Your Dubai Licence Made You a Chamber Member by Law. Here Is What That Membership Actually Issues.

    Somewhere on the invoice that renews a Dubai mainland trade licence there is a chamber membership line. 22 min read
  6. Licensing & approvals Seated woman in hijab watches a man in kandura hand papers and keys to a suited visitor

    The address on your licence is a document somebody else has to file

    Every setup package carries a line for office space, and it is the only line in the quotation that depends on a person you have not met. 12 min read
  7. Licensing & approvals Man in a kandura, woman in an abaya and a man in a suit each point at one licence

    Your trade licence is one page, and every party who reads it afterwards reads a different line

    Formation is written about as though the licence were the finish line. 12 min read
  8. Licensing & approvals Woman holds a certificate above coins beside lit blocks marked fingerprint, stethoscope, identity card and aeroplane

    A low-cost UAE licence is priced for year one, and you own the cost in year two

    A headline licence price covers the licence and twelve months of premises. 22 min read
  9. Licensing & approvals Man in a kandura and woman in an abaya read a sheet stamped with a red cross

    Your trade name is tested against the activity line, and it keeps constraining it afterwards

    The trade name is the only step in a Dubai formation where an authority can simply decline you, and the refusal is almost never about taste. 18 min read
  10. Licensing & approvals A man at a desk looks out at the Burj Khalifa, an open stamped passport and house keys before him

    Ownership stopped being the expat founder’s problem in 2021. The permit already in your passport took its place.

    The 51% Emirati shareholder requirement was removed by Federal Decree-Law No. 14 min read
  11. Licensing & approvals Woman at a stone counter with three folders of sealed certificates and gold keys, one barred by a red sign

    Two of these three are trade licences and the third is not a company you can trade with

    Mainland, free zone and offshore get quoted in one column as three prices for the same thing. Two of the three authorise trade. 13 min read
  12. Licensing & approvals Woman at a desk behind a brass signpost pointing to two sealed folders, one marked with a group icon

    A freelance permit and a dual licence sit at opposite ends of one question, and every Dubai setup list prints them on the same line

    Setup lists put the freelancer permit and the dual licence in the same column as commercial, professional and industrial, as though a founder were choosing between seven comparable products. 17 min read
  13. Licensing & approvals Woman in a hijab seated behind a row of icon-embossed binders with small building models ranged in front

    Before you apply for anything, decide which authority is entitled to read your file. The wording on your licence is the output of that decision, not the way you make it.

    Step-by-step crypto licensing guides start at the wrong end. 13 min read
  14. Licensing & approvals Woman in a hijab adjusts five gold-framed clocks marked with different icons beside a sealed certificate

    A new Dubai company starts five separate clocks, and only one of them counts from the licence

    The licence is not the end of a setup; it is the start of a calendar. 16 min read
  15. Licensing & approvals Woman pointing to a line on a certificate for a colleague, four numbered folder stacks beside them

    Every field on your Dubai trade licence is a declaration you can be held to, and three of them cannot be changed without somebody else’s consent

    The licence is treated as the receipt at the end of a formation. 15 min read
  16. Licensing & approvals Man in a kandura lowers keys into a clear box holding a padlock and tower model, woman watching

    A UAE branch is licensed in weeks and then cannot decide anything for itself

    Licensing the branch is the short part. 16 min read
  17. Licensing & approvals Woman carrying a sealed certificate faces three lit counters, each topped with an icon and marked with a cross

    A UAE licence lets you sell online; three other parties decide whether you can take the money

    The licence is the fastest and cheapest admission an online seller in the UAE will ever get, and it decides the least. 12 min read

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