Indian company in Dubai, UAE set-up and home-country checks

Plenty of founders in Mumbai, Bengaluru or Delhi run an Indian company in Dubai, in the sense of a UAE company they own from India. You don't have to move, you don't need a visa, and you can sign much of the UAE paperwork from home. What takes more effort is the bank account, a residence visa if you want one, and the way India treats the company.

Your choice of company depends on three things. Where are your customers? Do you want to live in the UAE? Will you hire staff? This page covers only the UAE side. Indian tax and reporting come up as questions for your Indian adviser. We don't state any Indian rate, limit or rule.

What the UAE side allows a founder living in India

You can usually own the whole company yourself. The Commercial Companies Law (Federal Decree-Law 32 of 2021, 2021 text) doesn't require a UAE national to hold a majority. Cabinet Resolution 55 of 2021 lists seven activity groups where 100% foreign ownership isn't allowed. They include defence, banking and insurance, telecoms, Hajj and Umrah services (pilgrimage travel to Mecca) and fisheries services (Ministry of Economy and Tourism, as of October 2026). Federal Decree-Law 20 of 2025 changed 15 articles of the law, so check that you're reading the current text.

A mainland company, one licensed to trade anywhere in the emirate outside a free zone, raises one extra question. Does it need a local service agent? That's a UAE national who handles government paperwork for a fee but owns no shares. The government portal u.ae gives two answers. Its steps page (16 July 2026) says a business wholly owned by residents of countries outside the GCC (the Gulf Cooperation Council) needs a local service agent from the UAE, appointed under an agreement attested by a notary public or the court. Its foreign ownership page (6 April 2026) says the old rule of 51 per cent Emirati ownership or a local agent was removed for most activities, and that branches no longer need an Emirati service agent. Because the pages disagree, get a written answer from your licensing authority for your activity.

You don't have to be in the UAE to get the licence. Dubai's licensing office uses investors' electronic signatures and doesn't ask them to attend in person (Executive Council Resolution 5 of 2024, Article 3). IFZA, a Dubai free zone, says business owners don't need to be present during registration. Meydan Free Zone sells a remote setup package from AED 12,500 and calls the residency visa optional (zone pages, as of October 2026).

Having a licence online doesn't mean you can start trading, though. The same resolution lets the licence come first and the other permits later. You sign an undertaking to get every permit your activity needs before you begin.

Four situations and the route to price first

Start with your customers and only then choose a zone. Find your situation in the table to see which option to get quotes for first.

Your situation	Get quotes first for	What decides it
You work alone for clients outside the UAE	A free zone licence or a freelance permit	The zone's terms for remote setup; RAKEZ lists its freelance permit from AED 6,100 for a sole practitioner (page stamped December 2025)
You sell to customers on the Dubai mainland	A DET mainland licence, or a free zone company with a Dubai permit	Resolution 11 of 2025: AED 10,000 a year for a branch run from the free zone, or AED 5,000 for a six-month permit
You want to live in the UAE	A company with a visa quota, or a freelance permit	The zone sets the quota by package or desk; the freelancer Green Residence needs a MOHRE permit
You plan to hire	A company, not a permit	RAKEZ says its permit has no extra visas and allows no staff

A few terms from the table. A free zone means an area whose own authority licenses companies under its rules. RAKEZ is the Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone. A visa quota is the number of residence visas your company may apply for. MOHRE is the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, which issues work permits.

For the mainland row you can do a quick sum. Two six-month permits in a row cost AED 10,000 (2 x AED 5,000). That's exactly what one year of a branch run from the free zone costs (Executive Council Resolution 11 of 2025, Article 12). This is only an example built from the two published fees. Now ask the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), Dubai's mainland licensing office, formerly DED, for its current fee sheet for your activity. If DET's price is below AED 10,000 and your mainland sales are regular, a mainland licence works out cheaper.

These Dubai options work only in Dubai. Another emirate needs its own licences (Article 3(c)). Abu Dhabi offers a Freelancer licence to investors, citizens and foreigners who work remotely with no physical office (ADDED licensing page, read October 2026). ADDED is the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development.

If you only want to hold assets and not trade, there's the offshore company. It can do less. Under the Business Companies Regulations 2018 of RAK ICC, the Ras Al Khaimah International Corporate Centre, such a company may not do business in the UAE outside the zone unless it first gets the right licences (regulation 40(8)). Read more in the guide to the offshore company in the UAE, which explains what it can and can't do.

Remote set-up, documents and attestation

Your passport is the starting point. As a non-resident you have no Emirates ID, the UAE identity card, and no residence visa. Find out from DET which documents it accepts in their place. Do this first, while nothing has been paid yet.

Say an Indian company, not you personally, will own the shares. Then its papers must go through attestation, the chain of official stamps that dubai.ae lists for foreign documents (October 2026):

1. the UAE embassy and the foreign ministry in the country the papers come from attest them;
2. the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs adds a counter-attestation;
3. a legal translator translates them into Arabic;
4. the Ministry of Justice attests the translation.

Every office along the way charges its own fee and works to its own timetable. Nobody publishes the total. Get the licensing authority's document list first. If a single paper skips a step, the whole set comes back to you.

The authority and the bank may accept your electronic signature, or they may want a power of attorney, a document that lets someone else sign for you. Check which one each of them wants.

Rules on beneficial owners apply from day one. A beneficial owner is a real person who owns or controls 25% or more of the company. The company records these people and files the register within 60 days of licensing (Cabinet Decision 109 of 2023). It must also name someone living in the UAE who is authorised to give that information to the registrar. If it names nobody, Cabinet Resolution 132 of 2023 fines it AED 10,000 for a second breach and AED 20,000 for a third. Settle who that person will be and put it on paper.

The guide to starting from abroad covers the same steps for founders of any nationality. The step-by-step Dubai guide shows what comes when.

Opening the bank account from India

The bank has the last word, and banks say different things about owners who live abroad. Emirates NBD's digital business account is open to companies where at least one signatory lives in the UAE (its digital account FAQ, as of October 2026). Each bank publishes its own terms, so look at ADCB's page as well.

There's also a paid account-opening service advertised on the RAKEZ website and run by an independent provider. It says you can start from abroad by phone or video call, then go to the bank in person to sign. Its document list includes the main signatory's Emirates ID and residence visa.

Meydan advertises a guaranteed bank account process with its partner banks. Even so, each bank still carries out its own due diligence, its checks on who you are and where your money comes from. Other banks have their own rules for owners abroad, so check with them before you count on them.

The Central Bank rulebook lists its due diligence guidance as in force from 7 November 2025. The rulebook also mentions an April 2026 update, so look at that too. A bank shouldn't open or keep an account if it can't complete these checks, and it should look harder at accounts opened remotely. Warning signs include a brand-new company funded with a large sum, money from an unclear source and ownership that's hard to trace.

Setup advisers say trouble often starts when the bank application is only written after the licence comes through. A founder abroad then has no UAE contracts to show and only thin proof of where the money came from. The bank turns the application down, or it drags on for a long time. Prepare three things while the licence is still being arranged: a description of the activity, the chain of owners, and papers on the source of your funds. A UAE adviser can put this together for you. The guides to bank account rejection and business bank account requirements list what a bank looks at.

UAE Corporate Tax and the tax residency certificate

Registration has a fixed deadline, so deal with it first. Every new UAE company, free zone companies included, must register for Corporate Tax within three months of incorporation (FTA Decision 3 of 2024). Registering late costs AED 10,000. Filing a tax return late costs AED 500 for each month or part of a month in the first twelve months (Cabinet Decision 75 of 2023 as amended, as of October 2026).

The first AED 375,000 of taxable income is taxed at 0%, and anything above it at 9% (Cabinet Decision 116 of 2022). A Qualifying Free Zone Person (QFZP), a free zone company that meets the conditions for the 0% rate, pays 0% only on qualifying income (Cabinet Decision 100 of 2023, Ministerial Decision 229 of 2025).

Small Business Relief lets small companies be treated as having no taxable income. It covers tax periods that end on or before 31 December 2029, for revenue up to AED 3 million (Ministerial Decision 131 of 2026). A QFZP can't claim it. If your zone company has revenue of AED 3 million or less, find out which of the two positions fits you before you file.

The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) also issues tax residency certificates to UAE tax residents. These show another country that you or your company are taxed in the UAE.

• A company must have been set up for at least 12 months. Once three months of that period have passed, it can apply for a period that's still running.
• An individual can qualify by spending 183 days or more in the UAE. There's also a test for 90 to 182 days, which needs more proof and has further conditions.
• You pay AED 50 to submit the application, plus AED 500 to AED 1,750 for the electronic certificate, depending on who applies.
• The FTA says it takes ten business days once your application is complete (as of October 2026).

Whether India wants to see the certificate is a question for your Indian adviser. The tax residency certificate guide lists the documents. A corporate tax consultant can handle the registration and tell you where you stand on Small Business Relief.

Questions for an adviser in India

Your Indian adviser's answers show whether the UAE company changes your tax position in India or just means more paperwork. Go through these with an adviser qualified in India while you're still choosing the licence.

• Residence. Do you stay tax resident in India while you own and run the company? From which date?
• Funding. Do you need permission, or a report, under India's foreign exchange and overseas investment rules to send money for the capital, the licence or a loan?
• Profit. Is the company's profit taxed as yours when it's earned, or only when you take it out?
• Payments. How is a salary, a dividend or a loan from the UAE company taxed, and what paperwork backs it up?
• Reporting. Which reports on foreign assets, foreign accounts and foreign companies must you file, and by when?
• Management. If you make decisions from India, does that change how India sees the company?
• Treaty and exit. Does a tax treaty between the two countries apply? Will India accept a UAE certificate? What happens if you move, sell or close the company?

Don't assume a UAE company takes away your duties in India. Only an Indian adviser can tell you, and a comforting word from a UAE adviser doesn't replace that.

Residence and visas if you decide to move later

You can leave the residence visa for later. If you do move, a company with a visa quota can sponsor an investor or partner visa for you. The steps always come in the same order:

1. the establishment card, the immigration record that lets your company sponsor visas
2. the visa quota from the zone
3. an entry permit
4. the medical test and the fingerprints and photo for your Emirates ID

The Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security (ICP) says the entry permit takes two days, and you must use it within 60 days. In Dubai, the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) charges AED 200 plus 5% VAT for the establishment card, along with AED 20 in levies and an AED 50 service fee. It expects to take 48 hours (as of October 2026).

No authority publishes a total cost or time for all the steps together. The startup company guide shows how the number of visas you get depends on the desk and package you choose.

Briefing a UAE adviser and an Indian adviser

You'll need two advisers, and each answers different questions. Both work better with a short written brief. Give your UAE adviser the activity, the countries your customers are in, the chain of owners down to the real people at the top, your visa plans and the questions the bank is likely to ask. Give your Indian adviser your pattern of residence, the capital you plan to put in and how you'll send it, how you'll be paid and where decisions will be made.

A lawyer in the UAE can check the company's founding documents and the attestation steps. Keep the two sets of advice apart. Your UAE adviser handles the UAE filings and doesn't advise on India, and your Indian adviser does the opposite.

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