 It doesn't matter how small you start, it's about what you can offer. I'm here with Marcel, the head of corporate services of Garand Business Consultancy, and today we're going to talk about how to set up your business in Dubai, what are the requirements, how much it costs, and then we'll reply some of your questions. So, hi Marcel, can you please introduce yourself? Thank you for your kind introduction. My name is Marcel, I'm a business consultant. I'm advising people on how to set up the business in the UE and make it a cost-effective and time-effective manner. What are the five reasons why people should start a business in Dubai? I can highlight five most distinguished reasons why you should open the business in the UE. First, I think it is the low-tax regime which allows you to generate your profits at the maximum level. There is the only tax which has been introduced a year back, which is the VET, and the rest is not available, such as the corporate tax and other income taxes. The second reason I can say the market itself is quite saturated in terms of high net worth people. Whatever business you do, generally it has a great potential because you can have your own audience and it is very much available. The third reason is that the infrastructure to do your business is very well developed. You have that ease of doing your business, it's systemized, you have set standards which are easy to follow. Another reason is that the UE has a big exposure in the market. In particular, we are talking about the GCC. A lot of business entrepreneurs, they enter the local market in order to further expand their operations in the region. And last but not the least reason is the profit repatriation. There is no financial control on petrating your own profit and funds back to your country or wherever else you want it to be. And I heard about this new 10-year residency visa for investors. Can you tell us please? Sure, that's correct. It's been introduced. There are two visas which were recently introduced, which are the 10 years and five years. There are certain conditions and criteria that you need to meet. Mostly those would be related to your investments, 10 million for your 10 years visa and 5 million in your 5 years visa. And how much money do you need to start a small business in Dubai? Let's say I want to start an e-commerce business or open just a marketing agency. Well, this depends on the type of the companies. I would say that the cheapest option, the most budget, would be around four thousand US dollars. Those would be companies in offshore jurisdictions. Then there is the choice of a free zone company or the LLC, which is the mainland company. There you have the budget of around eleven thousand dollars and twenty thousand US dollars. And do you need to have a local partner? This would depend on the type of the business that you want to do. In all the cases where your business is located in the mainland, it would require a local partner. Where the share distribution within the company would belong to the local partner of 51 percent and the rest of 49 percent will be held by the foreign investors. And how long does it take to attain the license? The timeframe of licensing is quite short. If all the required documentation is in order, then the licensing takes about three to four working days. Probably another question on how soon you get your business operated. So this is a little bit more complex and I would say that the shortest time you can have your business set and running is about four weeks. What are the benefits of having an agency to help you to set up the company? Well it's very important to seek a professional advice. I personally know a lot of cases when people try to do their own business set up without the proper knowledge and then they committed several mistakes which took some consequences. So having a local agent to do your business set up is very important since they have in-depth knowledge. They can assess your budget and they can do your proper business plan very precisely so that you will know your budget in advance, not just when you start your business and then you realize that your budget is not fitting into what it is in reality. And what are the main mistakes people usually do when they try to set up their business on their own? Well I think I can highlight two main points. First would be an activity of the business as we may know there are around thousand different business activities in the UE and each of them is kind of focused on a particular sphere. So this is very important when you approach your business you would need to select those business activities that would match your goals and that will be eligible. The second point is I think it is banking. A lot of people nowadays struggle to open bank accounts for their business. It is also quite a complex procedure and again agents would definitely know how to prepare your documentations and other business factors in the correct manner. And let's say I want to open a business in the Dubai land where I need to have a local partner, right? So where can I find this local partner? How does it work? Is there is any like database or special agencies? Well yeah if you are working with an agency from the beginning they have their own database of local partners whom they can refer. They would be classified again. There are some requirements when you let's say register a construction company it may not be registered just under any name of the local partner so even the local partner should qualify for this kind of activities. Marcel I have some questions from my subscribers about the business setup in Dubai and I promise them to get the answers from you. So let's go through some of them. So the first question is how to set up a consultancy business? What are the requirements? Well it's quite easy. We can recommend some budget options again with the total budget of around 10-11 thousand US dollars. From the requirements we would need the passport copies, the proof of residence, the CVs and the bank reference letters. So these are basically most common requirements to start any company to make the registration process. It would be important to choose the jurisdiction where they would like to practice their activities who would be their clients and based on this they can start their company. Next question is from the guy from Portugal. He is planning to move to Dubai and sell the furniture online across the UAE. What license does he need to obtain? How I see this this would be a normal trading license which will allow him to trade in furniture. This would also depend on how he wants to practice the trading activity, whether it would be his own products or which is commonly called now a dropshipping business where he buys the product from his supplier and then he considers this as his own stock and then he sells further to his client. Then it would be normal trading activity and this would also depend whether he needs to have his own warehouse. If it is so, there are options where he can rent the warehouse or he can, let's say, get the warehouse from a third company on the outsourced basis. If the objective is to enter the markets with the low costs and the minimum efforts, this would be a trading license probably in an order and emirate and most of the services would be outsourced such as logistics and the warehousing. If you are a solopreneur and you can't afford to set up a company, are there any freelance solutions available on the market? Well, there are a number of freelance activities that you can have, but those would be actually limited, kind of limited. Let's say you cannot have a trading activity under your freelance permit since the freelance permit would mean a professional scale. These will suit individuals who are into photography or in video shooting, let's say they would be in marketing or in education, so those individuals may be easily licensed in one of the free zones with the freelance permit. And if I need to get a visa, how much would it cost? Visas are averagely rated at a cost of 1000 or 1500 US dollars. And the permit? And the permit would cost around 2000 US dollars. So overall it's around 3500? We can say about 3000 to 4000 US dollars. And if you want to have a business bank account, is it possible to have it with a freelance permit? Yes, this is possible. Banks recognize such permits and they classify it as the business license. Accordingly you can have your corporate bank account on this permit. Each country has its own business culture and laws. What are the challenges of running a business in the UAE? There are seven emirates in total and the laws slightly change from emirate to emirate, but the real challenges would be taxation. It's quite new law that has been adopted in 2018, which is the BET. For new businesses it is very important to have to have proper consultant, let's say, who can run this part on behalf of the company. I would say this is a challenge. And the other challenge is what most of people face is the sharia law, when it specifically comes to inheritance issues. For non-Muslims, if you do not register a will, which can be registered in the international court, which is located in DIFC, then all your assets would be distributed as per sharia law. To be specific, around 12% goes to your wife, another 16% goes to your father, 16% to your mother, 18% to your daughter and 36% to your son. So if you want to distribute your assets in a manner that you want to be distributed, then it's always important to register a will. But this is applicable only for non-Muslims. So what do you think about the future of the business in Dubai and what are the industries that have the biggest potential? Well, I believe the future of Dubai is very positive. The government is trying to develop their own country as much as they can and they have a good success in it. Businesses are quite different, they are competitive and a lot of people are trying to enter this market. As a statistics, we noticed that a lot of trading companies they set up their business in the UAE as well as IT companies which are mainly based in Dubai Silicon Oasis and Dubai Internet City. So these are probably the most famous business setups in the UAE at this moment as we noticed. So and the final question for today, if you're just starting as an interpreter and you want to set up your business in Dubai but you have quite a small budget and how difficult is it to compete with big players on the market? Well, it is all about your business acumen. If your product is competitive in the market, it doesn't matter how small you start, it's about where you can offer to the clients and how you can do this. I would say that it will take some time if you start small and if you want to grow your business in the country, it will take probably years but at the same time you can still survive and if you assess your risks correctly and if you plan your budget precisely, then you will get your success. Thank you, Marcel, for your time. Thank you for sharing this useful information with us. I hope, guys, you find this video useful. You got quite a lot of interesting information. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below and myself or Marcel will be happy to answer them and thank you for watching. See you soon. Bye-bye.