This site is published by Symbol Consulting, an independent business-advisory firm working on market entry and corporate advisory in the United Arab Emirates and Dubai. What you read here is our own work: how company formation, corporate tax, banking and residency actually operate in the Emirates, written from the practice of guiding foreign founders, investors and corporate finance teams through those rules.
We should be plain about our position. Symbol Consulting is an interested party. This site exists to show what the firm knows and how it thinks, and in doing so it promotes our expertise. It is not a neutral survey of the market, and it does not pretend to be one. What we can promise is the standard of the work itself: every threshold, rate and deadline traced to the authority that sets it, with an as-of date, and nothing invented to fill a gap.
Who publishes this site
Symbol Consulting is an independent business-advisory firm — independent of any other company, group or brand — focused on market entry and corporate advisory in the UAE. Its publishing entity is registered in the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), United Arab Emirates. We disclose that registration plainly, as a matter of legal transparency.
Why we name no individual advisers
The authority behind these pages is the firm’s practice, not the profile of any one person. Our analysis rests on the work we do in supporting entry into the UAE market and on the discipline of tracing every figure to the regulator that sets it. For that reason we publish under the name of the firm, name no individual advisers and publish no portraits. The standard of the analysis, not a personal reputation, is what we ask readers to judge.
What we write about
Our coverage follows the questions a business actually faces when setting up and operating in the Emirates — the same questions that make up our advisory work:
- Setup and licensing: mainland versus free zone, 100% foreign ownership rules, and the licence that actually fits an activity.
- Tax and compliance: Corporate Tax at 9%, the Qualifying Free Zone Person regime, Small Business Relief, VAT and Economic Substance.
- Banking and finance: corporate account opening, KYC and substance expectations, and the fintech options a new UAE company can realistically use.
- Residency and talent: Golden and Green visas, investor and partner routes, and the Emiratisation and Wage Protection System rules that shape hiring.
How we prepare what we publish
Our working standard is set out in full on How We Prepare This Analysis; the material we work from is listed on Sources & Data; and the limits of everything published here are set out on Legal Disclaimer. In short: we do not invent figures, we show divergent numbers rather than averaging them, and we correct errors when we find them.
Scope and limits
Our focus is regional — Dubai and the federal level of the UAE, with Abu Dhabi treated separately where its regulation differs, such as ADGM against DIFC. We do not sell company licences, and we do not deliver regulated professional services through this site or its pages. The articles are general analysis. For a specific decision, engage a professional licensed for that activity in the UAE.