Plug2UAEGuides
What we wish someone had told us before starting, said plainly: tax, banking, visas and costs.
Tax
- Why a Dubai company does not make you tax-freeThe most common and costly misunderstanding, explained clearly: place of effective management, CFC rules, and what actually has to change.
- UAE corporate tax and free zones: who actually pays 0%Qualifying income, substance requirements and the registration obligation that applies even at a zero rate.
- A UAE company and HMRC: which rule actually catches youThe UK's CFC rules genuinely do not reach individuals. Transfer of Assets Abroad does — and the defence many guides still describe was repealed in 2025.
- Nordic founders: four countries, four different trapsSweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland all reach the individual — but by different routes, with different thresholds, and one of them has no treaty with the UAE at all.
- South Africa: the Dubai question is about capital, not dollarsThe loop-structure prohibition was lifted in 2021 and most advice has not caught up. Here is what section 9D, place of effective management and section 9H actually require.
- If you sell services, the free zone 0% probably is not yoursConsulting, marketing, software, design, agency work: the excluded-activity list is one of the most important pages in UAE corporate tax, and worth reading before you choose a zone.
- Small Business Relief or the free zone 0%: one or the otherA Qualifying Free Zone Person cannot elect Small Business Relief. For a small services company billing UAE clients, the relief up to AED 3,000,000, extended to 2029, is often the better choice.
- Home-country tax after a move to the UAE: eight countries rankedThe United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and South Africa, ranked by how much home-country tax still applies, each rule with its statute and date.
Setting up
- How to choose a free zone without overpayingThe four questions that decide it, and how to match a zone to your activity and budget.
- Free zone or mainland: the decision in plain termsWhere each one wins, and the local-market restriction that catches people out.
- Seven mistakes that cost UAE company owners real moneyThe common errors: wrong zone, wrong vehicle, missed deadlines, and the renewal surprise.
- Who a UAE company is for, and who it is not forFour profiles a UAE company genuinely serves, the cases where it does not deliver what is expected, and why African founders and traders are a case of their own — with the IMF, BIS and African Development Bank figures behind it.
- Already living in the UAE: company formation by situationEmployed and planning a company, leaving a job, billing mainland clients, freelancing, or arriving from a country that keeps taxing: each situation and the guide that answers it.
- Serving UAE mainland clients from a Dubai free zone: the 2025 permit and the 9% rateExecutive Council Resolution No. 11 of 2025 lets a Dubai free zone company work on the Dubai mainland under a DET permit or branch licence. What it allows, what it costs, and how the mainland income is taxed.
- Starting a company while employed in the UAE: contract, non-compete, permitsWhat Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 says about working for others and non-compete clauses, why the employment contract matters more than the zone, and the tax clock that starts at incorporation.
Visas
- The UAE residence visa process, step by stepEntry permit, medical, Emirates ID, stamping — with realistic timings and the points that need attention.
- From an employment visa to an own-company visa: the order of stepsLicence first, notice second, cancellation third: the sequence that protects residence status, with the notice period, the grace period and the official source for each step.
Compliance
- Economic substance: what the UAE dropped and what still appliesThe UAE's ESR regime ended for years after 2022. What substance still means: the 0% condition and your home country's tests.
- Exchange control: the real obstacle for African and Maghreb foundersTax is rarely the binding constraint. Moving the money legally is. A country-by-country reality check.
Your quotation within one working day
Four details are all we need. We come back with a firm quotation, the recommended free zone and the reasons for it.