When you are looking to set up your business in Dubai or in some other part in UAE, you may debate in your mind whether you should opt for a free zone to launch your business or go for a mainland business setup. A mainland company that has been set up in UAE is a business enterprise that has been licensed by DED or the Department of Economic Development in a specific Emirate of UAE. The free zone company has been licensed effectively by one of the many Free Zone Authorities and they are active within a definite geographical area. Therefore you can say that the licensing body is different for the two different types of companies that can be managed in UAE.
In order to decide which one of them is going to be suitable for you, you must consider the specific type of business activity; the main location of your buyers; the proposed physical location; the types of buyers you want to appeal to, such as individual, government or other business customers; and the number of employees that you need working for you.
While setting up a company in free zone certainly has its advantages in terms of the taxes that you do not have to pay, a lot of companies still choose to set up companies in the mainland areas. There are actually many reasons as to why a lot of business firms opt for mainland business setup solutions. Let’s have a closer look at the main benefits of a mainland business setup.
A mainland company does not have any restrictions when it comes to the people or companies that they can perform trade with or even where they can perform trading in Dubai. A mainland company can help you to trade directly with the end customers and provide certain types of services to the UAE government. The companies operating within the free zone are limited to managing their business activities within the UAE free zones, which means that they cannot directly deal with customers that that based outside their jurisdiction.
Along with this, the mainland companies do not have any kind of restrictions on the total number of the visas which they can have for their business. The visa quota gets approved based on the amount of commercial space that you have. Hence the larger your office space is, the more number of visas you can get for your business. There is no upper limit as to the number of visas that you can have for your business.
The mainland companies can have much more numbers of business activities for offering. However, the free zone companies have only a specific or limited number of activity offerings. This means that most of the businesses operating in the free zones have a rather themed quality associated with a definite free zone.
Another great benefit of having a mainland company is that you get to have greater number of choices in terms of the location of your business. You can actually be located anywhere you feel like when you want to set up a business in Dubai mainland. On the other hand, if you opt for a free zone business setup, you will only have a few limited options in terms of your commercial space. You can even launch your mainland company even if you do not have a proper physical space. This is perfect for businesses that do not need to have a physical office or business space right when they are starting out.
A lot of people have the pressing misconception that every kind of Mainland Company needs to operate with a local partner that must have some shares in their enterprise. This is a reason why a lot of people prefer to go for a company setup in the Free Zone. In case you are looking to have your own Mainland Company that specializes on a professional activity like accounting, project management or some kind of technical services, you can go for Sole Establishment that can give you complete ownership of your company. You can even choose to have a Civil Company.
Setting up a mainland company allows provides you with the scope for expanding your business in the future in any way you feel like, such as having several branches in numerous locations along with numerous additional visas.