Company Formation At a Glance

Company Formation or Business Setup in UAE may seem a little bit more complicated than usual and that’s because there are several jurisdictions in UAE issuing Trade Licenses (registering companies), each with different Procedures, Requirements, Regulations, Facilities & Services and Costs.
In this section we try to provide you an overall picture about different aspects of Business Setup in UAE.

Document requirements for Registration of Company are included:

1- Resume of founders
2 - Last 3 months bank statement
3 - Letter from bank states name of founders
4 - Application form
5 – Copy of Passport
6 - 2 Utility bills

There are several notations on the type of company that more or less the same in different jurisdictions:

1- General Partnership
According to the article (23) of UAE Federal Law No 8, A General Partnership is a type of company where all the shareholders are jointly liable for the company liabilities to the extent of their assets. All the partners should be UAE nationals.

2- Limited Liability Company (LLC)
It is a form of partnership where all the shareholders have limited liability (usually equal to the company initial investment) towards the loss of the company. This means in the event that the business fails, the shareholders’ dept responsibility is limited to the company total initial capital investment. In UAE the number of Shareholders should be between 2 and 50 people.

3- Simple Limited Partnership
According to article (47) of the UAE Federal Law No 8, Simple Limited Partnership should be consist of one or more General Partners and one or more Limited Partners where General Partners are responsible towards company debts up the extent of their assets and Limited Partners are liable up to the extent of their investment share in the company. The General Partners should be UAE nationals.

4- Partnership Limited with Shares
According to the article (256) of UAE Federal Law, Partnership Limited with Shares is a type of company in which there are two types of partners namely “General Partners” and “Participating Partners”. General Partners are jointly liable to the company debts to the extent of all their assets and should be
UAE nationals. Participating Partners are liable to the extent of their share capital.

5- Public Joint Stock
According to the article (64) of the UAE Federal Law No 8, the shares of the Public Joint Stock Company are divided to equal value negotiable shares and can be sold and traded publicly in the Stock Market. The stock holders are liable towards the debts of the company up to the extent of their share capital value. The total capital of the company cannot be less than AED 10 million.

6- Private Joint Stock
According to the article (215) of UAE Federal Law no. 8, a Private Joint Stock Company should be consist of 3 or more partners with minimum company capital of AED 2 million (UAE Dirham). The shares of the company cannot be sold in the open market.

7- Joint Participation (Venture)
According to the article (56) of the UAE Federal Law No 8, Joint Participation is a form of company consists of two or more partners for carrying out a single or multiple businesses by one of the partners in his own personal name. The relationship between partners, the obligations of each, profit / loss distribution and the company capital is to be defined between the partners not concerning any third party. However it is not compulsory to register the contract between the partners in any authority or to be publicized.

8- International company (offshore)

The most common uses of offshore Companies are for business and investment purposes in order to protect your assets by minimizing your taxes. The minimum number of shareholders is one person and maximum is 50 persons and they can select their own minimum capital in order to set up the company. Name of the company must include the suffix Limited or Ltd to denote limited liability.