Struggling with freezone rules

[sidney0406]

Hi All

Long time listener, first time caller here

I have been looking for info on starting a business from a freezone, as I understand it, if I am in a freezone I can only trade in that fz.

I was wondering about a service based business.

Long story short is: Can I provide a service at peoples home and other businesses if I am based in a Freezone?

[ipguy]

You have to do business out of UAE or in a Free Zone and within the business license of your company
If you want to provide products or services in Duba. or Fujairah, you have to do it via an agent
It will be as if you were outside UAE

[Mr Rossi]

It depends. When you apply for the license you there are categories that the nature of your business has to slot into. Once you establish these, you will find out what you can and can't do. For consultancy work (not sure about services tbh) you are allowed to have customers outside the freezone. Though the rules for each freezone differs so worth checking out.

[ipguy]

True. We need to know more to answer the question

[R_Smithy]

Hi Sidney, I have been looking into starting a freezone company. You really need to do your homework as there are so many different points to take into account and like someone else said, there are different rules in different freezones. I spent a while reading through the forum and also contacted Virtuzone and Creative Zone :: Home to get further advice.

Originally Posted by sidney0406

Hi All

Long time listener, first time caller here

I have been looking for info on starting a business from a freezone, as I understand it, if I am in a freezone I can only trade in that fz.

I was wondering about a service based business.

Long story short is: Can I provide a service at peoples home and other businesses if I am based in a Freezone?

[Mr Rossi]

Rather than trying to form a business plan around the rules the best thing to do is to get a business plan together (doesn't have to include financials) and take that around various free zone reps to see if it's possible.

[md000]

I've been involved in the setup of multiple businesses in different freezones here - the rules are generally the same for this type of activity:

Technically, a service company (consulting/whatever) registered in a freezone is treated as a foreign entity if they try to do business within the proper bounds of the UAE.

Now, operationally, there are very few government mechanisms to manage this. I mean - the government has a hard enough time just getting people their National IDs - trying to police human capital movement into virtual geophysical spaces is nearly impossible. This is especially true since, as a freezone entity, you must have a UAE bank as your banker.

-md000/Mike

[Kawasutra]

Advisory and consultancy can be done in the local market if you have the appropriate license.
For goods and items of any kind you need an importer (local company).
That means all values from your mind are not related to customs :-))

[sidney0406]

Hi All

I am aware that a consultantcy business can operate out of a FZ, But there are no clear explantions on service businesses.

I don't want to say what my business is at the moment, but for arguments sake if I was FZ based and someone wanted me to go to there house and cut there grass for a fee, is it possible? This is by no means what my idea is but its fundementally the same.

I have emailled 2 FZ 's and awaiting a reply from them

Hopefully this clears any confusion.

[ipguy]

Originally Posted by md000

as a freezone entity, you must have a UAE bank as your banker.

-md000/Mike

Are you saying a free zobe company can not use foreign banks or that at least one account has to be in UAE?