Dubai’s Growing Startup Culture

by Zaara 09, Oct 2020

When it comes to global hotspot, very few places come close to the United Arab Emirates. Even after facing stiff competition from other nations like Singapore, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden, the UAE holds more than its own in the battle to attract the world’s top entrepreneurs.

One of its Emirates, Dubai, has long been famous for both holidaymakers and professionals seeking greener pastures abroad. Due to its diversified economy, the standard of living, state-of-art infrastructure, and ease of doing business, the Emirate of Dubai is a hub for business owners, entrepreneurs, startups, and investors.

Now looking to attract tech startups and businesspersons worldwide, the Emirate of Dubai is transmuting into an innovation hub and investing billions of dollars to make this goal a reality. Support from semi-government and government authorities – in addition to the progress of incubators and accelerators like ImpactHub, Turn8, and AstroLabs Dubai – has led to a string of homegrown success stories. These include Bridg, a mobile-to-mobile payment platform that leverages Bluetooth, to Careem, a Dubai-based ride-hail startup, and souq.com, the Middle East’s first unicorn.

Advantages of Setting up your Business in Dubai

There are many benefits of setting up your startup in Dubai, some of them are -

  • Government support towards entrepreneurship and Startup culture
  • World-class infrastructure amenities and Freezones
  • Ease of company setup and quick business formation
  • Geographic advantage as Dubai connects the East and the west.
  • Gain easy access to the international markets

If you are still sceptical, then here are the reasons why your startup can flourish in Dubai

Reasons why Dubai should be the First Choice for your startup

1.Technology Support

Dubai is an Emirate with attractive financing options, ultra-modern infrastructure, and an extensive network of banks. It has planned a massive tech transformation and continue its journey of building a smart and futuristic city. There are many technical centres like Dubai Science Park, Dubai Academic City that promote innovation and development. UAE is aiming to offer complete technical support and build infrastructure that inspires the Startup ecosystem and draw more entrepreneurs into Dubai.

2.Government Support

The Dubai authorities like the Department of Economic Development that handles business setup procedure, Free Zone Authorities and Dubai Municipality are very supportive of startups, innovation, and entrepreneurs. There is an extensive range of incentives offered by the government to new business set up in Dubai.

3.Standard of Living

Over the past few years, Dubai has become one of the best cities to live in with all top-class services and amenities for its people. The Emirate is an extremely safe place to reside, the living standards in the city is much higher than many countries of the world. There are many cost-effective residence options available in Dubai. Also, the Dubai Government’s initiatives are focused continuously on making Dubai the happiest place on earth.

4.Tax Benefits

Dubai Free Zones provides many tax benefits like –

  • 100% tax exemption on corporate or personal income or gains
  • 100% repatriation of capital and profits
  • Exclusion from all import and export duties
  • Exemption on corporate tax for 15 years, renewable for another 15 years

Nevertheless, there is a corporate tax for oil companies and foreign banks. Also, for definite goods that are harmful to human health or environment, there is an excise tax levied.

5.Access to International Markets

The UAE is a perfect location to get easy access to markets of Africa, India, and parts of Europe. The country is well-connected to the Seaports, and Airports of the world. Also, UAE is home to a diverse ex-pat population and there no other country with a representative population of the world, unlike the UAE. Hence, this is the best place to test your product ideas. The worldwide connectivity, secure banking system, business infrastructure, political stability, etc., are making UAE the perfect choice of the investors.

There are abundant support services Dubai offers for the investors to promote entrepreneurship. Accelerators and Incubation facilities such as the Dubai Science Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis, 5Dubai, etc. that contribute to the Startup growth in the region.

If you need help in setting up your company in the UAE, then we at Commitbiz can help you with it. Our business incorporation, business license, accounting and bookkeeping, corporate secretarial services, IP, Local Sponsor, and much more. Contact us today for more information.