Name and structure
Start with the name — and the right kind of company
Two decisions almost everyone makes too fast. The name follows rules the DET applies without negotiating, and the structure decides who your company will be allowed to sell to.
Write the distinctive name. If you pick a structure, we add the legal form spelled out, which is how the DET requires it — and we check the whole against the naming rules.
How a name gets approved
You do not choose. You propose three, and the government chooses.
This is the part almost nobody mentions before charging. To reserve a trade name you submit three options in order of priority, and the Department of Economy and Tourism decides which one it approves. The approved name is reserved for six months.
The reservation fee belongs to the government and is not refunded if the name is refused. That is exactly why checking first is worth it — and why our check says “meets the rules”, never “available”. Meeting the writing rules of this territory is not government authorisation.
- A name has three partsDistinctive name + activity descriptor + legal form.The legal form is spelled out in full. The DET refuses abbreviations.
- The descriptor must match the licenceIf the activity is not on the licence, the descriptor cannot be in the name.
- Some terms never passReligious references, names of rulers, government bodies, and words like “bank” or “insurance” without that authority’s licence.
- A personal name needs the full nameInitials and a surname alone are refused.
- Similarity also failsIt is not enough to be different from an existing name.
Structures
Mainland or free zone decides who you can sell to
This is the choice that causes the most regret, and it is not about price: it is about market. A free zone company cannot sell directly into the UAE domestic market — it needs a distributor, a dual licence, or a mainland branch.
Loading the structures…
A common and expensive error. Many guides still say a mainland company needs a local Emirati partner holding 51%. That changed, and we checked it in the text of the law.
Federal Decree-Law 26/2020 rewrote Article 10 of Law 2/2015. Where the national-participation requirement stood, the article now reads “Activities with Strategic Impact”: the Cabinet defines by resolution which activities those are, and for those the competent authority may set a percentage of national participation in the capital or on the board. Outside that list, the requirement does not exist. The same decree repealed the Direct Foreign Investment Law (19/2018) and its positive-list system.
Two things follow, and both matter to you. First: if anyone tells you that you need a local partner, ask for the legal basis before signing anything. Second: it is not “there is never a restriction” — the restriction now depends on the activity, and the authority that licenses you is the one who says which is yours. That is why the diagnosis checks your activity before recommending a structure.
Not sure which structure fits your case?
The diagnosis is free and comes in writing: the recommended structure, why that one and not another, and what changes in cost and in who you can sell to.