The questions we’re actually asked, including the ones firms prefer not to answer.

Per engagement, quoted after we understand the structure — not from a price list. The reason there’s no headline figure anywhere on this site is that the same licence type carries genuinely different costs depending on visa count, office footprint and activity, so a number quoted before that conversation is either a lowball or a guess.

What you get instead is a written proposal covering first-year and ongoing cost, with the usual extras — attestation, medicals, Emirates ID, PRO fees — named upfront rather than surfacing invoice by invoice. What actually drives the cost sets out the five decisions involved.

A named advisor, and the same one throughout. You can see who they are — the firm is six people, not a call centre in front of a processing team.

It also means the person who structured the company still holds the file when the first corporate tax return is due, and already has the documents the bank asks for. Nothing gets explained twice.

We say so, at the start, when it’s still an inconvenience rather than a cost. Sometimes that means telling a client the structure they came in asking for is the wrong one; sometimes it means we’re not the right firm for a particular piece of work.

The cheapest moment to hear that a plan doesn’t work is before it’s filed.

No — and it’s worth being precise about this, because the terms get used loosely. Oznet Accounting and Taxation is licensed by Dubai DET as a Tax Consultant, and files on clients’ behalf in that capacity. It does not hold FTA Registered Tax Agent status.

Where a matter genuinely requires a registered tax agent, we say so and work alongside one rather than blurring the distinction.

No. The firm holds no ACCA, CPA, ICAI or CA membership and no ISO certification, and doesn’t claim any. What it does hold is a Dubai licence for each regulated activity it carries out, a documented anti-money-laundering framework, and independently audited accounts — and it will show any of them to a client who asks.

No. It has appeared on an older proposal template, but it isn’t part of the service architecture and shouldn’t be treated as something the firm delivers.

Routinely — much of the client book is foreign-owned companies establishing here for the first time, and most of the process can be handled remotely. Some steps require the applicant in person: medicals, Emirates ID biometrics, and most banks’ account-opening meeting.

We tell you at the outset which steps need you in the country, so a trip can be planned around them rather than repeated.

No. They sit inside the regime like everyone else, with the possibility of a 0% rate on qualifying income — which is a status assessed every tax period against income type, substance and documentation, not an exemption granted at licensing.

This is the single most expensive misunderstanding we’re asked to correct. Qualifying Free Zone Person sets out the conditions and the 5% de minimis limit.

Nine months after the end of your tax period, with payment on the same date. It moves with your own financial year-end, so there’s no single sitewide deadline.

Registration deadlines and filing deadlines are separate and penalised independently — businesses that registered on time still get penalised for filing late. The compliance calendar tracks both.

Two separate triggers, routinely conflated. Under corporate tax: if revenue exceeds AED 50 million, or if the entity is a Qualifying Free Zone Person regardless of revenue. Separately, many free zones require audited financials at licence renewal irrespective of either.

Do you need an audit? covers both, plus the cash-basis threshold that gets mistaken for an exemption.

By revenue band. Above AED 50 million it’s mandatory from 1 January 2027; everyone else follows from 1 July 2027, with a voluntary window opening 30 October 2026.

The sensible approach is to test the accredited-provider integration during the voluntary window rather than attempt it for the first time on a deadline.

No, and nobody can. Bank risk appetite and regulatory permissibility are different tests, and a structure that is entirely legal can still be declined. What we can do is prepare the application properly — compliance narrative, source-of-funds documentation, an activity description a bank recognises — and choose the bank before the licence rather than after.

Any firm guaranteeing an account is guaranteeing a decision that isn’t theirs to make. Bank account opening explains the approach.

We find out why, which is often not what the rejection letter says, and address it — sometimes by re-presenting to the same bank, sometimes by approaching one with a different appetite for the zone or activity, occasionally by changing something structural.

Rejections are usually recoverable. What makes them hard is discovering the cause months later.

The formation, accounting, tax and PRO work is done by the group — each activity sits with the entity licensed to carry it out. Where something genuinely requires an independent party, it should be independent: the statutory audit is performed by an external licensed auditor, not by us, and enforcement action on a trademark goes to counsel.

Because publishing one would mean competing on the smallest number in the exercise, and it’s the number least connected to whether the structure works. Firms that lead with a licence fee tend to be quiet about visa allocation, banking friction and what year two costs.

We’d rather have the conversation and put the whole figure in writing.

We aren’t lawyers and don’t provide legal representation. We don’t provide regulated investment advice or deal in securities — the capital and funding work is advisory and introductory only. We don’t perform our own clients’ statutory audits. And we aren’t a registered tax agent.

Where a matter needs one of those, we say so and work alongside whoever holds it.