Ten sectors, and what each one needs from its structure.
Every sector below is drawn from the licensed activities on our own client book, and each one is represented by named clients on file. Where a sector is not listed, it is because we have not done that work — and we would rather say so than claim it.
What each sector needs from its structure.
| Sector | What the structure has to handle |
|---|---|
| Trading and general commerce | The largest single group. Activity lists that don’t cover what is actually traded, and customs and VAT treatment on imports and re-exports that was never set up correctly. |
| Professional and consulting services | Equal largest. Invoicing across the free zone and mainland boundary, and the corporate tax position of service income earned from clients outside the zone. |
| Technology and IT consultancy | Revenue recognised across borders, intellectual property held in the wrong entity, and banking friction caused by activity descriptions banks don’t recognise. |
| Commercial brokerage | Licensing the brokerage activity correctly, and commission income that has to survive both a bank’s and an auditor’s reading. |
| Real estate, contracting and interiors | Entity structure for holding property, service charge treatment, and coordination between the brokerage and the corporate file. |
| Logistics, shipping and customs clearance | Multi-emirate licensing, warehouse leasing tied to the licence, and free zone customs treatment. |
| Food and beverage | Layered approvals across municipality, food control and the licensing authority, on a timeline that must fit a lease — plus product registration, where a single mandate can run to twenty products. |
| Retail and personal services | Fit-out and municipality approvals that gate the licence, and VAT on consumer supplies. |
| Tourism, events and hospitality | Activity-specific approvals, and seasonal staffing that drives visa volume. |
| Holding and investment structures | Ownership across jurisdictions, and consolidated reporting across entities that were never designed to be consolidated. |
Not sure where to start? Forty minutes, no cost, no licence quoted.
Your activity, your customers, your visas — and a written view of the structure that fits, with the case against it. The person you speak to is the person who keeps your file.
Sector experience is really activity-list experience.
Most of what goes wrong in these files traces back to the same three places, and which of them bites you depends almost entirely on what business you’re in.
The activity list
A licence permits defined activities. Trading businesses get caught when the list doesn’t cover what’s actually being traded; tech businesses get caught when a bank can’t recognise the description. See company formation.
The zone and tax position
Consulting and service businesses invoicing across the free zone boundary is the single most common tax problem we’re asked to correct. See Qualifying Free Zone Person.
Approvals that gate the licence
Food, retail and hospitality carry external approvals that sit on the critical path — and usually against a lease that has already started running.
Two practices, twelve services — and the same advisor across all of them.
Corporate advisory & formation
- Structure & jurisdiction advisory Mainland, free zone or offshore — decided first
- Company formation Mainland and free zone, executed against the agreed structure
- Bank account opening The file a bank actually approves
- Residency & Golden Visa Investor, employment, family
- Capital, funding & joint ventures Readiness first, introductions second
- Trademark & IP A licence is not a trademark
Accounting & taxation
- Bookkeeping & management accounts Odoo, Zoho Books, QuickBooks
- UAE corporate tax Registration, returns, the qualifying position
- VAT & e-invoicing Returns, and readiness for the phased mandate
- Audit support The file prepared as a review, not a reconstruction
- Payroll & WPS Salary processing that satisfies the Wage Protection System
- Compliance calendar Every dated deadline, one page, one PDF
Tell us what the business actually does.
Forty minutes on your activity, your customers and where you invoice from — which is what determines the structure, far more than the sector label does.
Prefer to talk now? WhatsApp +971 50 175 2489 · inquiries@oznetcorp.com
Last reviewed September 2026 by the Oznet Corp advisory team.