How Dubai is making business setup faster, easier

Dubai is enhancing its digital business infrastructure by launching a new investor register, adopting a Unified Licence, and leveraging AI-powered services. These measures, spearheaded by the Dubai Business Registration and Licensing Corporation (DBLC), aim to simplify and expedite the process for companies and investors to establish and expand their businesses within the emirate.

DBLC, under the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), has broadened its responsibilities from merely issuing business licenses to overseeing and advancing the broader business registration and licensing framework in Dubai. Ahmad Khalifa Al Qaizi Al Falasi, CEO of DBLC, emphasized to Gulf News that the authority is now concentrating on reshaping the investor journey, devising legislation and policies, and establishing a unified digital environment to connect government entities and the private sector.

The first half of 2026 saw 58,337 licenses issued across Dubai's mainland and free zones, a 84 per cent increase compared to the period between 2020 and 2022. This surge in licence issuance, along with 173,652 renewals, underscores the continued influx of new businesses and the confidence of established enterprises in expanding their activities in Dubai.

Central to the city's digital transformation is the 'Invest in Dubai' platform, a unified digital channel for business setup and economic operations. The platform enables investors to complete various stages of business establishment and operation within a single digital environment, including obtaining a business license, securing approvals, and accessing government and private-sector services.

DBLC intends to extend the Invest in Dubai platform to include free-zone businesses, allowing investors to handle a more extensive range of transactions through the platform. Another critical initiative is the Dubai Unified Licence (DUL), which provides companies with a single commercial identity, irrespective of their licensing location—either mainland or free zone.

The Unified Licence consolidates company data, minimizes duplication, and offers a centralized source of corporate information for government bodies and private-sector organizations. This has significantly streamlined corporate banking processes, reducing the time needed to open a corporate bank account from approximately 90 days to around three days.

Additionally, DBLC is developing the Dubai Investor Register, a unified digital record for individual and corporate investors. This system enables investors to provide their information once instead of registering with various authorities upon expanding operations, opening branches, acquiring stakes, transferring companies between licensing zones, or investing in sectors like financial markets and real estate.

Any subsequent changes to investor data would be updated in a single location and then reflected across relevant entities. The use of artificial intelligence is anticipated to play a more prominent role in future phases of Dubai's business services. DBLC plans to employ AI to offer more personalized services through the Invest in Dubai platform, evolving it from a mere transaction-processing tool into a system that can guide investors through the different stages of setting up and developing their businesses.

The technology could help recommend relevant services and provide investors with information based on their stage in the business journey. These initiatives are part of Dubai's broader efforts to enhance the ease of doing business and fulfill the objectives of the Dubai Economic Agenda D33, aiming to double the size of Dubai's economy and bolster its standing among the world's leading economic cities.

Al Falasi stated that the focus moving forward would be on creating a more interconnected and proactive business environment, where government and private-sector services collaborate around investors' needs.