Dubai Trade License: 10 Interesting Facts

Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It’s a tiny, boomtown monarchy on the eastern coast of the country.

Dubai Trade License!  Dubai has one of the world’s most impressive skylines, but it doesn’t come cheap; some estimates put it at $1 billion per square kilometer. It’s also got ambitious plans for its own space travel program to Mars by 2020. If you want to move there, here are 12 things you should know first:

1. Dubai needs your money – badly

The city-state managed to rack up more than $80 billion in debt family owned companies took on along with Nakheel and Limitless World — publically traded companies whose fortunes are tied to the emirate. But it’s not just about business; Dubai needs your money too. The country makes 80 percent of its income from tourism and retail spending — amounting to roughly $1 billion a month. Unfortunately, many of those dollars come from foreign workers lured by promises of lavish paychecks that disappear as soon as they arrive, leaving them with few options but to borrow even more money just to get home again.

2. Jails for slacking

If you’ve got unpaid debt in Dubai, don’t expect an easy time getting out of jail; plenty of expats who can’t make ends meet end up serving time there instead. If you think borrowing money is hard here (or repaying it), try doing it from a jail cell, and try doing it in Dubai.

3. There’s no such thing as free parking

If you’re looking for free parking in the city-state, you’d better bring your own car — or at least bring enough money to pay for a taxi into town (or be prepared to walk). Parking fines here typically range from $68 to $163 per ticket — and there are no caps on how much you can be charged if you don’t pay up. By comparison, speeding tickets only run about $31.

4. You need connections just to move there

If you want to live and work in Dubai and aren’t an Emirati national, good luck moving there without family ties; expats will need to have a sponsoring company or relative in the country just to get work, and once they’re there they’ll face strict limits on how long they can stay.

5. There are no taxes, but that won’t save you from jail

All businesses in Dubai are considered foreign-owned unless their seven percent corporate tax rate is paid up — even if the owner’s passport says otherwise. The result for many small business owners who haven’t yet registered their companies? Up to three years in prison. If you think that sounds draconian, it gets worse: All transactions over $20,000 also require an official “import permit” to leave the country — which criminals often fail to apply for, leading them straight to jail as well.

6. Everyone is related to everyone else

If you’re not Emirati, there’s a good chance you’ll end up working under somebody who knows your boss’ first cousin. More than 1.5 million foreigners make up 88 percent of Dubai’s population; only one in 10 residents are actually citizens (who make up the other 12 percent). The country has more than 100 nationalities living and working alongside each other, which means bureaucracy moves at the speed of email rather than snail mail — but that also makes for lengthy chains of command that don’t always work as quickly or efficiently as they should.

7. There are no credit cards either

Forget about using credit cards to pay bills or buy groceries — even retailers like Carrefour won’t let you swipe FI. That means most transactions end up taking place in cash, which can be difficult to carry around when the ATM only dispenses 50 bills at a time.

8. Straying outside your comfort zone can cost you big

Foreigners who aren’t used to Dubai’s conservative mores often find themselves with hefty fines for attracting undue attention — like women who dare to wear swimsuits instead of full-body coverings or walk down the street without their husbands by their side (who are busy working). Last year alone, some 150,000 “violations” were reported, which led to $1 billion in fines and 32,000 people being taken into custody. If all that sounds enough, keep in mind that most people caught in the crosshairs aren’t petty criminals — they’re just foreigners who don’t know better yet.

9. There’s a lot of red tape to cut through

While Dubai is known for its efficiency, that commitment to speed isn’t always applied to government bureaucracy; some expats report having to wait up three weeks just to get an appointment with their bank or visit the post office, and then another few minutes while their passport gets photocopied before they can leave again — making scheduling anything more than simple errands nearly impossible. To get around this problem, many expats hire one of the city’s “visas babies” — college students who prefer putting off exams in order to collect commissions on repeated visits over the course of months.

10. There’s no such thing as a free lunch (or dinner)

Dubai’s line-free lifestyles make it difficult for foreigners to connect with natives; restaurants are for bidden from holding affairs like bachelor parties or birthday dinners, taxi drivers can’t assist travelers in finding their way around town and even simple social gatherings are discouraged under the threat of fines. To get around this, many expats have turned to services that crowd source location data on Face book or Twitter — which is one instance where the city is actually friendlier than its reputation suggests.