Licensing and authorisation
What you need permission for, and from whom.
Regulated activity in the UAE is defined narrowly and enforced literally. The expensive mistakes are the ones where a firm thought it was outside the perimeter.
What changes
- A perimeter analysis naming every regulated activity in your model
- The authority and instrument behind each one
- The licensing route, its stages and what each stage asks for
- Activities you can carry on without authorisation, stated explicitly
- Open questions flagged rather than answered with false confidence
Perimeter first
Before anyone asks which licence to apply for, the question is whether the activity is regulated at all — and by whom. The same product can count as a payment service under one regime, a security under a second and a virtual asset under a third, depending on how it is structured.
What you get
A written perimeter analysis: which activities in your model are regulated, under which instrument, by which authority, and what the licensing route looks like. Where the answer is genuinely unsettled, it says so and names the ambiguity.
Who it is for
Sector context
The same solution reads differently depending on the regime you sit in.
Other solutions
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Entering the UAE market
Onshore or a financial free zone — and what each one costs you.
The UAE is not one jurisdiction. Choosing between the mainland and a financial free zone sets your licensing route, your courts, your data rules and your tax position for years.
Learn more Entering the UAE market -
Building a compliance programme
Policies that survive an inspection.
AML/CFT, sanctions, data protection and conduct — drafted against the instruments that actually apply to you, not a template from another market.
Learn more Building a compliance programme -
Risk and governance
Name the exposure before it names you.
A standing view of what could go wrong, who owns it, and what the board has actually been told — rather than a risk register nobody has opened since the last audit.
Learn more Risk and governance
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Najem AI produces analysis and drafts for internal use. It is not legal, tax, audit or investment advice and does not create a professional relationship.