A Dubai offshore company and holding structure. Set up remotely, from Australia.

That is the better time to have it. Most enquiries arrive naming a structure — a holding company, an SPV, an offshore entity — because that is what was suggested somewhere else, and the structure then gets built before anyone has established what it is for. Start from the objective instead: ring-fencing risk, consolidating ownership across entities, holding IP, planning succession, or trading from a single base. The structure follows from that, and sometimes the answer is that what you already have is adequate and a UAE layer adds cost without adding anything else. 30 minutes, free, no obligation, at a time that works in your timezone — and you will be told when the answer is to do nothing.

Almost all of it, yes. Name reservation, initial approval, incorporation, share structure and your corporate documents all complete remotely while you are in Australia. What requires you in the UAE is the residence visa — the medical fitness test and Emirates ID biometrics — and some bank account activations. We tell you exactly which stages need you here before you start.

A holding company sits above your operating businesses and owns them: shares in subsidiaries, intellectual property, investments. It is permanent and usually carries some substance. An SPV is deliberately narrower — a vehicle created to hold one asset, project or joint venture and insulate it from everything else. ADGM and DIFC both run dedicated SPV regimes for exactly that, typically without office space or visas, because an SPV is not meant to trade. Many structures use both: a holding company at the top, SPVs beneath it.

More than most people assume, and this is where structures fail rather than at incorporation. A holding entity is expected to be genuinely directed and managed from where it is registered — real decision-making, premises appropriate to what it does, accounting, and in many cases resident directors. A company registered in Dubai but run entirely from Sydney is not a Dubai company in any sense that matters. We will tell you at the scoping stage what each entity would need, and if that is not something you want to put in place, we would rather say so than sell you a structure that will not hold.

Not by itself, and that is the single most important thing to understand before you start. There is a real difference between genuinely relocating and becoming a non-resident for Australian tax purposes, and remaining an Australian tax resident while holding a UAE entity. The second brings Australia’s controlled foreign company rules and anti-avoidance provisions into play. We are UAE corporate service providers, not Australian tax advisers — your residency position is a matter for a registered Australian adviser, and we will say so on the call rather than after you have paid.

Both routes exist. A branch or subsidiary extends what you already have, keeping the parent’s identity and trading history, which matters if you are mid-contract or hold accreditations. A new UAE entity starts clean, which is usually simpler to structure and to bank. Which is right depends on your contracts and your liability position, and we work through it with you on the first call.

Yes, though “offshore” is used loosely and it is worth being precise. RAK ICC is the UAE’s offshore registry, and within the wider group we also establish in Seychelles, BVI, Panama and Hong Kong. An offshore company holds assets, owns shares and contracts — it does not trade inside the UAE and it does not carry a residence visa. If you need to invoice UAE clients or hold a residence visa, you need a free zone or mainland entity, sometimes alongside the offshore one. We will tell you which combination your objective actually needs.

It depends on the structure, the underlying activity, the beneficial ownership and how the file is presented — holding entities are scrutinised more closely than trading ones. We prepare the application to the standard UAE banks expect and introduce you to banks that accept structured entities rather than declining them on sight. Holding a UAE residence visa materially improves your position, which is why we sequence that before the account. No consultant can guarantee a bank’s decision, and you should be sceptical of any who claims otherwise.

Incorporation itself is quick — often days once documents are in order, though DIFC and ADGM run longer than a standard free zone. Scoping a multi-entity structure properly takes longer than incorporating it, and that is the part worth not rushing. Residence visas add roughly 1–2 weeks after the entity is established. From first call to fully operational with a visa in hand, plan on 4–6 weeks.