Dubai has hundreds of business setup consultants — from licensed professionals to Instagram accounts reselling licences with a markup. Choosing the wrong one costs you more than money: wrong structures, surprise fees and stalled visas. Here is how to tell them apart.
First check: are they actually licensed?
A legitimate consultant operates under a UAE trade licence for this work — document clearing, management consultancy or PRO services. Ask for the licence number and verify it on the DET website. If they hesitate, walk.
(Ours is public: Smartgic Visa operates under DET Professional Licence No. 1394564 — see our About page.)
The questions that reveal everything
Ask these on the first call:
- "What's the all-inclusive price, itemised?" — the only acceptable answer shows government fees and service fees separately, in writing
- "Which jurisdiction do you recommend and why not the others?" — good consultants compare; bad ones push whichever free zone pays them the highest commission
- "What happens after the licence?" — visas, bank account, tax registration, renewals. If the answer stops at the licence, they're selling paper, not setup
- "Who handles my file — you or a subcontractor?" — you want a named person who answers your messages
- "What's not included?" — the honest ones tell you before you sign
Red flags to walk away from
- "Guaranteed bank account" — no one can guarantee a bank's compliance decision; honest consultants quote approval rates, not certainties
- Prices that look impossible — an AED 5,500 ad that becomes AED 15,000 by licence day is the industry's oldest trick (see the real cost breakdown)
- Pressure to decide today — authority prices don't expire tonight; urgency is a sales tactic
- No physical office or licence shown — you're dealing with a middleman's middleman
- One-zone shops — if they only sell one free zone, every problem looks like that free zone
What fair pricing looks like
Consultant service fees (on top of government costs) typically run AED 1,500–5,000 for a straightforward setup. Dramatically less usually means hidden margins in "government fees"; dramatically more should come with genuinely complex structuring.
What a good consultant actually saves you
- The wrong-jurisdiction mistake (thousands to unwind)
- Bank rejections from sloppy KYC files
- Missed Corporate Tax registration penalties
- Weeks of queueing across DET, GDRFA, MOHRE and typing centres
- Renewal lapses and fines in year two (why that matters)
Judge us by the same test
Ask Smartgic the five questions above — we welcome them. Licensed, itemised quotes, one named manager per file, and everything from licence to visa to bank in one engagement. Start with a free consultation.