In the UAE, conducting any commercial activity requires a business license which confirms the company's right to engage in certain types of activities. This is enshrined in Federal Law No. 32 of 2021 On Commercial Companies (Article 11). The license determines the jurisdiction, the list of permitted activities, the legal form of the company and the scope of the owner's rights.
According to the classification of the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism, there are several key categories of licenses, depending on the nature of the company's activities:
- industrial license,
- commercial license,
- crafts license,
- tourism license,
- agricultural license,
- professional license.
Each license is based on business activities selected from an official list. A list of permitted activities is the official list from which the entrepreneur selects the activities of the company. A license may include more than one permitted activity. In the UAE, there is no random description of activities: all activities must precisely correspond to their official names (each activity is assigned a code).