Insights
What changed, and what most guidance still gets wrong
Written for people who already have a DIFC entity or are about to. No general interest pieces about Dubai, no reposted press releases.
A DIFC Foundation or a trust: how families actually decide
Both do the same job in the end. The choice usually turns on whether the family's advisers and home jurisdiction understand a trust, and whether the founder wants to keep visible control.
2 September 2026 | 8 minute read
The short version
A trust is a relationship: a trustee holds assets for beneficiaries. A Foundation is a legal person that owns assets itself. Families from civil law backgrounds usually find the Foundation easier to use because it resembles a company without shareholders, and because civil law jurisdictions recognise a legal person more readily than a trust.
DEWS, six years on: what DIFC employers still get wrong
DEWS is administratively simple. The disputes are not about the scheme, they are about what the employer calculated the contribution on and what happened to gratuity accrued before 2020.
12 August 2026 | 7 min
BankingOpening a bank account for a DIFC holding company
An operating company has invoices and clients to explain its flows. A holding vehicle has none of that, which is exactly the problem the file has to solve.
14 July 2026 | 8 min
TaxWhich DIFC businesses actually get the 0 per cent tax rate
A surprising number of DIFC firms assume the zero rate applies because they are in a free zone. For consultancies in particular, the analysis usually lands on 9 per cent.
17 June 2026 | 10 min
LicensingWhy DFSA applications take nine months instead of three
The published range for DFSA authorisation is three to six months. Plenty of firms take nine. The difference is almost never the regulator.
22 May 2026 | 9 min
RegulationThe DIFC obligations nobody mentions until after the licence is issued
Incorporation is treated as the finish line. It is the start of six separate compliance relationships, four of them with bodies the founder has not met yet.
28 April 2026 | 8 min
TaxEconomic substance filings ended three years ago. Most guidance still says otherwise
Cabinet Decision No. 98 of 2024 cancelled the Economic Substance Regulations prospectively. A remarkable amount of UAE corporate guidance has not been updated, and DIFC companies are still being told to file.
19 March 2026 | 5 min
StructuringWhat the Prescribed Company Regulations 2024 actually changed
The old regime worked if you already had a DIFC connection. The 2024 Regulations opened it up, and the effect on structuring options in the Gulf has been larger than the drafting suggests.
11 February 2026 | 7 min
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