Corporate structure
Prescribed Company
A Private Company with the operating requirements stripped out
In short
A Prescribed Company is a Private Company with the operating obligations removed. No office lease, no employees, no visa sponsorship and generally no audit, in exchange for meeting a qualifying test and holding a registered office with a licensed provider.
- Liability
- Limited by shares
- Governing law
- DIFC Companies Law as modified by the Prescribed Company Regulations 2024
- Minimum owners
- 1 shareholder
- Minimum capital
- No statutory minimum, and nominal capital is normal
- Audit
- Generally exempt, while still required to keep accounting records
Best suited to
- Holding companies and special purpose vehicles
- Asset holding structures for property, aircraft, vessels and intellectual property
- Financing SPVs
- Structures sitting beneath a DIFC Foundation
Watch out for
- Cannot sponsor visas or employ staff
- Requires a registered office provider for its whole life
- Still registers and files for UAE corporate tax
What you give up and what you keep
You give up the ability to operate: no staff, no office, no visas. You keep everything that makes a DIFC entity useful for holding assets, including separate legal personality, a common law framework, DIFC Courts jurisdiction and a UAE presence that banks and counterparties recognise.
Questions
Is a Prescribed Company a separate legal form?
It is a Private Company operating under modified rules set by the Prescribed Company Regulations 2024, rather than an entirely separate type of entity.
Not sure which DIFC licence you need?
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