Company Registrations in Dubai in 2026: What the Unified Licence Register Shows

HIGHLIGHTS

Dubai issued 67,561 licences in January–July 2026 — 27% fewer than in the same months of 2025. The year was running 5% ahead until the end of February; from March, monthly registrations fell 40–55% and by July recovered to roughly 60–65% of the earlier level.
Demand fell, not processing speed. Initial approvals dropped in step with licences, and the approval-to-licence conversion stayed within its 2024–2025 range.
Mainland registrations fell 45%, free zones 29%. Activities that need people on site (fit-out, construction, facilities) dropped 60–70%; holding structures opened by people already in the country grew 60%.

Between January and July 2026, Dubai issued 67,561 business licences — 27% fewer than in the same seven months of 2025. Until the end of February the year was running 5% ahead of the previous one. From March, registrations fell by 40–55% and by July recovered to roughly 60–65% of the pre-March level. Mainland licences dropped 45%, free zones 29%. The source is Dubai’s unified licence register published on Dubai Pulse (the licence dataset), snapshot dated 6 August 2026, 1,034,932 records.

What happened to registrations in 2026?

The first two months of 2026 were stronger than 2025: January +6%, February +4%. The dip of 2025 against the 2024 peak (179,984 → 156,460 licences) was a normalisation after three years of 36–80% annual growth, not the start of a decline.

From March, the picture changed.

Month	2025	2026	Change
January	13,683	14,508	+6%
February	12,826	13,351	+4%
March	11,163	6,676	−40%
April	13,457	8,007	−40%
May	15,764	7,129	−55%
June	11,500	8,710	−24%
July	14,851	9,179	−38%

May was the bottom. June and July settled on a new plateau of roughly 8,700–9,200 licences a month, against 11,500–14,900 a year earlier.

Did demand fall, or did issuance slow down?

Demand. This is visible in the initial approvals dataset — the preliminary approvals a business obtains a few weeks before the licence itself. They fell in step: March −45%, April −38%, May −58%, June −17%, July −35%. The conversion of approvals into licences stayed between 0.76 and 0.86 throughout 2024–2025 and was 0.84 in March 2026. The registrar was working at its usual pace; there were simply fewer applications.

In June and July the conversion dropped to 0.71–0.73: approvals are now running ahead of issued licences. Part of July’s recovery in approvals will therefore show up as licences in August and September.

Which was hit harder: mainland or free zones?

March–July 2026 against March–July 2025:

Registrar	2025	2026	Change	Jan–Feb 2026 vs 2025
DET (mainland)	49,018	27,085	−45%	+4%
DSOA (including IFZA)	8,017	5,399	−33%	+16%
Meydan Free Zone	6,451	5,310	−18%	+16%
Other free zones in the register	1,987	1,765	−11%	+36%
All free zones	17,717	12,616	−29%	+9%

The mainland almost halved and by July had recovered to 55% of the previous year’s level. Free zones lost a third and are recovering faster: Meydan Free Zone was already ahead of 2025 in June.

DSOA — the registrar behind Dubai Silicon Oasis and IFZA — reacted with a lag: March was only −10%, the bottom came in May at −48%. This is consistent with how the channel works: applications filed before the end of February were still being processed in March.

Why the difference between mainland and free zones?

A mainland licence requires physical presence: an office, an Ejari tenancy contract, a visit to Dubai, an Emirates ID. A free zone company can be set up remotely in 5–10 business days. The gap between the two drops is consistent with one thing stopping: the inflow of new companies, not the demand for the jurisdiction from people who are already here.

The breakdown of initial approvals by activity confirms this directly (March–July, 2026 vs 2025):

Activity	2025	2026	Change
Floor & Wall Tiling Works	929	274	−71%
Plaster Works	805	269	−67%
Facilities Management Services	679	254	−63%
Carpentry & Wood Flooring Works	701	272	−61%
Air-Conditioning Installation & Maintenance	748	309	−59%
Building Cleaning Services	1,057	530	−50%
General Trading	1,501	877	−42%
Real Estate Buying & Selling Brokerage	1,422	828	−42%
Restaurant	585	467	−20%
Special Purpose Firm	630	1,011	+60%

Fit-out and construction trades — work that cannot be done without people on site and depends on the inflow of labour — fell 60–70%. Restaurants, which serve local demand, fell 20%. Special Purpose Firms — holding structures typically opened by people who already live in the country — grew 60%.

One registrar grew while the market fell: DWC / Dubai South — 87 licences in 2024, 565 in 2025, 965 in the first seven months of 2026.

Has business left Dubai?

This data cannot answer that question, and we will not pretend it can.

Cancellations in the register did increase: 26,040 in 2024, 41,123 in 2025, 29,972 in January–July 2026. But the median lifespan of a cancelled licence is exactly 1,461 days — four years to the day. That is an administrative batch cancellation of non-renewed licences, not a wave of owners’ decisions.

The “expired” status is assigned with a lag of eight months or more: for every licence with an expiry date in 2026, the count is zero. Outflow can only be estimated by comparing two snapshots of the register taken several months apart. We will do that when the second snapshot is available.

What does this mean if you are registering a company now?

Registrars are working at their normal pace — there are no issuance delays, and the approval-to-licence conversion is standard. Queues on the mainland are shorter than a year ago.

For those setting up a company remotely with no immediate relocation planned, nothing has structurally changed. For those planning physical presence — an office, staff, local operations — the question is not registration but the timing of the move, and that is a decision we do not make for you.

Bank requirements do not depend on the month a licence was issued. Source-of-funds checks and the review of the business profile follow the same standards regardless of how busy the registrar was, so a licence obtained in a quiet month does not pass KYC any more easily.

Methodology

Source: Dubai Pulse, datasets licence (snapshot 6 August 2026, 1,034,932 records) and initial_approvals (snapshot 4 August 2026, 1,210,841 approvals), plus the activity reference table.
The register is a snapshot of current state, not a log. Licences fully removed from the system are absent. Not all registrars were integrated before 2019, so the pre-2019 series is understated.
Registrars are encoded as numbers. The codes for DET, DSOA, Meydan, DMCC, JAFZA, DDA, DWC, DWTC and DAFZA were identified against real licences from our own practice.
DMCC is represented at roughly 10% of its actual issuance and DIFC is absent. Both are excluded from the analysis. Freelance permits do not appear in the register.
Initial approvals cover the mainland (DET) only.
From September 2025, DET reclassified a number of activities; the activity table includes only activities with no discontinuities during 2025.
No personal data from the datasets was used.

FAQ

How many companies were registered in Dubai in 2026?

Between January and July 2026, 67,561 licences were entered into Dubai’s unified register. That is 27% fewer than in the same seven months of 2025 (92,244). Registrations were running 5% ahead of the previous year until the end of February; the decline began in March.

Are there delays in licence issuance in Dubai in 2026?

No. The conversion of initial approvals into mainland licences in March–May 2026 was 0.73–0.84, within the 2024–2025 range. The fall in licence numbers reflects fewer applications, not slower processing by the registrar.

Which free zones were affected the least?

Among those represented in the register: Meydan Free Zone (−18% for March–July against 2025, already +10% in June) and DSOA including IFZA (−33%). The DET mainland is at −45%. DWC / Dubai South is the only registrar that grew.

Can the register show how many companies have closed?

No. The “expired” status is assigned with a lag of eight months or more, and the rise in cancellations in 2025–2026 is explained by batch cancellation of licences exactly four years after issuance. Estimating outflow requires a comparison of two register snapshots.

Reviewed by

Elena Ovchinnikova

Co-founder & COO

Co-founder & COO of Emirabiz. Leads client consulting — corporate structuring, banking pre-screening for complicated source-of-funds, residency cases. Qualified compliance & AML specialist trained under the Thomson Reuters program.

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