Moving to Dubai from Australia with Your Business: Tax and Setup

Moving your business to Dubai from Australia comes down to three questions, and the first two are Australian ones. Have you genuinely stopped being an Australian tax resident? What happens to the things you already own when you leave, including the Pty Ltd you run now? And will a UAE bank take on the business you are bringing? The UAE company itself is the easy part. This page takes the Australian questions first, because they decide whether the move works, then the UAE side, then what the move looks like from the other side of the world.

We open companies in the UAE for owners from the UK, Ireland and Australia, whether you are moving a business you already run or building a real new one. The Australian move has its own shape: the distance, the time difference, and a tax system that does not let go easily. Start Business Services handles the UAE side end to end and works to the timetable your Australian adviser sets for things at home, so the two happen in the right order, with the bank account planned before the licence.

Why do Australian owners move their business to Dubai?

For most of the people we talk to, tax is what starts the conversation, and there is nothing wrong with that. Being taxed heavily at home limits what you can put back into the business. In the UAE more of what the business earns stays with you, to reinvest, to grow, and to live better on. You are still running a legal business, just from a different tax jurisdiction, done properly and in full compliance.

The other reasons tend to matter more once people arrive. Dubai sits between Europe, Asia and Africa, on timezones that overlap a working day in most of them, which Australia, for all its strengths, does not. For a business selling into Asia, the Middle East or Europe, the distance from Australia is a real cost: in flights, in hours, in being a day behind the people you trade with. Dubai removes most of that.

The wider case is on our page on why owners move a business to Dubai, and our analysis of what the UAE leaving OPEC changes for businesses operating here looks at where the economy is heading next.

What does not work is a company in Dubai while your life stays in Australia. If the only plan is a lower tax bill with nothing else moving, the setup tends to fall apart later: at the bank, at renewal, and with the Australian Taxation Office. We say that up front, and we turn those owners away.

What do you need to settle in Australia before you go?

Two things: whether you have genuinely stopped being an Australian tax resident, and what Australia still has a claim on when you go. Australia taxes its tax residents on worldwide income, so the question is not whether the UAE is low-tax. The ATO’s position is blunt: an Australian resident for tax purposes “must declare all income you’ve earned in Australia and overseas”. That line is from the ATO’s own page, Australian resident for tax purposes.

How do you stop being an Australian tax resident?

Breaking residency means your home, your family, your assets and the centre of your life genuinely move, not just your company. Australian residency is not a box you tick by buying a plane ticket. The ATO applies four statutory tests: the resides test, the domicile test, the 183-day test and the Commonwealth superannuation test. The resides test looks at where your life actually is. It is the primary one, and the ATO’s Your tax residency page says so plainly: “The primary test of tax residency is called the resides test.”

An owner who sets up in Dubai but leaves the family, the house and the day-to-day life in Australia has usually not broken residency at all. To get the UAE benefit and to satisfy the ATO, you need real presence here: residency, time on the ground, and a business genuinely run from the UAE.

What happens to what you own when you leave?

When you stop being an Australian resident, the ATO treats you as if you had sold certain assets at their market value on that day, even though nothing was sold. It is called CGT event I1, and it covers assets that are not “taxable Australian property”, and shares that meet the two share tests.

You can choose to defer that gain instead, but those assets are then treated as taxable Australian property until you sell them or become a resident again. Which way suits you is a call for your Australian adviser, and one to make before you leave. Both points are on the ATO’s pages How changing residency affects CGT and CGT events, which lists event I1.

Australian property you keep stays inside the Australian CGT net after you leave, and a 2026 Act widens the rules for foreign residents. The Act received Royal Assent on 15 September 2026. Its foreign-resident CGT changes apply to CGT events on or after 1 October 2026. You can read it on the Federal Register of Legislation.

What that means for a sale around the move is on our page on Australian CGT and relocating to the UAE. Read it before you sell or move anything.

What happens to the Pty Ltd you already run?

Your Australian company does not move with you. A company incorporated in Australia is an Australian resident for tax, wherever its owner lives, so the Pty Ltd stays in the Australian system. It works the other way too. A company set up overseas can still be treated as an Australian resident if it carries on business in Australia and is managed and controlled from Australia. A UAE company run from a kitchen table in Brisbane is exactly what that test is built to catch. The ATO sets out both tests for companies on its Working out your residency page.

Whether you keep the Australian company, sell it or close it down is a decision for your Australian accountant. We build the UAE side around whichever it is.

One more rule catches owners who assume a UAE company puts profits beyond Australian reach. Australia’s controlled foreign company rules can attribute a UAE company’s income to its Australian resident owners and tax it there even when nothing has been paid out. Whether they bite on your structure is a question for your Australian adviser, and one to ask before the UAE company exists rather than after. The ATO explains the controlled foreign company measures on its Attributed foreign income page.

Is there a tax treaty between Australia and the UAE?

Australia has no tax treaty with the UAE, and that matters more than it sounds. Where two countries do have a treaty, a tie-breaker test usually decides which one gets to tax you when both could treat you as resident. With the UAE there is no tie-breaker. If you still meet one of Australia’s residency tests, Australia keeps its claim on your worldwide income, whatever the UAE says. It is one more reason to settle your residency with your Australian adviser before you go.

Sources: Treasury’s list of Australia’s Income tax treaties, which does not include the UAE, and the ATO’s page Australian resident for tax purposes, on dual residents and the treaty tie-breaker.

Could the Australian residency rules change?

They could. Australia has had statutory residency reforms proposed for several years, built around a clearer physical-presence rule. They are not law, and the four statutory residency tests still apply. Check the current position with an Australian adviser at the time you move, because this is an area that may change. The proposal is on Treasury’s consultation page, Modernising the individual tax residency rules, and the four tests in force are on the ATO’s Your tax residency page.

We are not your tax adviser in Australia, and we do not give tax advice. We work alongside Australian tax advisers, or with your own, and keep the two sides joined up. Take advice at home first, and follow it. One Australian move that went really well started exactly that way, and it is described further down.

What does the UAE side mean for the money you keep?

More of it stays with you, and the UAE side is simpler. What you pay yourself from the company, as salary or dividends, is not taxed here as personal income. The company pays corporate tax at 0% on its first AED 375,000 of taxable profit and 9% on the rest. On AED 500,000 of profit, that works out at AED 11,250 of UAE corporate tax, and the rest stays in the business to reinvest or to pay yourself. None of that helps if Australia still treats you as resident, which is why the Australian side comes first.

Sources: the 9% rate is set in the UAE’s corporate tax law and the AED 375,000 threshold in the Cabinet’s decision on the threshold, both published by the UAE Ministry of Finance. Wages and personal investment income are outside corporate tax for individuals, as the Federal Tax Authority’s page Basis of Taxation: Natural Person sets out.

A free zone company can pay 0% on qualifying income, but only when it meets the conditions, including the limits on other income. Being in a free zone is not enough on its own. Those limits are in the Ministry of Finance’s decision on qualifying and excluded activities.

For most small businesses, 9% above AED 375,000 is the number to plan around. We handle UAE corporate tax and VAT in-house, and cover how it works on our UAE corporate tax page.

What does the move look like from Australia?

The move runs in a set order, from advice in Australia to the books in the first year, and the order matters as much as the steps. This is how it runs, start to finish:

1. Take advice in Australia on your residency, on what happens to your assets on the day you leave, and on the Pty Ltd. Settle that before anything is signed in the UAE.
2. We speak to the bank about your company before it exists, and pick the free zone or mainland route to suit.
3. We form the company and apply for your entry permit while you are still in Australia.
4. You fly out once, for the medical, biometrics, residence visa and Emirates ID.
5. With the Emirates ID, we open the business bank account, and you get a UAE phone number and a personal account.
6. You fly home to finish things off, on the timetable your Australian adviser set, then make the final move.
7. From the first year, we keep the books and handle the corporate tax registration and filings.

Most of the paperwork starts while you are still in Australia. Once the company is formed, we apply for your entry permit while you are still at home, so you fly out once, when it suits you, rather than making an extra trip just to start the process.

When you land, plan on about two weeks on the ground; in our experience that is what the process takes. There is a medical, which is a blood test and a chest x-ray, then a biometrics appointment, then the residence visa and your Emirates ID. With the Emirates ID in hand we can open the business bank account, and you can get a UAE phone number and a personal account. After that, a lot of owners fly home to finish things off before the final move.

One rule matters more when home is on the other side of the world and trips back tend to run long. A UAE residence visa can lapse if you stay outside the country too long at a stretch, so check the current limit before a long trip home. That is about keeping the visa, and it is a separate question from tax residency in either country.

One Australian move that went really well was a young couple who had already taken advice in Australia on leaving properly before they spoke to us. We talked it through over several video calls and settled on an IFZA free zone company. Their entry permits came through, I picked them up at the airport, and the bank account opened smoothly because they had every document ready. They already understood the bank’s checks from setting up payment gateways in other countries.

By the end they had both residence visas, their Emirates IDs, and personal and corporate bank accounts. They have since set up two more companies with us. The lesson is the one on this whole page: the Australian advice came first, the paperwork was ready, and the bank had nothing to query.

Free zone or mainland: which suits an Australian owner?

The choice between them is not about price. It is about where your customers are. An Australian owner can own 100% of a UAE company outright in a free zone, and for most business activities on the mainland too, with no local partner.

• Free zone: a clean fit if your customers are mostly outside the UAE. 100% foreign ownership, relatively quick to set up.
• Mainland: usually the better route if you are selling into the UAE market itself. It gives you direct access to local customers and contracts.

There are more than forty free zones in the UAE; only a handful suit a real operating business, and the right one depends on your activity and how the company will bank.

Since March 2025 a Dubai free zone company can also apply to Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism for a permit to operate onshore in Dubai, so the line is not as hard as it once was. That route is Dubai’s own. It comes from a Dubai Executive Council resolution issued on 3 March 2025.

Sources: the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism’s pages 100% Company Ownership, Full ownership in all economic sectors and 40 Free Zones for Company Incorporation. The exception to full ownership is activities with a strategic impact. The free zones page puts it simply: “More than 40 free zones allow tax exemptions and 100% ownership for foreign investors.”

We do not push a particular free zone or a particular route. Both are fine when they fit. We set out the honest picture for your situation, check the banking against your activity, and the choice is yours. The detail is on our free zones overview and Dubai mainland pages, and the structures themselves, from free zone company to branch and holding, on the company structures page.

Why does the bank account decide the setup?

The bank account is where most moves come unstuck. Banks here run real checks, and they will not easily take on a business that does not make sense to them: the wrong free zone, a thin activity, an owner with no genuine presence. The way the company is set up decides which banks will work with you, so that is where we start.

Before we set anything up, we speak to the bank directly about the company: the activity, the structure and the owner. They tell us up front whether they see any issues and what they would need to open the account. Then we build the company to suit. It is the opposite of setting up first and hoping the bank says yes.

In our experience, timing and cost depend on the business:

• A small, single-owner, low-risk business under AED 3m: typically a digital business account, open in 3 to 4 days. Our fee to run the application is AED 3,000, at the prices we set in June 2026.
• A larger company, more shareholders or revenue at AED 3m and above: a full corporate account, usually 7 to 10 days. Our fee is AED 12,000.
• Higher-risk activity such as physical-product trading, commodities, property or investment can take up to 3 months and may require a balance held with the bank. Our fee is from AED 15,000.

Those are our fees to run the application start to finish, separate from the bank’s own charges and the licence costs. The exact figure is set in the first conversation, before any work begins. There is more on how this works on our UAE business bank account page.

What does the first year cost?

For a one-person IFZA free zone company, our year-one package is AED 45,295, at the prices we set in September 2026. That is the route the couple above took. It is also the number most people want: the first year, all in. It is our price for the trade licence (AED 15,645), the establishment card (AED 3,000), your residence visa (AED 8,000), the full bank account application (AED 12,000), a corporate address (AED 6,000) and corporate tax registration (AED 650).

Year two is lower, at AED 24,645. That is because the visa and the one-off costs fall away, and you pay for the licence, the establishment card and the corporate address. The visa renews every two years, so year three is AED 32,645. If your business fits the smaller digital bank account, our bank fee is AED 3,000 rather than AED 12,000.

The bank’s own charges, and any balance it asks you to hold, sit on top of that. So does the advice you take in Australia, which your adviser there prices. More people on visas, an office or a mainland company change the figure, and we send you the exact cost, itemised, before any work begins. Knowing the full year before you commit is part of doing it properly: it tells you what will actually stay in the business once you are running.

What do we actually do?

We handle the whole UAE job and stay involved after the licence is issued. The company, the bank account, the visas and Emirates ID for you, your staff and your family, and then the bookkeeping, the yearly accounts and the corporate tax. You deal with Gareth from the first call onwards, not a department. Start Business Services builds the UAE side around the bank account rather than the licence, and works to the Australian residence and CGT timing your own adviser sets.

With a simple profile and every document ready, the company, bank account and residency can be in place in as little as three to four weeks. That is the fastest case, not the usual one. The company itself is quick; the time goes into the bank’s checks, residency and source of funds, and in our experience a more complex profile can take up to three months at the bank alone. Most of the real work is in the first year, and that is where we stay.

For the Australian tax side, we work alongside tax advisers in Australia and the UAE, or with your own adviser, and we keep in direct contact with them so you are not left holding the two sides together. We are not a full-spectrum advisory firm and we do not pretend to be. We are focused operational support for getting the business set up and running properly here.

Not every business works in the UAE. If yours does not, we will say so before you spend anything.

Common questions

Can an Australian business owner set up a company in Dubai?

Yes. An Australian owner can own 100% of a UAE company in a free zone, or on the mainland for most business activities, with no local partner. The harder parts are usually the bank account and the Australian-side tax position, not the company itself.

Do I still pay Australian tax if I move my business to Dubai?

It depends on whether you genuinely break Australian tax residency. The UAE does not tax your salary or dividends as personal income, and corporate tax is 9% above AED 375,000, but if you remain an Australian tax resident, Australia can still tax your worldwide income. Breaking residency is the part that needs real advice.

What happens to my Australian company when I move?

It stays Australian. A company incorporated in Australia is an Australian tax resident wherever you live, so it stays in the Australian system. Whether to keep it, sell it or close it is a decision for your Australian accountant, and we build the UAE side around it.

How long does it take to set up a company in Dubai from Australia?

The company itself is usually the quick part. With a simple profile and every document ready, the company, bank account and residency can be in place in as little as three to four weeks. That is the fastest case. In our experience, the bank alone can take 3 to 4 days, 7 to 10 days, or up to three months, depending on the business.

Free zone or mainland for an Australian owner?

It depends on where your customers are. Mostly outside the UAE, a free zone is a clean fit. Selling into the UAE market, the mainland route is often better. The activity and how the company banks matter more than the headline price.

Do I need to be in Dubai to run the company?

To get genuine UAE tax benefits and to break Australian residency cleanly, you need real presence: residency, time on the ground, and a business actually run from here. A company on paper with you still living in Australia does not achieve either.