Terms of Business
1. Who we are
Start Business Services FZ CO, Boulevard Plaza Tower 2, Level 23, Downtown Dubai (Emaar Square), Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Licensed by IFZA, Dubai.
+971 4 409 6905 · +971 54 403 5606 · info@dubaistartbusiness.com
In these terms, "we", "us" and "our" mean Start Business Services FZ CO. "You" means the person or company we are working for.
2. What these terms are
These are our standard terms of business. They are not negotiated individually, and they apply to everything we do for you unless we have agreed something different with you in writing and we have both signed it.
They sit alongside three other documents: the proposal or quotation that sets out your scope and price, the Engagement and Authority to Act you sign, and our invoice. Where one of those says something specific about your work or your price, that document wins for that point.
3. Which version applies to you
These terms carry a version number and an effective date. We may change them for future work.
The version that applies to you is the one in force on the date of the proposal, invoice or written instruction that formed your contract with us. Later versions do not replace it. Every superseded version stays published at dubaistartbusiness.com/terms-of-business/archive, and we will send you any version on request, free of charge.
4. How a contract is formed between us
A contract is formed between us on whichever of these happens first:
- you accept a proposal or quotation in writing;
- you instruct us in writing to go ahead with work we have quoted; or
- you pay one of our invoices, in whole or in part.
Where the contract is formed by payment, the invoice is our offer and your payment is your acceptance of it, together with these terms as they stood on the date of that invoice.
Your contract with us is concluded in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, whichever country you are in when you accept.
5. We will never treat silence as agreement
We will not treat your silence or inaction as acceptance of new work, of a renewal, or of a change to these terms. A renewal needs your written instruction or your payment of a renewal invoice. Nothing renews automatically because you did not reply.
6. Prices shown on our website
Fees, ranges and indicative figures on our website are there for information. They are not offers and they do not bind us. A binding price is one we put in a written quotation, proposal or invoice addressed to you.
7. Who we contract with
If the company already exists, that company is our client, and whoever signs for it confirms they are authorised to bind it.
If the company does not yet exist, it cannot be party to anything. You are our client personally, and you are responsible for our fees. Once the company is formed you will procure that it adopts the engagement — and you stay personally responsible for anything properly incurred before that, and for anything you accepted personally in the Engagement and Authority to Act.
8. What we do
We provide company formation and corporate services in Dubai and the wider United Arab Emirates, and we arrange services in other jurisdictions. That includes:
- company formation, licensing and corporate administration
- residence visas, Emirates ID and immigration processing
- support with corporate bank account applications
- licence, establishment card and visa renewals, amendments, share transfers, certificates and deregistration
- bookkeeping, management accounts, VAT registration and returns, corporate tax registration and returns, qualifying free zone person assessment and Small Business Relief elections
Audit and liquidation we do not carry out ourselves. We refer those to external firms we work with regularly, and we prepare the file so the work runs cleanly.
What you have actually bought is what your proposal, quotation or invoice describes. Anything else is outside it and may carry a further fee, which we will quote before we do it.
9. What we do not do
We do not give legal, tax, investment or regulated financial advice, and nothing we provide is such advice.
We do prepare and file returns where you have engaged us to. That is compliance work, not advice, and it does not extend to advising you on tax planning or on your position in any other country.
It is a condition of working with us that you take your own independent professional advice on the legal, tax and financial consequences of what you are doing — your home country tax position in particular, if you remain resident, own assets or run a business elsewhere. We can introduce you to people who do that work. You should not rely on anything we say in place of that advice.
10. Acting for you
By signing the Engagement and Authority to Act, you authorise us to act on your behalf as far as is reasonably needed to do the work.
That includes dealing with free zones, company registries, licensing authorities, immigration authorities, government departments and regulators; with medical and identification service providers where a visa requires it; with a bank where we are supporting an account application; and with professional advisers and other third parties involved in your work.
It includes submitting applications and documents you have given us or approved, receiving correspondence, and sharing your information where it is needed to carry out your instructions.
You also authorise us to pay government, free zone and other third-party fees on your behalf as soon as your funds clear.
11. Our ongoing appointment
Where we form or administer a company for you, you appoint us as its corporate services provider with the relevant authority.
That covers trade and business licence renewals; establishment and immigration card renewals; residence visa applications, renewals and cancellations; company amendments; changes to shareholders, directors and managers; share transfers; certificates and corporate documents; activity amendments; deregistration; and other corporate or administrative work processed through the authority.
While we hold that appointment, this work goes through us. We will tell you what each renewal or application costs before we proceed with it.
Your company remains yours. Nothing here transfers ownership or control of it to us.
Banking is not part of this appointment. Where we help you open an account, our role ends when that account-opening work is done. You are then free to deal with your bank directly and you are under no obligation to use us for anything further on banking.
12. Ending our appointment, and moving to another provider
You can end our appointment. You may want to move to another provider or registered agent, deal with the authority directly, or transfer your administration elsewhere.
A Service Relationship Termination and Transfer Fee of AED 8,500 is payable when you do. It applies where you ask for an NOC, a release, a transfer, a change of agent or professional partner, or the ability to deal with an authority directly, where any of that requires us to give up or amend our existing appointment or commercial relationship.
The fee reflects the administrative and commercial consequences to us of closing, amending, transferring or relinquishing the registered agent, professional partner or other commercial relationship attached to your company. It is our own professional fee. Any charge an authority or third party makes is on top of it.
Before we complete a transfer or issue an NOC or release, you must settle that fee, any authority and third-party charges, and everything else properly owed to us.
You must also tell us who is taking over. A company cannot sit with no corporate services provider and no registered address. Within 30 days of asking us to stand down you must give us the name and details of the provider replacing us. If you do not, we may resign our appointments with the authority without a successor in place, and what follows for your company is then your responsibility.
Subject to payment, we will cooperate reasonably in completing the transfer, within whatever the authority requires.
None of this applies simply because you run your bank account yourself or stop using us for banking.
13. Renewals
We will normally contact you about licence, establishment card, immigration and residence visa renewals we are administering, and we will tell you the fees before we proceed.
You need to get us the documents, information and payment far enough ahead for us to process the renewal.
Keeping your company properly licensed and compliant is your responsibility, not ours. We are not responsible for an expiry, fine, penalty or delay caused by information, documents or payment reaching us late or not at all, by information that turns out to be wrong, by you not responding, by an authority changing its requirements, by an authority or third party being slow, or by anything else outside our reasonable control.
14. Fees and payment
Our fees are payable in advance unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.
Invoices are due within 3 days of the invoice date unless the invoice says otherwise.
Bank charges, correspondent bank charges, payment processing and currency conversion are yours. We need to receive the full amount on the invoice.
If an invoice is not paid on time we may charge simple interest at 12% a year on the amount outstanding, calculated daily from the due date until we are paid, before and after any judgment. We do not charge interest on unpaid interest, and the interest on an invoice will never exceed the amount of that invoice.
We may also charge AED 500 for each formal demand we have to send you, and recover the reasonable costs of collecting the debt, including legal and agency fees.
We may suspend all work for you while any invoice is overdue, including work under a different engagement, and we are not responsible for what follows from that suspension — an expiry, a fine, a penalty or a missed deadline included. We will start again once you have paid.
Work outside the agreed scope is quoted and invoiced separately. If your instructions or your circumstances change and extra work becomes necessary, we will quote before doing it.
15. Government and third-party charges
Money we collect for an authority or a third party may be paid by us on your behalf, and normally is, as soon as your funds clear.
Those charges are set by the organisation concerned, not by us. Their fees, procedures and requirements can change without notice.
If an authority or third party changes its charges after we have quoted or invoiced you, the difference needed to finish the work is yours.
Once money has been paid or irrevocably committed to an authority or a third party, it is gone. They do not refund it to us, whatever happens to the application, and we cannot refund it to you.
16. Cancellation and refunds
Each thing we do for you is identified and priced separately — each licence renewal, each visa application, each return, each stage of a formation. What follows applies to each of those on its own, not to everything you have ever instructed us on.
Our fees pay for professional work, administration, expertise, preparation and the resources we commit to your engagement. Where we have started work, fees for what has been performed or committed are not refundable.
Authority and third-party charges are not refundable once paid or committed, where the recipient does not refund them.
Where an engagement cannot proceed, or you cancel after work has started, we will refund what is left after deducting our fees for work performed, administration undertaken, authority and third-party charges, expenses incurred, and any other amount we cannot reasonably recover.
Nothing here removes a refund or other right that cannot lawfully be removed.
17. What we need from you
You must give us complete, truthful, current and accurate information, and genuine documents.
You must give us the documents and information we, an authority, a bank or a third party reasonably ask for.
We are entitled to rely on what you give us without checking it, unless we have reason to think something is wrong.
You must tell us promptly about anything that changes and affects the work — your ownership or control, your business activities, your regulatory or immigration status, your compliance information, or an application we are handling.
18. Your indemnity
If someone comes after us because of something you did, you cover us for it.
You will pay us for anything we lose or have to pay out, any fine or penalty imposed on us, any tax we become liable for, and what it costs us to deal with the matter — including defending ourselves, win or lose, and whether or not it ever reaches a judgment.
This applies where:
- information or documents you gave us were false, misleading, incomplete or not genuine;
- you broke these terms, or a law or regulation that applies to you;
- we did something within the authority you gave us, acting on your instructions or on information you supplied; or
- someone else brings a claim against us connected to work we did for you.
The same protection covers our directors, our staff, and anyone we use to do the work. It does not apply where the cause was our own fraud, gross negligence or deliberate wrongdoing. It carries on after our work for you ends.
19. Checks we are required to make
We are a designated non-financial business under United Arab Emirates law, supervised by the Ministry of Economy and Tourism. We are required by law to identify and verify who we are acting for, and to keep doing so throughout our relationship.
We will carry out identification, verification, know your customer, anti-money laundering, sanctions and politically exposed person checks before we start and while we act for you.
You must give us what we reasonably ask for. That includes identity and address, beneficial ownership — anyone who owns or controls 25% or more — shareholders, directors and controllers, source of funds, source of wealth, your business activities, your customers and suppliers, expected transactions and countries of operation.
Your signed Engagement and Authority to Act contains declarations on these matters and forms part of our records. You must tell us if any of them stops being true.
We may refuse to act, suspend work, or end our relationship with you at any time, without notice and without giving reasons, where we cannot complete these checks, where information is not provided or cannot be verified, where information turns out to be false or misleading, where a sanctions or money laundering concern arises, where we reasonably suspect unlawful activity, or where we cannot lawfully or reasonably continue. The law does not give us a choice about this. We are not liable to you for doing it, and fees for work already done remain payable.
We may be required by law to report a matter to the authorities without telling you. Where that applies we will not confirm or deny that a report has been made, and we are not liable for anything that follows.
We keep these records for at least five years, as the law requires.
20. Help with banking
Where banking support is included, we help with preparation, the application and onboarding, and we may deal with the bank for you.
Whether to accept you, open an account or keep an account open is entirely the bank's decision.
We cannot guarantee acceptance, an account, a particular bank, particular currencies or facilities, a processing time, or that an account stays open. A bank may ask for more documents, run further checks, take longer or decline, at its own discretion. A refusal or a delay is not a failure by us.
Once the agreed banking work is done, the relationship is between you and your bank. We have no ownership of or control over your account.
21. Decisions of authorities
We help with applications and transactions. We do not control what an authority decides, what it requires, how it does things, or how long it takes.
Every application is subject to the authority's own rules and approval.
Unless we have guaranteed something to you in writing, we do not guarantee incorporation or registration, licence approval, immigration or visa approval, approval of an activity, regulatory approval, approval within any particular time, or that a programme, licence, structure or service stays available.
Changes an authority makes after you engage us are outside our control.
22. How long things take
Any timeframe we give you is an estimate based on experience and on what we know at the time. It is not a guarantee unless we have said in writing that it is.
Timeframes move for reasons we do not control: authorities, banks, third parties, compliance reviews, public holidays and system availability among them.
23. Other providers
We may introduce or arrange services from independent accountants, lawyers, tax advisers, banks, insurers, registered agents and others.
Unless we have said otherwise in writing, they are independent of us. We are not responsible for advice they give you or for what they do or fail to do.
Collecting their fee as part of our invoice does not make them our employee or our agent.
24. Conflicts of interest
We act for many clients, and we may act for others whose interests compete with or differ from yours. Nothing stops us doing so, and our duty of confidentiality to you is unaffected.
Where a conflict arises that we can manage with proper safeguards, we will put those safeguards in place. Where we cannot, we will tell you and stop acting on that matter.
25. Confidentiality
We treat your information as confidential, except where disclosure is reasonably needed to do the work; to an authority; for immigration or residency purposes; to a bank in connection with banking support; to another provider involved in your work; for identification, anti-money laundering, sanctions or compliance purposes; to our own professional advisers; where the law or a competent authority requires it; or where you have authorised it.
26. Your personal information
We collect, store, use and share personal information where it is needed to do the work, to run our relationship with you, to carry out the checks in section 19, or to meet a legal or regulatory obligation.
That means giving information to free zones, immigration and licensing authorities, banks, screening providers and other third parties involved in your work, and some of them are outside the United Arab Emirates.
We handle personal information in line with applicable United Arab Emirates law, including Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021, and with our Privacy Policy. Records we are required to keep for anti-money laundering purposes are held for at least five years, as section 19 says.
27. Talking to each other
You agree that we may deal with you by email, telephone, WhatsApp, electronic signature platforms and the other electronic methods we normally use with you.
We may rely on instructions coming from an email address, telephone number or account you have given us or authorised, without checking them further.
Tell us immediately if one of those accounts is compromised.
28. Our liability
We will carry out the work described in your proposal or invoice with reasonable skill and care.
Our total liability to you, for everything arising out of a service — whatever the claim is based on — is capped at the fees you have paid us for that service.
We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, opportunity, anticipated saving, goodwill or reputation.
We are not responsible for:
- what a bank decides about you, your application or your account;
- what an authority decides, what it requires, or how long it takes;
- a change in law, regulation or an authority's requirements;
- what an independent third party does or fails to do; or
- loss caused by information or documents you gave us that were late, wrong, incomplete or misleading.
Nothing here removes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be removed or limited.
29. Documents we hold for you
Where you owe us money, we may keep any documents, records, files and papers of yours that we hold until you have paid — including the amounts in section 12 where you are moving to another provider, and our reasonable costs of putting the file together and handing it over.
30. If your ownership or control changes
You must tell us in writing at least 60 days before any change in the ownership or control of your company, and before any transfer of shares that changes who controls it.
If the new ownership or control creates a compliance, sanctions, money laundering or reputational risk we are not prepared to carry, we may end our appointment immediately. Fees for work already done remain payable.
31. When we can stop acting
We may suspend or end our services where you do not pay when due; where you do not give us information or documents we need; where you give us false, misleading or materially incomplete information; where the checks in section 19 cannot be completed; where you ask us to do something unlawful; where you become subject to sanctions or to a compliance risk we are not prepared to carry; where you materially breach these terms; or where we cannot lawfully or reasonably keep acting for you.
Suspending or ending our services does not affect what you already owe us, or our right to recover fees and costs properly incurred.
32. Things outside our control
We are not responsible for a failure or delay caused by something outside our reasonable control — a change in law or regulation, government action, an authority or government system failing, immigration or banking systems failing, sanctions or international restrictions, war or civil disturbance, telecommunications or technology failure, natural disaster or anything comparable.
We will pick the work back up as soon as we reasonably can.
33. Our materials
Our templates, systems, methods and written materials remain ours.
You may use documents we prepared specifically for you, for the purposes we supplied them for, unless we have agreed otherwise.
34. What makes up our agreement
Your proposal, quotation or written scope; our invoice; the Engagement and Authority to Act you signed; and these terms.
Nothing in this section limits or excludes any duty either of us has to disclose information of decisive importance to the other.
35. If part of this does not work
If any part of these terms turns out to be invalid or unenforceable, the rest carries on as far as the law allows.
If we do not enforce something straight away, or at all, that does not mean we have given up the right to enforce it later.
36. Transferring this agreement
You may not transfer your rights or obligations under our agreement to anyone else without our written consent, except where the law says that restriction cannot apply.
We may transfer ours as part of a lawful reorganisation, a transfer of our business, or to a company in the same group or a successor, as long as that does not materially reduce your rights.
37. Notices
Formal notices may be sent by email to the most recent address the other has given, unless the law requires another method. Keep your contact details current with us.
38. Language
These terms are written and published in English, and English is the language of our agreement with you. If we give you a translation of them into another language, it is for convenience only and the English version is the one that applies.
39. Governing law and where disputes go
These terms, and any contract formed under them, are governed by the laws of the United Arab Emirates as they apply in the Emirate of Dubai.
The courts of Dubai have jurisdiction, subject to any requirement of law that says otherwise.
40. Getting in touch
Start Business Services FZ CO
Boulevard Plaza Tower 2, Level 23, Downtown Dubai (Emaar Square), Dubai, United Arab Emirates
+971 4 409 6905 · +971 54 403 5606
info@dubaistartbusiness.com · dubaistartbusiness.com