Company reports in the UAE: check a business, or get one made

Which kind of company report do you need?

Two completely different jobs share one name, and picking the wrong one wastes weeks. Work out which side of this line you are on before you pay anybody.

How to verify a UAE company for free

Most people paying for a basic company verification could have answered the question in ten minutes on an official portal. If you just need to verify a company exists and is licensed for what it claims, start here.

1. Search the National Economic Register. The federal register, run by the Ministry of Economy and reachable through the government portal at u.ae. Search by trade name or licence number and confirm the licence exists, who issued it, its status and expiry, the legal form and the licensed activities.
2. Cross-check with the issuing authority. For Dubai mainland companies that is the Department of Economy and Tourism, the former DED. Every emirate has its own economic department and each publishes a licence check.
3. Check the free zone register if it applies. Free zone companies are not on the mainland registers. DMCC, JAFZA, DIFC, ADGM and the rest each maintain their own public search, so you need to know which zone the company sits in.
4. Match the licensed activity to what is being sold. A trading licence does not permit contracting work. A mismatch between the licence and the offer is one of the most common warning signs, and it is free to spot.
5. Ask for the beneficial ownership declaration. Covered in the next section.

What a free check will and will not tell you

A licence check confirms a company legally exists, who issued the licence, whether it is current, and what it is licensed to do. That alone kills a surprising number of bad deals, because a licence that expired eighteen months ago, or one that does not cover the activity you are being sold, is a conversation worth having before you pay a deposit.

What it will not tell you is whether the company pays its suppliers, whether it is in litigation, who really controls it, or whether the financials you were emailed are real.

What a proper company background check covers

If the licence check clears and the deal is worth protecting, work through these in order. The first three you can largely do yourself.

• The licence. Does it exist, is it current, and does the licensed activity cover what they are selling you?
• Who controls the company. Since Cabinet Decision 58 of 2020, amended by Resolution 109 of 2023, almost every UAE company must maintain a register of its ultimate beneficial owners and file it with its licensing authority, updating any change within 15 days. A beneficial owner is anyone who ultimately controls the company, generally through 25% or more of the capital. Companies in DIFC and ADGM sit outside that regime and follow their own rules. Ask to see the declaration.
• Credit behaviour. See the credit report section below.
• Litigation and enforcement. Court records, judgments and enforcement actions. This usually needs local counsel or a specialist firm.
• Sanctions and adverse media. Screening against sanctions lists and negative press, particularly for cross-border deals.
• Trade references. Two or three of their existing suppliers, asked directly about payment behaviour. Old-fashioned, and still one of the most reliable signals there is.

Company credit reports: what Al Etihad Credit Bureau gives you

Al Etihad Credit Bureau is the federal credit bureau, wholly government owned. Its commercial reports draw on data from banks, finance companies, telecom providers and utilities, refreshed monthly.

• What is in it. Credit facilities, loans, payment history and bounced cheques.
• The commercial credit score. A number from 300 to 900 estimating how likely the business is to default in the next 12 months. Higher is better.
• Roughly what it costs. In the region of AED 157 for a company report, and around AED 220 with the score included. AECB sets and changes these, so check the current fee on their app or at etihadbureau.ae before you budget for it.
• The catch. You can pull your own company’s report readily. A report on somebody else generally requires their consent or an existing credit relationship, so it is not a way to screen a stranger quietly. In a negotiation, asking a counterparty to share their own AECB report is a fair and normal request.

When a free check is not enough

Escalate to paid due diligence when the money at stake justifies it. In practice that means:

• You are extending significant credit or agreeing long payment terms.
• You are buying into the business, or buying it outright.
• You are signing a multi-year commitment, a distribution agreement or a large lease.
• Something in the free check does not line up: the licence activity does not match what they sell, the trade name differs from the one on their invoices, or the entity is newer than the track record they claim.

Proper counterparty due diligence goes beyond the registers into court and insolvency records, ultimate beneficial ownership, sanctions and adverse media screening, and, where available, financial and trade-reference checking. That is specialist investigative work, and it is a different profession from producing the reports below. If that is what you need, use a licensed corporate investigation or risk firm rather than an advisory practice.

Reports about your own business

This is the half most people arrive here for. Someone has told you to produce an independent report, whether they called it a business risk assessment, a company financial report or a feasibility study, and you need to work out which one they actually mean. The answer is decided almost entirely by who asked.

The most common and most expensive mistake is commissioning the wrong one. A business plan is not a feasibility study. A feasibility study is not a valuation. Sending a bank a document written for a free zone application wastes weeks, and the institution rarely explains why it came back.

Company financial reports: what UAE law already requires

Before commissioning anything, check what you are obliged to have anyway. Plenty of businesses pay for a “financial report” when the institution wanted their statutory accounts.

• Accounting records. Under the Commercial Companies Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021) companies must keep accounting records showing a clear view of their financial position, and hold them for at least five years after the financial year ends.
• Annual audit. Mainland LLCs must appoint an auditor approved by the Ministry of Economy and have their annual financial statements audited. This is statutory, not optional. Free zone requirements vary by zone, so check with yours.
• Corporate tax. For financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023, taxable income up to AED 375,000 is taxed at 0% and income above it at 9%. Larger multinational groups fall under a separate 15% minimum top-up tax. Audited financial statements are generally required to support the return above a revenue threshold, and for free zone entities claiming qualifying status. Confirm your position with your tax adviser rather than a blog, this area has changed repeatedly.

If a bank or investor asks for “financial reports”, they usually mean your audited statements plus forward projections. Projections are the part nobody has, and the part a feasibility study or valuation supplies.

What a business risk assessment actually contains

“Risk assessment” gets used loosely. In a report an institution will accept, it means a specific, evidenced section rather than a paragraph of caveats.

• A risk register. Each risk named, rated for likelihood and impact, with a stated mitigation and an owner. Not a list of generic worries.
• Sensitivity analysis. What happens if revenue lands 20% below plan, or costs run 15% over. Credit committees turn to this section first.
• Regulatory and licensing risk. Every approval, condition and renewal the activity depends on.
• Concentration risk. Reliance on a small number of customers or suppliers, or on a single key person.
• Market and competitive risk. Evidenced from the actual market, not asserted.

A note on “business intelligence”

Worth clearing up, because the phrase pulls in two unrelated audiences. In most searches, business intelligence means reporting software and dashboards: Power BI, Tableau, connecting your data sources. That is an IT and analytics job. It is not the same as a business report in the sense used on this page, and if dashboards are what you are after, this is not the page you want.

What UAE business reports cost and how long they take

Expect five to seven working days for a feasibility study and seven to fifteen for valuation and expert work, measured from the point the provider has your inputs rather than the day you pay. Fees start around $2,600 for a licensing feasibility study and rise with scope, jurisdiction and the standard being applied.

Be wary of a fixed price quoted before anyone has asked what the report is for, who requested it and what data you already hold. Either the scope will change later, or the report is a template.

How to tell a real report from a template

• Ask who writes it and whether you can speak to them. A vague answer means the work is going to someone who has never seen a UAE licensing file.
• Ask for the assumptions to be visible. A defensible report states them openly. A template buries them, because they were never really made.
• Ask what happens if the institution sends it back. The answer tells you whether they have done this before.
• Check the data is local. A global market report resold with the UAE chapter highlighted is not market evidence, and reviewers here recognise it immediately.
• Be suspicious of a promised outcome. Nobody can guarantee your loan or licence is approved. Anyone who says otherwise is telling you what you want to hear.