Healthcare Business Setup in Dubai – UAE

Healthcare Business Setup in Dubai – UAE : Since the last couple of decades, the world has been witnessing tremendous growth in the healthcare industry. Modern healthcare is not just restricted to providing medical treatments. Rather, it has managed to spread to other streams like wellness and looking and feeling good.

When private and public healthcare systems are concerned, Dubai does boast of providing superior healthcare services. With the easy availability of modern infrastructural facilities and specialised free zones, it does make great sense for entrepreneurs to establish healthcare businesses in Dubai in large numbers. Setting up a healthcare business in Dubai does present you with an amazing opportunity. One government organisation, namely, DHCC (Dubai Healthcare City), empowers you to establish your healthcare business in Dubai. DHCC is referred to as the Middle East’s health and wellness destination.

The investments made by DHCC are broadly divided into two categories:

• Wellness Community: Spread over a vast area of 19 million sq. ft.
• Medical Community: Spread over an area of 4.1 million sq. ft., it includes a host of outpatient clinics, hospitals, retail spaces, and commercial offices.

Healthcare business types in Dubai

Several areas do exist where investment can be made with regards to retail and commercial spaces, as well as wellness. Given below are some listings to enable you to comprehend easily:

Healthcare support: It includes medical coding, medical transcription, medical billing services, 3rd party administration, and patient education services.

Clinical outpatient: It includes establishing outpatient facilities at an outpatient single-specialty clinic, surgical clinic, and multispecialty hospital, a clinical research centre, diagnostic centres (clinical laboratories and radiological diagnostics), a pharmacy, a stem cell therapy centre, and a clinical research centre.

Healthcare management: It is also healthcare investment management.

Professional & management developing training: Includes ongoing professional development, human resources training and development, educator’s professional development, development and management training, and social and behavioural training.

Clinical inpatient: It includes specialty hospitals, general hospitals, nursing homes, palliative care, long-term care, rehabilitation, hospital teaching positions, and geriatric care.

Healthcare consultancy: Includes healthcare engineering and architectural consulting, healthcare strategy and planning consulting, healthcare medico-legal consulting, clinical research organisations, and IT management and system integration.

Child skill-development training: It includes only child skill-development centres.

Higher education providers: It includes technical education providers, junior colleges, branch universities, and medical universities.

Occupational & Technical skills: Tourism and hospitality training, healthcare awareness training, and tourism training. 

Educational service provider: Academic and student support services

Academic Service Provider: It includes the academic liaison office and the university representative office.

Publishing: This includes the publication of guides, manuals, magazines, books, and catalogues.

Association (Non-Profit): It includes professional associations.

Non-Academic service provider: It functions largely as an infrastructure provider.

Outsource: Professional support outsourcing

Regional headquarters: Include the administration, back office, call centre, and marketing offices. 

Event management: Organising exhibitions, festivals, and business events 

Procedure involved in setting up business in Dubai

Under DHCC, the company formation process is dictated largely by two variables:

Business Type: It can be either a branch or a free-zone limited liability company (LLC).

Ownership patterns: The applicable ownership patterns in forming a company in Dubai are of three types, namely:

• Corporate and individual ownership
• Individual ownership only
• Corporate ownership only

To register and establish a company in Dubai Healthcare City, the essential documents to be furnished to the Dubai Creative Clusters Authority may vary depending on ownership and business type.

Following are the documents that may be required to set up healthcare business in Dubai

• Corporate Shareholder – Board Resolution Free-zone LLC
• Individual shareholder—Board resolution FZ-LLC
• License application
• Personnel sponsorship agreement
• For corporations: Articles of Association
• For corporations: Memorandum of Association
• Natural person (RIC form)
• Corporate-RIC (Registry Identification Coder) form
• Verification of legal document checklist for FZ LLC for the branch or combination

The procedure to set up a business for a free-zone limited liability company involves around eight steps. However, the procedure consists of only seven steps for a branch company.

Following is the detailed company formation procedure in DHCC, Dubai

Information provided by DHCC to applicant: It can be through their sales brochure, website, or directly via their sales tele-helpline. 

Reservation agreement signing: The applicant must sign a reservation agreement and pay an admin fee and 10% of the annual rent to confirm the reservation. 

Provisional approval application submission: On submission of the application by the applicant, it is reviewed by DHCC and a provisional approval or rejection is given. But it takes around 2 weeks to derive this response. If you are rejected, you will receive a 10% refund of your annual rent.For provisional approval, the process continues. 

Submission of legal documents for company registration: The applicant is to submit legal documentation according to the checklist following provisional approval. A license and registration fee are also required. 

DHCC takes approximately 2 working days to undertake legal documentation review

• Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association, including share capital, are to be signed (but not for branch applications).
• DHCC issued the legal agreement and commercial license within 2–5 working days.
• Legal agreement and commercial license signing at the DHCC office.
• For expansions, lease renewals, etc., transfer to the Partner Relationship Manager.

Minimum capital requirements

Dubai Healthcare City-based Freezones LLC has set a minimum capital requirement of AED 50,000 for commercial and AED 300,000 for clinical. But establishing a branch does not require any minimum capital.

Trying to form a company at Dubai Healthcare City comes with its own advantages. If the plan is to establish in the free zone, it is possible to derive 100% tax-free benefits, which means no income tax, no corporate tax, and no customs duty. Also, you will acquire 100% of the business.

Also available are benefits like modern, superior infrastructure facilities and low operating costs. In addition, excellent business support services and no bureaucratic interference are provided to complement the establishment of a business in Dubai Healthcare City.

But, in the case of a niche and complicated domain like healthcare, seeking Blackswan Business Setup consultants’ advice and assistance will be a great idea. We, at Black Swan Business Setup, are completely versed in not just the registration and licensing procedures but also have ample knowledge on the domain-related nuances with regards to forming a company in Dubai. We have managed to guide a good number of entrepreneurs to establish their businesses successfully at Dubai Healthcare City.

Contact us at the earliest to convert your dreams and ideas into a grand reality and setup healthcare business in Dubai.