Who This is for
No employees, no invoices, no office — a shareholder of record and a place for dividends to arrive.
One legal owner in place of an individual named on registers in five jurisdictions.
The most common reason people arrive on this page — and the answer is frequently no.
Usually the bank has closed or refused the account, or the vehicle is ineligible for something the owner assumed it covered.
What it Can and Cannot Do
An offshore company is a container. It confers no immigration status and produces no tax result on its own.
The Banking Reality
An offshore vehicle is, by construction, an entity with no premises, no employees and no local operations. That is exactly the profile bank onboarding is designed to scrutinise.
Fewer banks will consider the entity at all, and those that will ask more than they would of an operating company.
The account is opened on the strength of the beneficial owner and the underlying assets — source of wealth, source of funds and a coherent explanation of what the money is for.
An offshore vehicle owning another owning something else invites it — and “tax” is not an answer that helps.
An entity whose only counterparty is its own owner is hard to justify to a compliance team, because there is nothing to review.
What’s Included
How it Works
Purpose and instrument check
What the vehicle will hold, who owns it, where the money comes from — and whether an offshore company is genuinely the right vehicle. This is where most of our offshore enquiries end, and that is a legitimate outcome.
Registry and documents
The registry selected against what the vehicle is for, including whether the intended asset can be held through it. Filed through a registered agent.
Evidentiary pack
The certificates and attestations the bank, registry or foreign counterparty will ask for, prepared before they ask.
Banking, then compliance
Application to institutions selected against the actual profile; then beneficial ownership records, renewals, and an assessment of UAE registration and reporting obligations.
What We Need from You
Most of this is a scan and an email — none of it needs to be perfect before we talk. Source-of-wealth material is the exception: the entire banking outcome rests on it for a vehicle with no operations, so it is the one item worth assembling carefully from the start.
Timeline and Cost
Incorporation itself is quick — this is a registry filing, not a licensing process. The parts that take time follow it: attestation and legalisation of documents for use abroad, and banking, which is not within our control.
Fees are fixed and agreed in writing against a defined scope before we begin, anchored to the work rather than to the value of what the vehicle holds. Registry, agent and attestation costs are third-party and shown separately, at cost.
If our assessment is that an offshore vehicle will not do what you need, we say so at that point — before you have paid for one.
Company Cost CalculatorWhere it Goes Wrong
An offshore company issues no visas. Owners discover this after incorporation, and the correction is a second company in a jurisdiction that can sponsor — meaning the offshore vehicle was an unnecessary purchase.
The vehicle cannot invoice UAE customers for onshore supply or hold a trade licence. Invoices issued anyway create a problem that surfaces at the bank, at the customer’s own audit, or at tax filing.
No entity is tax-free by virtue of where it is registered. Where the owner is tax-resident elsewhere, that country’s rules on controlled foreign companies and beneficial ownership apply regardless.
Beneficial ownership is reportable, and information is exchanged between jurisdictions. A structure whose purpose is concealment fails at the first bank, and the failure is recorded.
An unrenewed offshore company does not quietly vanish. It can be struck off with assets still registered in its name, converting a straightforward transfer into a restoration exercise. Closing it deliberately is cheaper.
Questions
Can I get a UAE residence visa through an offshore company?
No. Offshore vehicles do not sponsor residence visas. If residency is the objective, a free zone or mainland company is the instrument — and we would say so at assessment rather than sell you the wrong thing.
Can an offshore company own property in the UAE?
Only where the registry’s vehicles are recognised for that purpose in the relevant emirate, and the position is not the same across all of them. We confirm eligibility for the specific property before the structure is put in place.
Is an offshore company the same as a free zone company?
No, and conflating them is the most common error we see. A free zone company holds a trade licence, can occupy premises and can sponsor visas. An offshore company does none of those things.
Will an offshore company reduce my tax?
Not by itself. Tax follows the activity, the residence of the owner and the substance of the arrangement, not the address on the certificate. Any advice that starts with the vehicle rather than your circumstances is working backwards.
How is this different from an SPV?
An SPV is generally an onshore vehicle in a common law jurisdiction, capable of carrying substance and designed to be seen by investors, funds and lenders. An offshore company is a lighter, non-operating holding vehicle with narrower capability.
Can you guarantee a bank account, and can a closed account be recovered?
No account can be guaranteed — we assess the profile and tell you whether it is bankable before you incorporate. Where an account has been closed, the answer is sometimes to restructure rather than re-apply; repeated applications with the same profile produce the same result.