“Your life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by change”
-Jim Rohn
Stuck at a boring mundane 9 to 5 job? Want to be the owner of your own destiny? Want to have full control of your life? Who doesn’t? Nowadays most people are looking for side hustles for some extra income but more importantly they are moving to setting up their own business. But what is even better if you have the correct skill set is to freelance. This gives you the freedom of choosing the project, the time and the place.
Dubai is not much behind when it comes to freelancing professionals. With 92.05% expats in 2020 (as per www.dsc.gov.ae) there are a huge number of individuals who are here as dependents of their family who would like to make better use of their time and earn the extra money. Others may be just trying to improve their working situations. Whatever the reason Dubai offers the freelance visa permit to allow you to freelance. Before jumping at the opportunity let us first look at the pros and cons of this freelance visa permit.
The Pros:
- The initial investment required to start your career as a freelancer is quite low. With the comfort of working from your own home, you do not need any office space. Thus, there is no need to acquire premises. This saves money. There are many options of free economic zones (FEZs) that issue the freelance permit visa- e.g. Media City Dubai, Dubai Knowledge Park, Dubai Internet City and Dubai Design District.
- The setting up process as opposed to the process of setting up a full-fledged company is much simpler. There is no need to have a separate company name. Your name acts is the company name, the brand when you are freelancing.
- The government of Dubai is keen on encouraging the freelancing community and provides wonderful support as it also inspires other businesses to engage the services of freelancers.
- One of the most wonderful advantages of being a freelancer is the fact that freelancers are not subjected to frequent audits like most companies.
- Freelancers unlike all businesses need not file full-fledged, structured financial reports etc. at a regular frequency.
- The most important benefit of becoming a freelancer is that you can work any time anywhere. Which gives you enough flexibility to ensure that you have a great work-life balance.
The cons:
- Freelance permit visas are issued from FEZs. This means that they can operate only in that particular FEZ. However freelancers get permit visas from FEZs that are skill specific and so, this might not be that big a deal.
- The freelance visa permit is only for one person- you. You cannot hire under you. For that you need to get a trade license.
- As it is not an established business, a freelancer cannot open a corporate bank account and do not have Tax Registration Number (TRN) that are mostly required by bigger companies to be engaged. However, you can still get business from small to medium-scale businesses who do not require TRN.Read more on: Dubai’s new Property Visa a good news for all property buyers and investors
If after going through this list of pros and cons you do decide to get a freelance permit visa for yourself in Dubai, we at Flying Colours can help simplify this seemingly daunting task. Flyingcolour Business setup consultants has been helping clients since the past 17 years. Please feel free to mail your queries at info@flyingcolour.com or contact us at +971 4 4542366.
