The UAE has scrapped 15 fees on company and market activities while raising the cost of approving stock listings, as authorities look to cut red tape and widen economic participation in the country.
The Capital Market Authority has abolished charges on everything from setting up investment funds to bank guarantee refunds and advertising approvals, while introducing a Dh75,000 fee ($20,420) to approve initial public offering prospectuses for companies, according to a decision by board chairman Mohamed Al Hammadi.
The changes make it cheaper to run a business in the UAE day-to-day, even as they raise the price of taking one public, a trade-off regulators are hoping will make the country's markets more competitive.
“This new regulation marks a significant milestone in our journey towards building more competitive and sustainable financial markets, in line with global best practices and reinforcing the UAE’s position as a leading financial centre,” the CMA said.
The CMA's decision is another effort from authorities to simplify and reduce the costs of doing business, as part of a wider agenda to encourage entrepreneurship and tap into the UAE's investor-friendly environment.
The UAE continues to reinforce its economic stability by introducing initiatives and legislation to encourage participation in its diversification mission, part of a strategy to prepare the nation for the economy of the future.
Gross domestic product in the Arab world's second-biggest economy grew 6.2 per cent year-on-year to hit Dh1.9 trillion ($517.2 billion) in 2025, anchored by the strength of the non-oil sector that jumped 6.8 per cent annually to Dh1.5 trillion, authorities said in May.
That was despite the effects of the ongoing US-Iran war – which has disrupted economies in the region – proving the resiliency of the Emirates' economic model.
The country's non-oil foreign trade in 2025 surged 26 per cent to exceed $1 trillion for the first time, government data showed in January.
New economic licences issued in Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, rose by 21 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, the Abu Dhabi Registration Authority said last month.
In addition, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, last week approved a national programme aimed at modernising the use of statistics and data in the UAE.
The initiative, designed to reflect the changing nature of the economy, will change how GDP is measured by reconstructing the data that underpinned it from 2010 to 2026 and establishing 2024 as the new base year.
