Food, Beverage and Hospitality in the UAE

How foreign operators open restaurants, cafes, cloud kitchens, catering and hospitality businesses in the UAE - the permissions, the premises and the franchise question.

• Two permissions, two authorities. A trade licence (economic department) plus a food-establishment permit (municipality / food-control authority) - both required before any public food service.
• The food permit follows the premises. Kitchen layout, location and inspection gate the permit, so the lease and fit-out are on the critical path.
• Public food service is a mainland activity. A free-zone licence does not let you serve the UAE public; free zones suit central/ghost kitchens, B2B catering, food trading and franchisor/IP holding entities. An outlet inside a zone serves that zone under its own food approvals, not the broader public.
• 100% foreign ownership is available for most F&B, following the 2020-21 ownership reforms. The friction moved from ownership to the approval stack: food, then alcohol, halal and tourism classification.
• Franchise is a contract, not a licence. The UAE has no dedicated franchise statute; the main trap is a franchise re-characterised as a registered commercial agency, which is hard to terminate.
• Free-zone 0% corporate tax is always conditional - only for a Qualifying Free Zone Person on qualifying income; income that is not qualifying is taxed at 9%. Public-facing F&B revenue is mainland-source and generally falls outside the 0%.
• Alcohol and halal are separate overlays. Alcohol needs its own venue permit, and Dubai's 30% municipal alcohol tax was reinstated from 1 January 2025; halal is the default expectation, with formal certification where it is claimed.

For an owned venue, treat the approvals as a sequenced runway, not a single filing:

The sequence is the point: the two are issued by different authorities on different criteria, and the food permit cannot close until the premises exist and pass. Building the lease and fit-out into the timeline from day one is the main controllable on an F&B entry. Fees vary by activity, emirate and premises, and move over time - budget against current schedules at the time of filing. For packaged or retail food - product registration and labelling for goods sold through retail channels - the mechanics sit on our Trade & Distribution Channels page (trade distribution channels); this page covers the operator, not the product. Food manufacturing and production sit on our UAE Food Security & AgriTech page (agritech food security).

• Trade licence from the emirate's economic department, naming the F&B activity (restaurant, cafe, catering, bakery and so on). This establishes the company and the right to trade.
• Premises and lease - because the food permit is judged on the kitchen, the site is chosen and leased early. A kitchen in the wrong location, or one that cannot meet ventilation and layout rules, fails the permit regardless of the company.
• Food-establishment permit from the municipality or food-control authority. In Dubai this runs under the Dubai Food Code through Dubai Municipality; in Abu Dhabi, ADAFSA typically gives a preliminary approval before fit-out, then assesses the built kitchen against HACCP-based standards. In Dubai, food-permit and public-health obligations now also sit under Dubai Law No. 5 of 2025 on Public Health (in force 29 July 2025), which consolidates food-safety duties under Dubai Municipality and the Dubai Health Authority.
• Fit-out and inspection - the kitchen is built to the approved plan and inspected. Food handlers must hold the relevant food-safety training (the EFST scheme in Abu Dhabi, with municipal equivalents elsewhere). Venues then carry an ongoing food-safety grading.

Hospitality adds a layer the restaurant routes do not. A hotel is usually an owner-operator structure: the asset owner holds the property and, typically, the licences, while an international operator runs it under a hotel management agreement or a franchise, to the brand's standards. That split decides who holds the trade licence, the food and alcohol permits and the tourism or hotel classification (issued by the emirate's tourism authority - in Dubai, the DET classification regime), and who carries which liabilities. The food, alcohol and halal overlays on this page all apply inside a hotel, often across several outlets, so the licensing stack is multiplied rather than replaced. The choice between a management agreement, a franchise and a lease is the central structuring question, and it is best settled before the operator term sheet is signed.

• Activity and ownership - confirm the exact F&B activity classification and that 100% foreign ownership is available for it in the chosen emirate.
• Vehicle and location - mainland company for public food service; a free-zone entity only for non-consumer-facing operations (central kitchen, B2B, trading, IP/holding).
• Premises and lease - site selection and the lease aligned to municipal kitchen requirements, sequenced ahead of the food permit.
• The two-permission stack - trade licence plus food-establishment permit, with the food permit's premises and inspection conditions mapped to the build programme.
• Overlays - alcohol venue permit (and the 30% Dubai tax) where relevant; halal sourcing and certification; tourism/hotel classification for hospitality.
• Franchise documentation - unit, master or area-development agreements drafted against the Commercial Agencies Law, Civil Code and Commercial Transactions Law, with agency re-characterisation managed.
• Tax and treasury - corporate tax position (9% above the threshold; QFZP/qualifying-income test for any free-zone entity); withholding tax and transfer pricing on cross-border royalties and brand/management fees.

ATB Corporate advises foreign operators, brands and hospitality groups on entering the UAE F&B and hospitality market: choosing the vehicle and emirate, sequencing the trade licence and food-establishment permit around the premises, structuring franchise and master-franchise arrangements to avoid commercial-agency re-characterisation, and positioning any free-zone entity correctly against the qualifying-income test. We work alongside the corridor structuring and tax teams so the licensing decision sits inside a coherent India-UAE group structure rather than being solved in isolation. We advise on the framework and the workstreams; the economic departments and food authorities determine licences and approvals. A practical starting deliverable is an F&B launch map: vehicle, activity classification, premises and food-permit approval, the alcohol and tourism overlays, the franchise or IP contract, and the tax and VAT positioning - sequenced so the lease, the licences and the fit-out do not collide.