How We Established a Sailing School in Dubai
Some projects encounter obstacles right from the start, with challenges arising at every turn, not due to our own mistakes. However, eventually, everything falls into place despite the odds. This is one such case.
In this article, we share our experience of navigating through a situation where all the services in UAE institutions were stagnant and people had to shuttle back and forth. Additionally, we discuss how the customer was affected by the new rules of transliteration and how officials were adamant that Maksim and Maxim were not the same name…
The Customer and the Challenge
Wind Rises is a renowned sailing school. Anyone associated with boating in any form is familiar with this company. They strive to make sailing more accessible by offering yacht rentals, instructor-led sailing trips, and glamping.
They approached us based on a recommendation from Dodo Pizza. Their goal was to expand their sailing business in the UAE. They intended to operate locally, so it was crucial not only to guide them smoothly through the company establishment processes, but also to adapt certain documents to the local legislation for their future operations in Dubai.
The Outcome
Summary:
― We established a company in the marine sports sector thanks to a fortuitously obtained Emirates ID, despite the roadblocks created by the Dubai federations.
― Secured a residency visa for one of the founders in just over a month, despite bureaucratic hurdles that prolonged the process.
― We secured work visas for six employees within a week and a half.
― We assisted in adapting documents and website to UAE jurisdiction (and continue to provide support upon request).
What Was Done
In this article, we’ll explain every step of the journey in detail.
Establishing the company. Unexpected challenges arose that could only occur in a case related to sailing. We discovered that to establish a company in this sector, two permits are required. So, pay attention:
- A permit from the General Authority of Sports, the UAE Ministry of Sports is required. This is because we are setting up a company that offers a service related to sports.
- To secure this permit, we first need to obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the UAE Marine Sports Federation. This serves as confirmation that the Federation has no objections to the Ministry of Sports approving the company’s establishment.
- After we’ve submitted documents to the Marine Sports Federation, it turned out that they require the founder’s Emirates ID, among other things. However, to get an Emirates ID, a foreign entrepreneur is required to establish a company here. And to establish a company in the sports sector, the NOC from the UAE Marine Sports Federation is needed.
- We’ve come full circle.
We were trapped in this seemingly endless loop for a month.
A fortuitous turn of events saved the project — one of the founders launched another company in the UAE, which led to him obtaining an Emirates ID. With this ID, everything proceeded rather smoothly. This certainly expedited matters as we didn’t need to secure any special permissions and could follow the standard process.
Securing a resident entrepreneur visa. The founder, who fortuitously obtained an Emirates ID, had already secured his visa. Our goal was to obtain a visa for Maksim, the other partner. Everything was going well until the officials refused to approve the entry permit at the final stage. This permit is crucial for successfully obtaining a residence visa.
The issue? Maksim had used one passport to open the company and another for the entry permit. In one passport his name was Maksim, in the other — Maxim. The different spellings caused complications with the entry permit.
“I visited the migration service trying to resolve this issue. They assured me it was fixed and to wait 24 hours for the information to update. After 24 hours, nothing changed, so I returned. We resubmitted all the documents and filled out all the forms again. I spent every day at the migration service for about a week.”
Никита Березуцкий, куратор проекта, старший проектный менеджер
Ultimately, obtaining the permit took up to three weeks, requiring Maksim to leave the country and return. During this time, we continued to put pressure on local authorities and departments, visiting the migration service daily, reminding them of our case and resubmitting all the documents. There was no particular reason for the slow response from Dubai institutions — it was purely coincidental and based on local mentality. However, persistence in the UAE can truly aid in achieving the goal, just be cautious not to undergo excessive stress in the process. This is a sign of true expertise.
In the UAE, such convoluted situations, which are resolved “if God wills it” or “inshallah” as they say here, are not uncommon and impossible to predict. Sometimes, you can complete everything in three days, while next month you might spend three weeks going back and forth daily without any results. It’s a feature of the local mindset, and there’s little you can do to change it.
Overall, once we had the entry permit, the task of obtaining the visa proceeded more or less within the standard timeframe: within a week, we guided Maksim through all the steps required for changing his residency status, including medical tests and biometrics.
Securing work visas for employees. From that point on, everything went splendidly. We encountered no issues with the employees’ visas, all permits, including entry permits, were received on time and without any problems. Everything followed our well-established plan. As a result, the employees received their Emirates IDs within a week and a half. We even managed to hire two individuals without professional degrees but with relevant knowledge and experience.
Providing legal support and consultations, adapting website documents to comply with local legislation. From the outset, our communication with the customer was based around the principle of “turnkey business solutions”, meaning we handle all issues and provide ongoing support. So when they asked us to prepare legal documents for the local market, we delivered.
We revised, adapted, and expanded the Website Privacy Policy, Privacy Statement, Cookie Policy, Disclaimer, and other sections to ensure they meet the requirements of the Emirates.
This isn’t a typical request we receive, as few companies that relocate continue to operate in the local market — many use the UAE as a tax haven and expand into Eastern and Western countries.
However, Wind Rises is developing sailing specifically in the UAE, and we continue to provide them with legal support and advice on various local matters. They regard us as experts on the UAE. The questions are usually minor, related to labor law, and pertain to employee management. For instance, how to terminate an employee, how vacations and sick leaves are regulated, etc.
In summary: we started on November 16. Establishing Wind Rises in Dubai and obtaining a visa for Maksim took almost 2 months. We began issuing visas for the employees around February 20, completed the main tasks in 1.5 weeks, and the IDs arrived within a week. The experience we gained from this case showed that almost everything can be resolved, even if it takes a little “inshaallah”.
If you require assistance in relocating your business to Dubai, we are here to help: