Licensable activity
Software & IT
Software development, IT consultancy, systems integration, data processing, hosting and web services. Where you write and sell your own software the licence is usually professional; where you resell somebody else's it becomes commercial, and the distinction affects both the activity code and, on the mainland, the ownership route.
Classification
How it is coded.
UAE activity lists derive from ISIC Revision 4, the United Nations industrial classification. Each emirate's economic department and each free zone then extends that base with its own numbering, so the same activity carries a different code in Dubai than it does in Sharjah or inside DMCC.
- ISIC Rev. 4
- Section J — Information and communication (divisions 62–63)
- Licence category
- Professional or Commercial, depending on activity
- Regulator
- No sector regulator — the licensing authority is the only approval, unless a specific product or premises triggers one.
Approvals beyond the licence
- Telecom-adjacent services
- TDRA, for anything touching voice, messaging or spectrum — including VoIP.
- Cybersecurity services
- Increasingly subject to federal and emirate-level registration; confirm before quoting government work.
In practice
Dubai Internet City and Dubai Silicon Oasis are the established clusters, but a software company can be licensed almost anywhere and most are. The zone matters less here than in almost any other sector.
Coverage
Where it can be licensed.
Of the 40 licensing authorities across the UAE, 12 issue licences covering this activity, spread across 6 of the seven emirates.