Table of Contents
Frequently Asked Questions
What does this activity cover?
It covers catering services, including contract and institutional catering, event catering, and food concessions, with food often prepared in a central kitchen.
Who are the typical clients?
Companies feeding their staff, institutions feeding students or patients, venues running concessions, and hosts catering weddings, conferences, and corporate events.
What types of catering are included?
Contract and institutional catering for offices, factories, schools, and hospitals, event catering for functions, and the operation of food concessions and canteens at venues.
Is this the same as running a restaurant?
No. Operating a restaurant that serves walk-in customers falls under a separate activity. This activity is for catering under contract, at events, or as a concession.
Does this include preparing food in a central kitchen?
Yes. Preparing meals in a central kitchen and delivering them to clients, canteens, and events falls within the scope of this catering activity.
How to Start a Catering Business with Meydan Free Zone
A lot of meals in the UAE never come from a restaurant. An office canteen serves lunch to a thousand staff. A school feeds its pupils. A construction camp eats three times a day. A wedding seats five hundred guests. Behind each one is a caterer who cooked it in a central kitchen and delivered it on time.
Catering in the UAE feeds the country's offices, work sites, schools, hospitals, airlines, and events, day in and day out. The UAE catering services market is forecast to surpass USD 6.22 billion by 2033, according to Nexdigm1. It sits within a much larger UAE food service market worth USD 16.58 billion in 2024 and heading for USD 50.21 billion by 2033, according to IMARC Group2. For a caterer, that is steady, contracted demand: feeding the same workforce, students, or patients every day is a business of volume, reliability, and tight food-safety standards.
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How Big the Catering Market Is
Catering in the UAE runs on standing contracts to feed offices, institutions, work sites, and events, sitting inside a much larger and fast-growing food service market. The headline number is the forecast size of the catering market.
Sources: Nexdigm (2026); IMARC Group (2025).
A catering business prepares food, often in a central kitchen, and serves it to clients under contract or for events. The work spans contract and institutional catering for offices, factories, schools, hospitals, and labour accommodation, food concessions at venues, and event catering for functions. The clients are mixed: companies feeding their staff, institutions feeding students or patients, venues running concessions, and hosts catering events. It is a volume business: the caterer is paid to deliver consistent, safe meals on schedule, day after day.
Picture a central kitchen in Dubai before dawn. Cooks prepare thousands of meals to a fixed menu while a logistics team loads insulated containers for the morning runs. Vans deliver to an office canteen, a school, a hospital ward, and a construction camp, each on a standing contract. A separate team plates a corporate gala for the evening.
The caterer earns on every meal served and lives by its food-safety record, so the work is a daily cycle of preparation, delivery, and strict hygiene. In a market this competitive, the caterers that win are the ones whose meals arrive on time, taste right, and never fail an inspection.
Whether it is an office canteen, a school lunch, a hospital ward, or an evening gala, a catering business delivers safe, consistent meals on schedule.
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Who is this for?
- Contract and institutional caterers: Businesses feeding offices, factories, schools, hospitals, and labour accommodation under contract.
- Event and function caterers: Operators catering weddings, conferences, and corporate events across the UAE.
- Concession and central-kitchen operators: Firms running food concessions and preparing meals from a central unit.
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Meydan Free Zone offers 100% foreign ownership, zero percent corporate tax on qualifying income, full profit repatriation, and a fully digital licensing process, providing a regulated and cost-efficient base from which to operate a catering business serving a market where offices, institutions, airlines, and events rely on outsourced food services every day.
5629.98 - Catering
Under this activity, your business is licensed to provide catering services, including contract and institutional catering, event catering, and food concessions, with food often prepared in a central kitchen.
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The activity is specifically for catering: preparing and serving food under contract, at events, or as a concession. Operating a restaurant that serves walk-in customers (5610) falls under a separate activity. Manufacturing perishable food for resale (1079) and the retail sale of perishable food (division 47) are also separate.
The line is precise. If your business prepares food, often in a central kitchen, and serves it under contract, at events, or as a concession, you are in. If you run a restaurant for walk-in diners, manufacture food for resale, or retail food, a different activity applies.
Third-Party Approval: Approval from Dubai Municipality is required after the trade license is issued.
Anti-Money Laundering Compliance: This business activity is exempt from AML compliance requirements.
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Footnotes
1 Nexdigm. UAE Catering Market Outlook to 2035. Nexdigm, 2026.
2 IMARC Group. UAE Food Service Market Report. IMARC Group, 2025.
