How to Start a Currency and Monetary Brokerage Business with Meydan Free Zone

Most people living in the UAE earn in dirhams but live financially in two or more currencies at once. They send money home, pay tuition abroad, hold savings in another currency, or run businesses that import and export. Converting between currencies, cleanly and at a fair price, is one of the most constant financial needs in the country, and currency and monetary brokerage is the licensed activity built around it.

Outward remittances from the UAE were projected to reach USD 46.97 billion in 2025, according to Statista^¹, placing the country among the largest sources of outbound transfers in the world. The wider cross-border transfer market, which includes private, trade, and investment flows, was valued at around USD 39 billion, according to Ken Research^².

Both figures rest on the same fact: the UAE's population is overwhelmingly expatriate, and the dirham's fixed peg to the US dollar removes only one currency from a long list that residents and businesses still need to price, convert, and move every day.

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A Country That Lives in Many Currencie

‍The scale of currency movement through the UAE is not a function of trade alone. It is built into who lives here and how their financial lives are split across borders.

Sources: Statista (2025); Ken Research (2025).

The demand is enormous and structurally permanent. The UAE's residents are overwhelmingly expatriates, and their financial lives do not stay inside one currency: a worker sending part of a salary home, a family paying school fees in another country, a business settling invoices with overseas suppliers. Each of those is a currency transaction that needs an intermediary.

Layer on the corporates managing multi-currency treasury, the importers and exporters pricing deals in foreign currencies, and the trade flows moving through the country's ports, and the volume is continuous rather than seasonal.

The remittance and transfer market is already measured in tens of billions of dollars a year^¹, and it keeps expanding as the population grows, which means the demand for licensed currency intermediation grows with it.

From salary remitters and family transfers to corporate treasuries and import-export settlement, the UAE currency market rewards brokers built for constant, compliant, multi-currency flow.

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Who is this for?

• Currency exchange brokers: Firms facilitating the conversion and transfer of currencies for individual clients, including expatriate workers, families, and travellers managing cross-border financial needs.
• Corporate FX brokers: Operators serving businesses with multi-currency exposure, including importers, exporters, and corporates pricing and settling transactions across several currencies.
• Monetary instrument brokers: Brokers facilitating client transactions in monetary instruments and currency-linked products, supporting treasury management and cross-border settlement for commercial clients.

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 as a currency broker in one of the world's busiest cross-border transfer markets.

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6612.97 - Currencies & Monetary Broker

Under this activity, you are licensed to act as a broker in currencies and monetary instruments, facilitating currency transactions and conversions on behalf of clients. The broker is the intermediary that prices, matches, and executes currency transactions for individuals, businesses, and institutions.

Revenue is earned through brokerage fees, spreads, and commissions on client transactions, not through dealing in currencies on own account.

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There are clear boundaries on this activity. Currency and monetary brokerage does not cover dealing in currencies on own account, which falls under a separate classification. It excludes portfolio management on a fee or contract basis. It also excludes brokerage in shares, bonds, commodities, and securities, each of which is licensed separately. 

The line is precise. If your business prices, matches, and executes currency and monetary instrument transactions on behalf of clients, you are in. If you deal in currencies for your own book, or broker shares, bonds, commodities, or securities, you are not.

Third-Party Approval: Approval from the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) is required after company registration.

Anti-Money Laundering Compliance: This business activity is subject to UAE Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing compliance requirements.

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Footnotes

¹ Statista. United Arab Emirates: Outward Remittances. Statista, 2025.

² Ken Research. UAE Cross Border Remittances Market. Ken Research, 2025.