How to Start a Financial Consultation & Analysis Business in Dubai

Some clients want advice. Some want the numbers behind it. The mandates that pay best want both from the same team, because a family office comparing two allocations does not want a recommendation from one firm and the performance attribution from another.

Activity code 6619.89 covers that combined offer. This guide covers what the license permits, how it differs from the neighbouring financial codes, the regulator approval that comes first, and where the demand sits. Get the code right before anything else, because three similar-sounding activities exist and only some need the regulator.

Key Stats at a Glance

What This License Covers

Code 6619.89 licenses you to provide combined financial consultation and financial analysis. The word to hold onto is combined. This is not advisory with a spreadsheet attached, it is a mandate where the consultation and the quantitative work are sold as one thing.

• Trade finance strategy and scenario modelling
• Risk management advisory and risk analysis
• Financial planning and capital structure work
• Portfolio performance analysis and performance attribution
• Securities analysis and market research
• Quantitative support for investment decisions

It excludes the activities of insurance agents and brokers, which sit under activities auxiliary to insurance and pension funding, and the management of investment funds, which falls under fund management. Analysis and recommendations are inside the code. Taking discretionary control of client money is not.

How This Differs From the Neighbouring Codes

Against financial advisory and analysis

Both need Securities and Commodities Authority approval and both cover securities work. The separate advisory and analysis code leans towards equity research, transaction advisory and capital markets mandates. This one is written around integrated consultation plus analytics for a single client relationship.

Against financial consultancy

Financial consultancy is non-securities work such as cash flow, working capital and treasury, and it needs no third-party approval at all. If your model never touches securities, that is the lighter route and you do not need this code.

Against investments consultancy

Investments consultancy is broader advisory without the pre-establishment condition attached to this activity code. The distinguishing feature of 6619.89 is that the combined scope brings securities work inside it, and securities work brings the regulator.

Who Your Clients Will Be

High-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, family offices, corporates and institutional investors. What unites them is that they want consultation paired with quantitative analysis, whether the subject is a portfolio, an acquisition or a capital structure.

On the private side that means investment strategy consultation alongside portfolio performance analysis. On the corporate side it means trade finance strategy with scenario modelling, or transaction advice with the valuation work included. On the institutional side it means securities analysis, performance attribution and risk advisory delivered together, sometimes to corporate pension funds.

Selling this well means being credible on both halves. A client who trusts your judgement but not your model, or your model but not your judgement, buys half a mandate from you and the other half elsewhere.

Mainland or Free Zone

The regulator applies either way, so jurisdiction is the second decision rather than the first. Whatever you choose, the license does not arrive until the Securities and Commodities Authority has cleared you.

Meydan Free Zone gives you full foreign ownership, no corporate tax on qualifying income and a licensing process that runs entirely online, which fits a team whose output is research, models and advice. Let your clients decide the jurisdiction, not the price.

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Step by Step Setup Guide

• Step 1, pick the right code first: 6619.89 for combined consultation and analysis with securities scope. Financial consultancy if you will never touch securities and want no regulator step.
• Step 2, prepare the SCA application before anything else: Pre-establishment approval comes before the license, so this sets your timeline rather than sitting inside it.
• Step 3, assemble your analyst team: The application turns on people. Licensed analysts, instrument expertise across equities, fixed income, alternatives and real estate, and clear responsibility for each.
• Step 4, plan your analytical infrastructure: Research capability, modelling and performance attribution are what make the combined offer real rather than a description.
• Step 5, book your trade name: Use the free company name check to confirm availability.
• Step 6, submit your license application: Passport copies for every shareholder and director, plus a No Objection Certificate if another employer sponsors your UAE visa.
• Step 7, collect the license and set up operations: Meydan Plus and mResidency cover the support and residency side.

Compliance and What You Need in Place

SCA approval is a pre-condition

Pre-establishment approval from the Securities and Commodities Authority applies wherever your work touches securities recommendations, equity research or capital markets. It is not a post-launch formality, and the free zone cannot issue your license without it.

Know which half sits outside securities

Consultation across trade finance, risk and financial planning sits outside securities advisory. The securities element is what triggers the regulator. Being clear internally about which parts of a mandate fall where keeps your scope defensible.

No discretionary management

Keep clear separation from discretionary fund management. You can advise, analyse and attribute performance. You cannot run the money on a discretionary basis under this license.

Insurance work is excluded

The activities of insurance agents and brokers fall outside this code and belong under activities auxiliary to insurance and pension funding.

Anti-money laundering

This activity is exempt from AML compliance duties, though your clients will have their own duties and normal banking checks apply when funds move.

Market Opportunity

Statista puts the UAE financial advisory market at USD 186.73 billion in 2025, rising to USD 213.10 billion by 2030. Boston Consulting Group projected UAE financial wealth reaching USD 1 trillion by 2026, and ResearchAndMarkets estimates wealth management AUM at USD 1.2 trillion.

Those figures matter less as headline numbers than as a description of who is here. Concentrated private wealth means family offices and private clients with cross-border structuring problems, and they generate exactly the kind of mandate this code is built for: judgement plus modelling, from one team.

The market splits across private banking, investment advisory, portfolio management services and wealth structuring, which tells you where to position. The combined scope of 6619.89 lets you take broader mandates than a pure research desk or a pure advisory firm, and broader mandates are harder for a client to unbundle at renewal.

Conclusion

Financial consultation and analysis under code 6619.89 sits behind a regulator gate in front of a large and concentrated pool of private and institutional wealth. The combined scope is the commercial point: clients who want advice and analytics together are buying a bigger mandate than either on its own.

Three things decide how smoothly this goes: the SCA application prepared before anything else, analytical infrastructure that makes the combined offer credible, and a firm line between analysing money and managing it. Sort those and the rest is routine.

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References

• Statista, Financial Advisory United Arab Emirates
• Boston Consulting Group, Global Wealth Report
• ResearchAndMarkets, UAE Wealth Management Market
• Securities and Commodities Authority