How to Start a Telemedicine Counseling Centre Business in Dubai with Meydan Free Zone

Every therapy session taken from a parked car outside a Business Bay office. Every couples appointment is booked for a Thursday evening in Jumeirah. Every bereavement call answered in Malayalam or Tagalog. Every stress programme run for a team spread across three emirates. Every school referral is assessed without a family taking a morning off work. Telemedicine Counseling Center covers the remote counselling and psychological support layer across the emirates, sitting under Dubai Health Authority oversight.

Insights10¹ values the UAE mental health apps market at USD 31 million in 2023 and projects USD 88.68 million by 2030 at 16.2 percent a year, recording 377,838 visits with mental health disorders at UAE level in 2022 against a persistent shortage of practitioners. Spectronix Consultancy² reports Dubai operators budget AED 12,000-40,000 one-off for a NABIDH-certified EMR license, AED 8,000-25,000 for the NABIDH connector and integration and AED 500-3,000 a month for UAE-region cloud hosting. IMARC Group³ values the GCC telemedicine market at USD 532.9 million in 2025, rising to USD 3,271.4 million by 2034 at 21.67 percent a year, with telepsychiatry named among its core applications. Bonafide Research⁴ projects the UAE mental wellness market to grow above 7.50 percent a year from 2024 to 2029 as telepsychology expands.

Whether you are running a subscription teletherapy service for expatriate professionals, an employee assistance programme sold to Dubai corporates, a specialist practice delivering remote cognitive behavioural therapy in Arabic and English, or a family and relationship counselling centre serving clients across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the Northern Emirates, you need a business license in Dubai. With Meydan Free Zone, you can get there in under 60 minutes through Fawri, through a fully online process.

A DHA-Regulated Remote Counselling and Psychological Support Layer

A Dubai-licensed telemedicine counselling centre serves a UAE mental health apps market projected to reach USD 88.68 million by 2030 at 16.2 percent a year, inside a GCC telemedicine market growing at 21.67 percent with telepsychiatry among its core applications, against 377,838 recorded mental health disorder visits at UAE level in 2022.

Sources: Insights10 (2023), Spectronix Consultancy (2026), IMARC Group (2025), Bonafide Research (2024)

Who is this activity for?

• REMOTE COUNSELLING & THERAPY PRACTICES: You run a psychology, counselling or psychotherapy practice delivered by video or secure messaging. You handle intake, structured treatment blocks and review, building a caseload around evening and weekend availability that a single-location clinic in Jumeirah or Al Barsha cannot match.
• CORPORATE WELLBEING & EAP PROVIDERS: You run an employee assistance programme sold to Dubai employers, delivering confidential counselling sessions, manager resilience training and aggregate reporting. Your buyer is a human resources department rather than the individual receiving care.
• SPECIALIST & MULTILINGUAL COUNSELLING SERVICES: You run a practice built around a defined need such as bereavement, parenting, relationship counselling or therapy delivered in Arabic, Hindi, Malayalam or Tagalog. Remote delivery lets you reach a client base too dispersed to sustain a physical clinic.

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8690.71 — Telemedicine Counseling Center

Under this activity, you can run a telemedicine counselling centre delivering remote psychological and counselling support across the emirate. Service range covers individual counselling and psychotherapy by video and secure messaging, couples and family sessions, employee assistance programmes, group therapy, psychometric and psychological assessment, structured cognitive behavioural therapy blocks and stress, sleep and anxiety programmes, sold to individuals, employers, insurers and schools.

This activity covers telemedicine counselling as a remote delivery sub-scope within other human health activities not performed by hospitals, medical doctors or dentists, which ISIC states do not involve medical treatment.

In short: if you are running a remote counselling practice, a corporate employee assistance programme, a multilingual therapy service or a remote psychological assessment operation, this is your activity. Psychiatric consultation, diagnosis and prescribing are medical practice and sit under 8620 instead.‍

Third-party approval

‍Dubai Health Authority (DHA) approval is required before the license is issued. DHA approval must be secured first, and once obtained, the license is granted before commercial operations begin.

Anti-money laundering compliance

‍This business activity is exempt from AML compliance requirements.

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Footnotes

¹ Insights10, "UAE Mental Health Apps Market Analysis", 2023.

² Spectronix Consultancy, "NABIDH Dubai 2026: Integration Guide, Certified EMRs & Cost", 2026.

³ IMARC Group, "GCC Telemedicine Market Size & Growth Forecast to 2034", 2025.

⁴ Bonafide Research, "United Arab Emirates Mental Wellness Market", 2024.