How to Start a General Facilities and Services Engineering Consultancy with Meydan Free Zone

Every building has a second life that begins the day construction ends: years of being cleaned, cooled, maintained, secured, and kept running. Most of what a building costs over its lifetime is spent in that phase, not on putting it up. General facilities and services engineering consultancy is the advice that makes those years run efficiently rather than expensively.

The UAE facility management market is valued at around USD 21.28 billion in 2025 and is forecast to reach USD 42.27 billion by 2031, growing at over 12 percent a year, according to Mordor Intelligence^¹.

That growth sits on top of a construction market worth over USD 40 billion annually^², which continuously adds to the stock of buildings that have to be operated. Facility management has shifted from a cost to be minimised to a function planned and engineered from the outset, and consultancy sits at the front of that shift.

A facility is built once and operated for decades. The decisions that govern those decades, how it is maintained, serviced, and run, are where this consultancy works.

Sources: Mordor Intelligence (UAE Facility Management) (2026); Mordor Intelligence (UAE Construction) (2026).

A general facilities and services engineering consultancy sells expertise rather than a product: the judgement that decides how a building is run once it is occupied. It is a focused advisory business with a clear service and a clear client base, advising on how maintenance, cleaning, security, and the wider support services of a facility should be planned and engineered.

Building owners, developers, and facility operators all rely on it to turn a finished building into one that runs efficiently for decades.

The demand follows the buildings. The UAE's built environment expands every year, and every new asset, a tower, a mall, a campus, a community, joins a stock that has to be maintained, serviced, and run for decades. Owners and developers increasingly want that operating phase planned before handover, not improvised after it, because decisions made early decide what a building costs to run later.

With facility management growing at over 12 percent a year, the work of advising on how facilities should be engineered and resourced expands with it. A consultancy can advise at the design stage, at handover, and through the operating life of an asset, which means demand recurs rather than ending with a single project.

From design-stage planning to the day-to-day running of an asset, the UAE rewards facilities consultancies that make buildings work as well as they were built.

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Who is this for?

• Facilities engineering consultants: Consultants advising on how facilities and their support services should be designed, resourced, and operated.
• Facility management advisors: Advisors helping owners and developers plan the operation and maintenance of buildings and assets.
• Building services and operations consultants: Consultants advising on the services and systems that keep facilities running efficiently.

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 general facilities and services engineering consultancy in a fast-growing facility management market.

8110.09 - General Facilities & Services Engineering Consultancy

Under this activity, you are licensed to provide engineering consultancy on facilities and the services that support them rather than the provision of those services.

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There are clear boundaries on this activity. The activity is consultancy and engineering advice on facilities and their services. It is distinct from the actual provision of facilities support services, the staffed delivery of cleaning, maintenance, security, and related services, which is a separate activity.

This activity advises on how those services should be planned and engineered; it does not itself staff and deliver them.

The line is precise. If your business advises clients on how facilities and their support services should be engineered and run, you are in. If you provide the staffed facilities support services themselves, you are not.

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Third-Party Approval: Approval from the Public Parks and Recreational Facilities department of Dubai Municipality is required before the trade license is issued.

Anti-Money Laundering Compliance: This business activity is exempt from AML compliance requirements.

Citations

¹ Mordor Intelligence. UAE Facility Management Market. Mordor Intelligence, 2026.

² Mordor Intelligence. UAE Construction Market. Mordor Intelligence, 2026.