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How to Start a Hairdressing Salon for Men and Women with Meydan Free Zone
Few habits are as regular as a trip to the salon for a cut, a colour, or a restyle. A hairdressing salon is where men and women keep that habit, sitting in the chair for a wash and trim, a fresh colour, or a style before a big day, and booking the next visit on the way out.
The salon is one of the steadiest service businesses there is. The global beauty salon market was worth USD 199.9 billion in 2025 and is forecast to reach USD 359.9 billion by 2032, according to Metastat Insight1, with hair services the largest share of it.
In the UAE, the professional beauty services market is set to reach around USD 1.49 billion, according to Fortune Business Insights2. For a hairdressing salon, that is steady, repeat demand from a population that takes grooming seriously.
Grooming is woven into daily life in the UAE, where a polished look carries weight socially and professionally, and a salon visit is a routine rather than an occasional treat. The figures below show the global salon market and the UAE beauty services market a hairdresser serves.
Sources: Metastat Insight (2025); Fortune Business Insights (2025).
Picture a salon through the day. A stylist finishes a cut while a colourist mixes a shade at the back. The phone takes a booking for a blow-dry before a wedding. A junior washes and prepares the next client. Regulars catch up with their stylist as the chairs fill and empty. The salon earns on each service and on the products it sells alongside, so the day is a steady rhythm of bookings and walk-ins. In a market that grooms often and well, the salons that win are the ones whose stylists are skilled and whose clients keep coming back.
Whether it is a quick trim, a full colour, or a restyle before a big day, a hairdressing salon keeps men and women looking their best, appointment after appointment.
Who is this for?
- Hairdressing salons: Businesses offering hair services to men and women in the UAE.
- Unisex and family salons: Operators providing cutting, colouring, and styling for all ages.
- Stylists and salon owners: Professionals building a salon on skill and repeat custom.
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 hairdressing salon for men and women in a market where grooming is a regular, valued routine.
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9602.01 - Hair Washing, Trimming and Cutting, Setting, Dyeing, Tinting, Waving, Straightening and Similar Activities for Men and Women
Under this activity, your business is licensed to provide hair services to men and women, including washing, cutting, setting, dyeing, tinting, waving, straightening, and styling.
A hairdressing salon offers hair services to men and women. The work spans washing, cutting, and trimming, along with setting, blow-drying, colouring and tinting, waving, straightening, and styling.
The clients are mixed: regulars in for a routine cut, clients booking colour and treatments, and walk-ins before an event. It is a service business built on skill and repeat custom: the salon is paid for the time and craft of its stylists, and grows on the clients who come back and the ones they refer.
The activity is specifically for hair services for men and women. The manufacture of wigs and hairpieces falls under a separate activity (3290). Dedicated shaving and beard trimming, and non-surgical hair fixing, are covered by their own separate activities.
The line is precise. If your business cuts, colours, and styles hair for men and women, you are in. If you manufacture wigs, run a dedicated shaving and beard service, or provide hair fixing, a different activity applies.
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Third-Party Approval
Approval from the Public Health Department at 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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Citations
1 Metastat Insight. Beauty Salon Market Report. Metastat Insight, 2025.
2 Fortune Business Insights. Professional Beauty Services Market Report. Fortune Business Insights, 2025.
