You personally, the free-zone company or the mainland company as shareholder — priced and documented as FDI whichever way it lands.
India entry · United Arab Emirates
Set Up a Company in India from the UAE
A UAE company — mainland or free-zone — can own an Indian subsidiary in most sectors under India's automatic FDI route, and a large share of UAE founders asking us about India are Indian-origin owners formalising an India arm for hiring, invoicing or manufacturing. One thing this corridor does not have is the apostille shortcut: the UAE sits outside the Hague system, so your documents travel a longer chain. ComplyKart is the Delhi team that runs the Indian side — incorporation, FEMA reporting, first-year compliance — and walks you through that chain in the right order.
The short answer: the Indian company is the easy half. The UAE half is paperwork choreography — notarisation, MOFA attestation, Indian embassy or consulate legalisation — and it punishes anyone who starts it late or in the wrong sequence.
Fully remote — no India trip to incorporate
The legalisation chain mapped before you start
Gulf and India hours overlap all day
CAs, CSs and advocates on one team
Who this corridor serves
Who sets up in India from the UAE — and what surprises them?
Two groups, mostly. UAE free-zone and mainland founders — a great many of them Indian-origin — who need an Indian arm to hire, invoice or manufacture. And Indian founders whose Dubai company turns out to be a foreign investor in India's eyes, which makes their own India setup an FDI transaction with pricing and reporting rules attached. The second group is usually surprised. The first group rarely is.
Take the surprise first, because it changes numbers. When your Dubai company subscribes to shares in a new Indian company, India does not care that the same person owns both sides. The Indian company is receiving foreign direct investment. The shares must be priced under FEMA's pricing guidelines — an entry investment cannot be priced below fair value — the money must arrive through banking channels with its FIRC trail, the allotment reported through FC-GPR within 30 days, and an FLA return filed every year the investment stays. None of this is prohibitive. All of it is invisible until someone looks, which is why we look on the first call.
For the free-zone founder, the parallel question is which UAE entity signs. A free-zone company can hold the Indian subsidiary; so can a mainland company; so can you personally. Each choice drags a different document pack behind it and a different answer to "whose name is on the trade licence that India will read". DIFC and ADGM holding structures appear on this corridor too — respected jurisdictions with their own registrars — and their documents follow the same UAE legalisation chain as everyone else's. There is no DIFC fast lane at the Indian embassy. Plan for the chain you actually have.
The document chain
Why can't UAE documents simply be apostilled?
Because the UAE is not a member of the Hague Apostille Convention, an apostille does not exist for UAE documents. The chain instead runs in three steps: notarisation in the UAE, attestation by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), then legalisation by the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi or the Consulate in Dubai. Only then is the document ready for an Indian filing.
Sequence matters more than speed here. A trade licence legalised before the board resolution it supports, or a passport copy attested in a different name order than the resolution uses, comes back to be redone — and each redo is days, not hours. We issue the pack list in filing order, with the exact name spellings the Indian forms will carry, so the chain runs once.
The UAE pack, in order
Corporate documents first if a UAE company is the shareholder; personal documents for every director either way.
✓UAE trade licence and memorandum of the investing company, where a company invests
✓Board resolution approving the Indian investment and naming the authorised signatory
✓Passport copies of the proposed directors
✓Address proof for each director — a UAE utility bill or bank statement works
✓Photographs and digital signature application records
✓Every foreign document carried through notarisation → MOFA attestation → Indian embassy/consulate legalisation
Indian passport holders, note: if you hold an Indian passport, your personal documents can generally be self-attested instead of legalised. It is the UAE company's documents that must travel the full chain.
How it works
The UAE-to-India setup, in sequence
Notice where the legalisation sits: stage two, before the Indian filing exists. That ordering is the whole trick on this corridor.
Notarisation, MOFA attestation, Indian embassy or consulate legalisation, run in filing order against a name-checked pack list.
Digital signatures, director numbers, name reservation and the incorporation filing. PAN and TAN arrive inside the same process.
Subscription funds arrive with their FIRC trail, shares are allotted at a FEMA-compliant price, FC-GPR is filed within 30 days, FLA joins the annual calendar.
Your Dubai company, your Indian company — one chart?Send us the structure you have. We will tell you plainly what India sees when it looks at it, before you legalise a single page.
Trade deal and treaty
What do CEPA and the tax treaty do for a UAE business in India?
The India–UAE CEPA, in force since 1 May 2022, is a trade deal: it cuts tariffs on goods moving between the two countries and matters if your Indian company will import or export. It does not change incorporation or FDI law. Separately, the India–UAE tax treaty allocates taxing rights over business income and other flows, and treaty relief is claimed with a UAE Tax Residency Certificate.
Founders conflate the two instruments because both arrived wrapped in the same trade story. Keep them apart. CEPA is about your goods crossing borders — if the Indian arm will manufacture for Gulf markets or import components, CEPA's tariff lines belong in your costing. The tax treaty is about your income being taxed once — dividends, interest and service fees between the UAE and Indian companies get their withholding positions from it, evidenced by the TRC the UAE issues to tax-resident companies and individuals.
One more corridor habit worth breaking early: pricing between your UAE company and your Indian company is related-party pricing in both tax systems. Invoices for management fees, goods or services need to be defensible at arm's length, with the paperwork to match, from the first transaction — not reconstructed at the first assessment.
Keep reading
Guides UAE founders use
The document chain and the entity choice, in more depth.
Documents required for company registration in India for foreignersThe full foreign document pack, and how legalisation differs by country.Read →
Subsidiary vs branch office vs liaison office in IndiaWhich presence fits a UAE group that wants to trade, and which fits one that only wants to look.Read →
Can a foreigner register a company in India?The basic position — who can, who cannot, and the sectors with conditions.Read →
Going the other way? Business setup in UAE mainland for IndiansOur outbound pages for the reverse direction of this corridor — mainland and free-zone setup.Read →
Other corridors
Entering India from a different country?
The route into India changes with the investor's country — the FDI route, the treaty position and the document chain are all different. Pick the corridor that matches where you are investing from.
United StatesFull ownership in most sectors, the Delaware-parent question, and FC-GPR once shares are allotted.
United KingdomCETA has been in force since July 2026. What it changes for a UK firm setting up — and what it leaves alone.
SingaporeHoldco-over-opco structuring, the ACRA-side paperwork, and the treaty position after 2017.
United Arab EmiratesFree-zone and mainland founders, CEPA, and the MOFA-plus-embassy document chain the UAE requires. You are on this page.
Hong KongDoes Press Note 3 catch a Hong Kong holding company? Yes — here is how the approval route works.
ChinaThe government approval route under Press Note 3: the application, the document pack, the realistic timeline.
All foreign foundersThe main India-entry page: entity choices, costs, the full process and answers for every other country.
Straight answers
FAQs: setting up in India from the UAE
Yes. A free-zone company is a foreign company for Indian FDI purposes and can subscribe to shares in an Indian private limited company in most sectors under the automatic route. Its trade licence, memorandum and board resolution travel the UAE legalisation chain first, and the investment is reported through FC-GPR on allotment.
The UAE is not a member of the Hague Apostille Convention, so the apostille route simply does not exist for its documents. The working chain is notarisation in the UAE, attestation by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and legalisation by the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi or the Consulate General in Dubai. Run in that order, it is slow but routine.
Yes, if the Dubai company is the shareholder. India looks at the investing entity, not at the passport of the person behind it: a UAE company investing in an Indian company is foreign direct investment, with FEMA pricing guidelines on the share issue, FC-GPR reporting and the annual FLA return. If you invest personally instead, a different — often simpler — analysis applies.
Plan for one to three weeks across notarisation, MOFA attestation and embassy or consulate legalisation, depending on the document count and where in the UAE you run it. It is the longest single stage in a UAE case and the reason the overall setup usually takes four to six weeks. Starting the chain in week one is the only real shortcut.
No — CEPA is a trade agreement, in force since 1 May 2022, covering tariffs and trade in goods and services between India and the UAE. Company registration and FDI follow Indian law exactly as they did before CEPA. Where CEPA earns its place in your plan is costing: if the Indian company will trade goods with the Gulf, its tariff lines change your margins.
It can, through an AD Category-I bank under RBI rules, but a branch is confined to permitted activities — export/import, consultancy, research, coordination — and cannot manufacture or trade like a subsidiary. Most UAE groups that intend to hire, invoice and grow in India choose the subsidiary. A branch suits a narrow, defined presence.
Four to six weeks is the honest planning range. The legalisation chain takes the first one to three; the MCA filing then runs 7 to 15 working days on a complete pack; banking and the capital remittance close the sequence. Cases that finish faster are the ones whose documents entered the chain in the first week.
Ready when you are
Ready to set up in India? Talk to us — it's free.
Share your business activity, who will own the company and where you are based. We will map the entity, the document route from the United Arab Emirates, the filing sequence and the compliance that follows. You receive the scope and costs in writing before you pay.
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