I built a business from zero in the UAE. Now I’m at the point where every door seems to be closing.
I built a business from zero in the UAE. Now I’m at the point where every door seems to be closing.
I don’t usually write personal posts like this, but today I feel like I need to share the reality behind the business journey.
I came to the UAE with my family and decided to build something from scratch. I didn’t have a big network, investors, or a large amount of capital. I built my brand myself — the name, product concept, packaging, website, content, SEO, everything. I even built things I had never learned how to build before.
For two years, I put my savings, time, energy and almost everything I had into making it work.
But today, I’m facing a situation I honestly never imagined.
My company license has expired and I have accumulated renewal costs and fines. I went to RAKEZ and tried to find a solution, but the amount I would need to pay to close the company is extremely high. Renewing it is also beyond what I can currently afford.
My residence visa is also expiring soon.
My Shopify store has now been suspended because I couldn’t keep up with the subscription payments, so my online store is essentially invisible.
I also sell through Noon, but my payments are frozen because my company license is expired. I have sales sitting there, but I cannot access the money without an active license.
So I’m in this strange situation where I have a product, a brand, a website/domain, marketplace presence and years of work behind me — but I currently don’t have the cash flow to unlock any of it.
I have already asked people for help. I have tried to negotiate with RAKEZ. I recently proposed paying what I can upfront and asking for a payment plan for the remaining amount so I could reactivate the business and generate income.
Now I’m waiting to see what they say.
And honestly, I don’t know what comes next.
Maybe this business is not meant to continue. Maybe I need to let it go. Maybe there is another way I haven’t seen yet.
What makes this especially difficult is that I don’t feel like I failed because I didn’t work hard. I worked incredibly hard. I learned things I had never studied. I created something from nothing.
But sometimes you reach a point where effort is no longer the problem. Cash flow, regulations, timing and circumstances become the problem.
So I’m asking the UAE founder community:
If you were in my position, what would you do?
Have you ever been in a situation where your company license expired, your payments were frozen, and you had accumulated renewal costs/fines?
Did you find a way to restructure the situation, negotiate a payment plan, downgrade, reactivate, or otherwise keep the business alive?
Or did you eventually decide that walking away was the smarter business decision?
I’m not looking for sympathy or money.
I’m looking for real experiences and practical advice from people who have been through something similar in the UAE.
Because right now, I genuinely don’t know whether I am standing in front of the end of a business…
…or simply standing in front of a very difficult chapter.
And maybe those are two very different things.