Renewal of Establishment Card, Bank and P.O. Box

Every year you need to make sure that you complete all necessary procedures to renew your company's registration. Apart from payment of government renewal fees, renewal of lease, application for office insurance and other aspects, that we mentioned in the previous chapter, it is extremely important to take a few more steps annually to ensure that you do not incur any penalties.

First, let's do not forget about your company's establishment or immigration card. We discussed this document in detail in module no. 1. You can always revisit it and go through the chapter on establishment card again. As soon as your company’s registration is renewed and you received your company’s license, you need to renew your company’s establishment card. You will not be able to renew the card prior to license renewal completion. Most free zones include the cost of establishment card in the annual renewal charges, and initiate the process of card renewal, as soon as the new license is issued. As such, oftentimes, free zone authority does all this work for you. If you are the owner of a local company, you will need to renew the card independently. In case the card is not renewed timely before its expiry date, you will incur penalties for every month the card remains expired. Although, most of the time authorities manage renewal of the card for your company, we still recommend to follow up with a free zone registration authority on the status of your establishment card after company’s license is renewed.

Many entrepreneurs also forget to approach the banks, where they hold their companies' accounts, and provide a renewed company's license. This needs to be done before your current company's license expires. If you study bank's list of charges attentively, you will find there a fee for not submitting a renewed license. Different banks have different policies in this regard: some allow a grace period of two (2) months before a penalty is applied, while others charge a certain fee immediately. The amount of the penalty may be from AED 250 to AED 350 and more per each month. While some bank managers may remind you to not forget to bring the license, it is your responsibility to manage everything in a due manner, including your corporate bank account. Sometimes you find out that certain fees are deducted from your accunt monthly and only then you realize that bank charges you for not submitting your license timely. As such, it is your responsibility to keep track of this aspect.

On a different note, it also often comes as a surprise for entrepreneurs, that P.O. Box that you may rent for your company's correspondence, also requires a timely renewal and any delays with renewal will lead to application of respective penalties. If out of some reason you are not planning to use previously rented P.O.Box in the next year, you will need to approach Emirates Post and apply for cancellation of your subscription. This way you will avoid the hassle of dealing with the subject in the last moment and avoid paying penalties for not-renewing the subscription on time.

In general, whatever services you are subscribed to as a company, you need to ensure that your service providers have your up-to-date corporate documents on file. You need to remember that your company's license bears an expiry date, as such, as soon as you subscribe to any service and provide a copy of your license, service provider becomes right away aware, as to when your company's registration expires. Keep track of all services that you are using to ensure timely update of service providers' records.

To summarize, create and maintain a table of renewals for your company. Additionally, add relevant renewal tasks to your e-calendar to receive timely reminders. Timely management of renewals saves enormous amount of time and effort, because you have enough room to complete everything with no hassle.

If you want to know more about Dubai freezone company formation, feel free to get in touch with our professional consultant team and we would be delighted to assist you and help you to compare Dubai freezone company setup costs and help you to find that free zone, which would suit your business needs the most.

Disclaimer: Business Boutique UAE-Consultants.com is not affiliated with any particular government or legal entity. Business Boutique does not give professional legal advice nor any other professional advice subject to a public office in the government. This article merely sets out a simple and basic idea as to the reasons of Dubai freezone company setup and Dubai free zone company formation cost. Business Boutique in no way holds nor imposes any official governmental or legal authority and the article herein is only to be taken as a guide. All further governmental or legal issues should be addressed to the corresponding authorities.

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