The United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates offer starkly different asset protection and business structuring options. The UK’s well-known system relies on an established legal framework, underpinned by trusts, common law, and uniformity. By contrast, the UAE offers incentives and flexibility, tailored to investors and industries. Whilst both attract high-net-worth individuals and international investment, this comparative assessment highlights where the benefits and disadvantages lie.
The UK’s centralised system involves registering a company with Companies House, enabling nationwide trade and regulatory consistency. The court system is internationally respected, providing investors with credibility, enforceability, and stability.
In contrast, the UAE operates a more fragmented model, where investors can choose between over 40 free zones or the mainland system. Each free zone has its own regulator, with DIFC in Dubai and ADGM in Abu Dhabi being the most recognised. Both employ common law based legal frameworks that appeal to international businesses. This diversity allows investors to optimise tax, ownership, and dispute-resolution preferences. However, this flexibility also carries risk: choosing the wrong licence may affect banking access or limit enforcement. In the UAE, banks scrutinise a company’s licence type, activity, and free zone. If these do not align with the actual business model, banks often decline account openings or close accounts after review.
In the UK, freehold and leasehold ownership are long established, transparent, and enforced by the Land Registry. This provides strong certainty of title for investors. The UAE differs here. Foreigners may own freehold property only in designated areas of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Residential and commercial property is available on a freehold basis, but only in specific zones and free zones respectively. The other Emirates generally offer ownership through long leases, typically 99 years. If the property is sold, the lease continues to bind the buyer, but protection depends heavily on proper registration. Long leases exceeding ten years must be registered with the Dubai Land Department or the Abu Dhabi Municipality. Regulation outside Dubai and Abu Dhabi is less developed, making these two Emirates the strongest options for investment protection.
UK law relies on trusts, which impose duties on trustees to manage assets for beneficiaries. Trusts are central to estate planning, but transparency reforms now require disclosure of beneficial ownership. Families often combine trusts with family investment companies or LLPs to manage succession and control. The trust remains a respected global tool for asset protection, designed to enable the safe transfer of wealth from generation to generation.
The UAE has developed alternative solutions. The closest equivalent to a trust- the foundation - can be established under the DIFC and ADGM regimes. Unlike trusts, foundations have their own legal personality: they can own property, hold shares in operating companies or SPVs, and enforce contracts in their own name. In the UAE, family offices are increasingly formalised, particularly in Abu Dhabi through the ADGM. Although other Emirates such as Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah offer long-lease and foundation regimes, most international families and investors focus on Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where the legal infrastructure and dispute-resolution systems are most advanced.
ADGM has introduced a specific regulatory framework for single and multi-family offices, enabling wealthy families to consolidate their affairs under one regulated structure. These offices typically act as management hubs, coordinating the use of foundations and holding companies to oversee real estate, investment portfolios, and operating businesses. While the office itself is often set up as a company employing professional staff, its legal strength comes from integrating asset-holding structures, such as ADGM foundations, that provide succession planning and ring-fencing, while the office ensures governance, compliance, and strategic oversight.
These asset-protection tools are increasingly favoured by international families seeking succession certainty within a familiar common-law regime. Their popularity also stems from the fact that DIFC and ADGM foundations generally enjoy exemptions, subject to conditions and applications, from the new 9% federal corporate tax when used as passive asset-holding vehicles. There is also no local income, wealth, or inheritance tax on beneficiaries. This contrasts with UK trusts, which are subject to income, capital gains, and inheritance tax regimes, alongside growing transparency obligations.
The UK offers a single, transparent framework comprising Companies House, the Land Registry, and trusts grounded in common law, but subject to inheritance, capital gains, and disclosure rules. By contrast, the UAE provides flexibility through free zones, foundations, and family-office regimes, delivering tax neutrality, privacy, and protection from forced heirship. However, risks in the UAE require careful management. The prevalence of handshake agreements without written contracts can leave parties exposed, and without a clear jurisdiction clause, disputes may default to onshore courts. It is therefore essential to include arbitration or jurisdiction clauses in every contract.
Ultimately, the UK is built on tradition and uniformity; the UAE on innovation and choice. For families and investors, the question is not which is “better,” but which best aligns with their priorities, provided the structures are carefully planned and contracts precisely drafted.
