# Rak free zone



## Moiinuae (Jul 30, 2011)

Hello, 

I am new to this forum and happy to be here! DH, school age son and I are eager to move to the UAE. We were there in June (AD) and were able to get many interviews. We are both in health care administration.

Long story short...we came back to the US and the phone lines have gone quiet  actually worse, DH received a great offer and we rented out our house, gave our notices, found great school for DS in AD, and are all but packed! We are emotionally ready for Our Great Adventure starting in Sept.

Minor challenge though ... No job. Lots of interest and a blithe "just get here and you'll find something" from well meaning friends and advisers. But no job.

We've been told about free zones. But I have lots of questions, and was hoping that some folks here would have some wisdom to impart! We would want to work as consultants, likely in gov type organizations, to start in AD but not limited there. 

Reasons we can't come on a visit visa and just find something is my son. We can get started with school on a visit visa but they are going to want to see a residence visa pretty quickly, I assume.

So questions are:

- For the Rak free zone visa, is it possible to get it then work in abu dhabi?
- I read somewhere that virtual zone is cheaper - can one use visa from there to work in ad? I've been speaking to the Rak people but would rather go for the cheaper option if all the same
-Anyone had experience using those visas to work in consulting in a gov setting?
- I assume that even if we never got jobs, We would be able to use the residence visa obtained thru Rak or free zone to send DS to school?

Not that we have limitless funds - we want to find work - but to start, main goal is to get son to go to school! If having a residence visa thru Rak or virtual zone is the way to do it, then so be it.

Thank you in advance for your pearls of wisdom!


----------



## R_Smithy (Jun 13, 2010)

Moiinuae said:


> Hello,
> 
> I am new to this forum and happy to be here! DH, school age son and I are eager to move to the UAE. We were there in June (AD) and were able to get many interviews. We are both in health care administration.
> 
> ...


From the research I have done on this subject. A visa obtained through Rak is slightly cheaper than Virtual Zone, but with Virtuzone you dont need to have to deposit money into the company. I think with Rak you have to deposit 100,000AED for x amount of time. Virtuzone can set up a company were you are a consultant but you need to work from the freezone and cannot work outside this zone. Hope this helps.


----------



## Mr Rossi (May 16, 2009)

For consultancy work you have to work inside the freezone but you can have clients outside of it. You may also want to check out creative zone.ae too but I don't know anyone that's used them so don't have any feedback.


----------



## R_Smithy (Jun 13, 2010)

Mr Rossi said:


> For consultancy work you have to work inside the freezone but you can have clients outside of it. You may also want to check out creative zone.ae too but I don't know anyone that's used them so don't have any feedback.


Creative Zone works out quite a bit cheaper especially if you pay the monthly fee's in one payment. Anyone used creative zone to set up a business in the freezone/


----------



## Maz25 (Jul 6, 2008)

Unless you have some major contacts in the UAE, you would need to rethink your Client base. I work for a semi-Government organisation and the only way to get a look in with the Government entities is to effectively know someone pretty high up and/or who is already employed by the company who would be willing to push your business.

It is incredibly difficult (though not impossible) for a new business, particularly when you do not have any local experience, to get that first contract with the Government.


----------



## Moiinuae (Jul 30, 2011)

THanks guys,

Here's the thing -- we're being told by RAK that we do not have to be in RAK to run the consultancy business. So that would presymably mean we could rent in AD (or D) and send DS to school there...once we had our residence visa.

The real issue for us is that we want to buy time locally to find permanent work -- but can't stay there for a long period with DS unless we have residence because of schools.

Maz, we do have contacts where we need them to be, and they're working on getting DH a project, but we're worried about running out of time before Sept school start -- want to get over there for that. If we're going to wait in a short-term rental, and be on a holding pattern or serveral weeks, might as well do it there - and we're just wanting to be legal about it.

It's like a chicken-egg-chicken-egg situation


----------

