How We Verify

The three confidence levels

Every fee, threshold, quota, and requirement on this site is tagged with one of three confidence levels, and that tag is visible on the page next to the figure it applies to — not just in this policy.

Verified — we read the figure directly on the authority’s own website or PDF, or received it in writing from the authority (an email, a portal quote, a documented phone call). Verified figures are the only ones that appear in this site’s structured data (the markup search engines and AI assistants read).

Reported — the figure comes from a credible secondary source — a registered formation agent’s published rate card, a reputable news outlet — but we have not yet confirmed it directly with the authority. Reported figures are shown with their source named.

Estimated — we could not find a published figure, so we’ve synthesised our best estimate and said so, along with what the estimate is based on. An estimated figure is never shown without that explanation, and is never treated as authoritative.

If we could not verify something, we say so rather than guess silently. An honest “we don’t know” is correct output; a confident-sounding guess is a defect.

What “verified” actually requires

A figure only qualifies as verified when it traces to one of:

• The free zone, DED/DET, or federal authority’s own website or a PDF they published
• Federal or emirate-level law (a Cabinet Resolution, a Federal Decree-Law)
• An official government portal (u.ae, invest.gov.ae, GDRFA, ICP, MOHRE)
• Our own dated, documented enquiry to the authority (email, phone, or in-person, with the contact and date recorded)

A blog post, a formation agent’s marketing page, or an AI-generated summary does not meet this bar on its own — those are exactly what “reported” is for.

Re-verification

Fees, capital requirements, and visa quotas (what we call Tier A facts) are re-checked on a 90-day cycle by default. Licence types, office rules, and banking information (Tier B) are checked every 180 days. Historical facts — founding year, notable tenant companies — are checked annually. A page that has gone past its review window shows a visible “review overdue” notice automatically; nothing about that warning depends on a human remembering to add it.

We also re-verify off-cycle whenever a federal fee circular or Cabinet Resolution is published, when a free zone announces a package change, when a source URL stops resolving, or when a reader flags something through Corrections.

Ratings are not for sale

Setup-ease and bank-account-ease ratings (1–5) are editorial judgements, and each one is required to state at least two concrete factors it’s based on — not just a number. A commercial relationship with a free zone, a formation partner, or a bank has no bearing on its rating. See Methodology for how those ratings, and any ranked list on this site, are actually built.

Sources

Every page that cites external facts lists its sources at the bottom, with a link to the original and, for primary sources, an archived snapshot — authority fee pages change without notice, so we keep a dated copy of what we actually read.