How the federal family businesses law, DIFC and ADGM regimes interact

Where a family holds entities in more than one UAE jurisdiction, the governing rules and the dispute forum depend on where each entity sits. Federal Decree-Law No. 37 of 2022 contains the allocation provisions, and the financial free zones supply their own.

Three provisions of the federal law do the allocating. Article 3(3) applies it to family companies established in free zones only to the extent it does not conflict with the free zone's own laws, regulations and legislation on their organisation, incorporation or registration. Article 3(4) limits the law, where an Emirate has local legislation regulating these companies, to aspects that local law does not regulate. Article 21 subjects settlement of disputes of family companies registered in the financial free zones to the legislation applicable in those zones, and Article 19(5) allows the parties to agree to arbitration under UAE legislation, or to refer litigation to the courts located in the financial free zones.

In the Dubai International Financial Centre the instrument is the Family Arrangements Regulations 2023, made by the Board of Directors of the DIFC Authority under the Companies Law No. 5 of 2018, the Foundations Law No. 3 of 2018 and four further DIFC laws. They repeal and replace the Single Family Office Regulations issued on 27 December 2011. A single family office established under those earlier regulations became a Family Office on the commencement date, with one year to comply.

The hinge between the federal law and the DIFC is a single regulation. Where the family business law refers to a local or concerned authority administering any part of it in a free zone, or keeping a special register of a family business there, the Registrar is the competent authority for the DIFC. The DIFC accordingly keeps a Family Business Register. A Family Business for that purpose is a UAE family business, one or more Registered Persons in the DIFC controlled by a Family, or a combination, entered on application. Where a UAE family business with no DIFC Registered Person is registered there, the definition of Family in the federal law applies to it rather than the DIFC one.

The DIFC definitions differ from the federal ones. A Family Member is an individual who is either a common living ancestor and that ancestor's descendants, or related as a descendant to a common ancestor not exceeding three preceding generations, in each case including spouses, stepchildren, adopted children and ex-nuptial children. Control exists where family members or their entities, acting alone or together, could exercise more than fifty per cent of the voting rights, or are otherwise able to exercise direct or indirect control over the entity's affairs.

Other features of the DIFC regime include:

• A Family Office is a Registered Person licensed as such by the Registrar, and the licence conditions include a minimum level of aggregate net assets for the family, set in the Regulations.
• Providing family office services to more than one family requires the Registrar's approval, and providing restricted services to more than one family requires authorisation and licensing by the Dubai Financial Services Authority.
• The details of shareholders, interest holders, directors and officers of a family entity or family office may be kept on a private register, which is not disclosed on the public register.
• A family business or family office is exempt from filing its accounts with the Registrar or having them audited, and the Registrar retains the right to obtain them.

Abu Dhabi Global Market takes a different approach. Its published material describes a single family office structure as not requiring a financial services permission but as a controlled licence activity, with an option to register as a Restricted Scope Company, limiting public disclosure to the office address and company name. Foundations are a separate structuring route there. Its Registration Authority consulted in June 2024 on amendments to the Companies Regulations 2020 and to two sets of Commercial Licensing Regulations rules, and amendments published on 1 May 2026 replaced the 2025 version of the Conditions of Licence and Branch Registration Rules. Conditions of licence in ADGM turn on the version of those Rules in force.

Under Dubai Law No. 9 of 2020 as amended by Law No. 21 of 2024, a Family Property Contract is valid only if registered in the designated register maintained by the Department of Economy and Tourism, and the Tribunal formed under Resolution No. 14 of 2023 hears disputes from such contracts.

The register a structure appears in, the definition of family applying to it, and the forum for a dispute are set by the layer that structure sits in.

This content is educational and is written with law firms. It is not advice; the programme verifies or endorses no structure, and the family should take its own advice.