Required Business License Qatar

Required business license Qatar

Get easily a business license in Qatar: Starting your business in Qatar can often be a confusing, costly and complicated process. Most of the information that are available online are ambiguous and confusing, and it can make things even worse. Therefore, to help you out, this article is going to share the entire process required to register a company in Qatar.

Limited Liability Company or WLL is one of the common forms of business structure in Qatar. According to a report more than 60% of foreigners prefer to starts LLC or WLL company in Qatar. Therefore, this piece of article is going to focus on the requirement to register an LLC or WLL in Qatar.

For registering an LLC, the majority of the shares must be owned by Qatari national that is 51% share. The legal requirement does not suggest that one person should own a 51% share. The share can be distributed among multiple Qatari (the majority of the overall share needs to be Qatari owned). These are the three pieces of documents/license required to register an LLC or WLL and to run its activities legally in the country.

  1. Commercial Resident (CR).
  2. Trade License.
  3. Computer Card.

Obtaining Commercial Residence (CR) in Qatar

Obtaining Commercial Residence (CR) in Qatar

Commercial Resident (CR) is nothing but a piece of documents that you need to acquire.  The Ministry of Economy and Commerce issues this document. It states that a business with name X owned by these shareholders. Mainly it contains information about the company and its shareholders. You also need to know about the salary certificate format in Qatar. These are following steps you need to carry out to obtain CR –

Steps 1 Trade Name-

First of all, you need to get a trading name for your business/company. Remember if the tradename does not contain any Arabic meaning you need to pay an extra amount of 1000 QAR. The trade name must be unique, and it should not match with other registered business.

Steps 2 Articles of Incorporation-

Once you obtain the trade name of your company, now you need to obtain the article of incorporation. This is a type of document that has all the shareholders information including their ownership, rights, etc. The template of the article of incorporation can be collected from MEC. Fill out the template with all the details and approved it from the Ministry of Justice.

Step 3 Issue the CR-

Once you have your trade name and article of incorporation, you are eligible to submit them for your business to be issued a CR. At this step, you might be asked about all the details information about your business. Depending on your business activities you may need to pay a specific charge that range between 1500 QAR to 7000 QAR per year. CR is valid for 12 months only, and you need to renew it every 12 months. The lists below show things you can do with you CR—

  • Eligible to open a corporate bank account.
  • You can accept payment from your client.
  • You can buy things/assets under the name of your company.

Trade License

Trade License in Qatar

Once you receive your CR, now it’s time to obtain Trade License. Trade license is necessary to obtain an office space to conduct business activities. Obtaining trade license is one of the hardest parts of company registration. However, it takes a quite long time to obtain a trade license. To obtain a trade license, first of all, you need to fill out the requisite application form. The requisite form is available at the MEC website. Fill up the form and submit it to the MEC with the following documents —

  • Copy of shareholders nation identification card.
  • Article of Incorporation copy.
  • Copy of Commercial Resident (CR).
  • Photograph of the office building (outside and inside).
  • Identification copy of building owner.
  • Approval from Civil Defense.

Once you submit all the required documents to the MEC, you will receive an email or SMS saying that the documents have been received. A representative team from MEC will visit your office and inspect all the business process. Once inception has been completed successfully, you will again receive an email or SMS saying the “Trade License” is ready to be collected. 

Computer Card

In order to hire an employee and issue them with the resident permit, you need to obtain a computer card. Here the immigration department is responsible for issuing the commuter card. For applying for the computer card, you are required to have an official company stamp, that will be used for all paper works. You need to go to the printing agent with your ID, CR, and Trade license copy to make your company stamps. It just takes a day to make a company stamp. Finally, you need to visit the regional Immigration and Passport office to apply for the computer card. These are the following documents required to apply for computer card —

  • Copy of shareholders nation identification card.
  • Copy of Commercial Resident (CR) & Trade License.
  • Copy of employee who needed to be on computer card.

These are the general requirement (on the business license in Qatar) that you need to obtain to start an LLC or WLL in Qatar. However, if you face any problems registering your company in Qatar don’t forget to contact us. We have years of experience working in this field. 

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