Guide
Setting Up an Interior Design, Fit-Out and Turnkey Contracting Company
The short answer
A turnkey fit-out bundles three things that different bodies govern: design and drawings, site works, and the supply of furniture and materials. In Dubai, Dubai Municipality sets binding standards for licensing contracting companies and consulting engineering offices, and a security-systems scope can bring in the Security Industry Regulatory Agency (SIRA). The route usually turns on who signs the drawings and who controls the site. A company can hold a design activity and still be unable to execute works, or hold a contracting activity and be unable to sign the drawings it builds from.
Split the proposal before you pick a licence
Take a recent or typical tender and cut it into lines. Which lines are drawings? Which are site works? Which are furniture, joinery or products you buy and resell? For each, write who performs it, who signs it and who is accountable if it goes wrong. Most fit-out companies discover that their turnkey promise contains a part they cannot lawfully perform with their own licence.
Then decide for each part whether the company performs it, procures it from an approved designer or contractor, or leaves it out. The licence follows that decision. The reverse order produces a company that sells turnkey and cannot deliver it.
The four models
An interior design consultancy sells design and specification. A fit-out contractor executes the works. A design-and-build company does both and needs the staffing both demand. A project manager that procures third-party designers and contractors stays light, but every promise depends on partners it has to secure.
Groups often run a design studio and a contracting arm side by side rather than blur them. A design-and-build firm in one entity must be able to show who signs and who builds. If you call site works "project management", the contractor and safety obligations stay with whoever controls the site.
What the authorities publish
Dubai Municipality says consulting engineering offices and contracting companies work within binding standards that cover licensing, accrediting staff, renewing professional practice certificates and categorising activities. Those licensing standards are based on Circular No. (133) of 2005, and the municipality publishes the activity classification and technical staff requirements for contracting. This guide does not list fit-out permits, since they vary by scope, building and emirate. Check with the municipality of your emirate before work starts.
The Dubai Land Department offers a service to register and renew tenancy contracts in Dubai. For a tenant fitting out leased premises, that registered tenancy is the starting document. The landlord's own fit-out rules sit on top of it, and they are the landlord's to set.
SIRA states that it exists to organise work in the private security sector, and its site links to a list of commercial activities subject to its law and a directory of security service providers. If your scope includes installing CCTV, alarms or access control, ask SIRA whether that element sits within its regulated activities, or whether you will subcontract it to a firm that does.
People and substance
Fit-out is delivery-heavy. The dominant cost and the main constraint is the technical team: designers, a site-capable technical lead, safety supervision, procurement staff who control subcontractors, and the visas behind them. If drawings must be submitted for approval, someone authorised must sign them, which links this business to the position in engineering and architectural consultancy. Where your target projects are large enough to need contractor classification, see construction contractor classification.
Subcontracting does not move accountability. A client who hired a turnkey company will hold that company responsible for a subcontractor's defect or delay.
How money moves and what a bank looks at
A fit-out firm lives on a project cash cycle. Clients pay advances and staged amounts, suppliers and subcontractors are paid out, and retention is held until the end. A bank reads that rhythm, so the scope matrix, the contract templates and the account application should describe the same flows, project by project.
Keep supply margin separate from professional fees. Furniture and materials you buy and resell are a trading income; design time is a service. Mixing them hides which part of the business makes money and confuses a bank. Preparation for the bank file is covered in corporate bank account readiness. Alignment helps onboarding and supplier credit. It guarantees neither.
There are two clocks. The company clock covers formation, approvals, insurance and the bank account. The per-project clock covers landlord consent, drawing approval and site permits, and it restarts with every job. Setup is complete only when the first project can pass both. A licence with no permit path is a showroom, not a business.
What commonly goes wrong
- Selling turnkey work through a design-only company.
- Starting site work before property approvals are in place.
- Hiding contractor responsibility behind subcontractors.
- Treating furniture margin and professional fees as one line.
- Taking on a security-systems scope without checking whether it is regulated.
The costliest is scope beyond authority: contracting for an outcome the entity can neither sign nor build without partners it has not secured.
What cost depends on
Cost splits between the company and each project. Permits, insurance and mobilisation recur per site, and staffing the delivery team outweighs both. Confirm fees with the authority before filing. Velarozone's own fee is itemised in the engagement letter, and how Velarozone works sets out the steps. Design studios and furniture trading can suit a free-zone entity; site works are tested where the site is, so compare mainland and free-zone options once the scope matrix exists.
