UAE financial-services licensing
Regulyx uses Lyx, our AI assistant, to automatically identify which regulator and which licence category fit your business, with the rulebook citation behind every statement. Once you approve, it quickly prepares the whole application pack, obtains your approval and submits it on your behalf and guides you through the process.
LyxWhere you are
You have a launch date and a small team. You need to know which regulator, which category, and what they will ask before you commit.
A new activity, a new client type, or a second jurisdiction. You know your first regulator. The next one works differently.
The licence is granted. Now the returns, notifications and policy reviews are due, and the regulator can ask a question at any time.
Your regime
Every regime has its own rulebook. Select your business to see where it usually sits. Lyx decides which applies to you.
Onshore, retail payment services are licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE under the Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Regulation. In the DIFC and ADGM the same activities fall under the DFSA and the FSRA. Lyx asks who your clients are, where they are and whether you hold their money, because those answers decide the regulator.
About the CBUAE · DFSA · FSRA
Dubai outside the DIFC is VARA's. ADGM is the FSRA's and the DIFC is the DFSA's. Onshore outside Dubai, virtual-asset activities fall under the federal regime of the Capital Market Authority. Custody is treated differently from broking or exchange, and VARA requires custody to sit in its own legal entity with its own licence.
About VARA · FSRA · DFSA · CMA
A manager in the DIFC or ADGM is licensed by the DFSA or the FSRA, and the fund's domicile decides whose fund rules apply. A fund domiciled in either centre can be promoted across the UAE under the fund passporting arrangement between the DFSA, the FSRA and the CMA. Lyx separates managing, marketing and advising, because each is a different licence.
About the DFSA · FSRA · CMA
Lending to people and businesses onshore is a Central Bank activity, licensed under its finance-company rules, and that includes short-term consumer credit. Lending from a financial free zone to professional clients is a different question with a different regulator.
About the CBUAE · DFSA · FSRA
Comparing, aggregating or embedding insurance online without carrying risk is one licence. Underwriting is another, and onshore it is the Central Bank's. In the DIFC and ADGM the DFSA and the FSRA license both. Lyx asks whether you carry risk before anything else.
About the CBUAE · DFSA · FSRA
What we do
Lyx gives a provisional result in about ten minutes, with the rule behind each step. Regulyx reviews it and confirms it with you on a call. You receive a three-page report for your route.
Lyx drafts the regulatory business plan, the policies and the forms as one consistent story in which each statement is tied to the rule it answers. Regulyx checks every line. Drafting moves at the pace of your answers, not our diary.
Lyx drafts the responses to the regulator. Regulyx prepares your senior people for interviews and follows each condition the regulator sets to the licence. We do not promise how fast a regulator decides.
Regulyx provides compliance officer and MLRO support. Lyx prepares policies and returns on a calendar generated from the commitments in your own application. Nothing is re-explained.
How your application is developed
In your own words: what you do, who for, and where. Lyx asks what it still needs.
Maps your description to the activities the regulators license. It never writes a rule.
Ranks the routes and keeps the citation and label on every statement.
Regulyx checks the result and confirms it with you on a call.
Lyx drafts from your confirmed answers. Regulyx checks it line by line. You approve it.
Filed on your behalf, with every statement tied to the rule it answers.
Lyx drafts each answer from the same record. Regulyx follows every condition to the licence.
Regulyx provides compliance officer and MLRO support. Lyx prepares policies and returns from the day the licence is granted.
How we work
Everything we say about a licence comes from the regulator's own rulebook or website, and we name the source. We do not take regulatory statements from law-firm or consultancy pages. We do not promise approval, timelines or outcomes.
We say no as clearly as yes. If your business does not need a licence, or needs a kind of help we do not offer, Lyx says so and we say so on the call, and both point you to the right place.
Each figure Lyx gives, and each figure in your report, carries one of these.
Ask for a call-back. We confirm your route with you and arrange your place in the assessment beta.
15 November 2026
Or request a call-back and we will confirm your route with you in the meantime.