It is the first question founders ask: do you still need a Qatari partner to open a company in Qatar? For a long time the answer was yes. It has changed.
The former foreign investment law (Law No. 13 of 2000) generally capped a foreigner's share at 49% of the capital. A Qatari partner held the other 51%. That is where the widespread idea comes from that you cannot fully own your company in Qatar.
Law No. 1 of 2019 on the investment of non-Qatari capital, in force since January 2019, lets a foreign investor own up to 100% of a company in most sectors, with the approval of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. So you can set up a company in Qatar without a local partner, in your own name or in the name of your existing company.
The rule does not cover everything. Three areas stay closed unless the Council of Ministers decides otherwise:
If your project touches one of these, you need to know before you start: the structure will be different.
Everything depends on one line of your file: the activity you declare. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry approves the activity and issues the Commercial Registration (CR). A well chosen activity goes through at 100% foreign ownership. A badly worded one can be refused or placed in a closed category.
The law also protects your profits: article 14 allows a foreign investor to transfer abroad, without delay, the returns on the investment and the proceeds of a sale or liquidation.
The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) and the Qatar Free Zones also accept 100% foreign capital, under their own rules. We compare the three in this article on mainland, QFC and free zones.
Every activity has its own rules. In a 30-minute introductory call you tell us about your project and we tell you whether we can help and what the next steps are. Book a call or see how we register companies in Qatar.