Not much in the way of details in your post. You're shutting down your business and moving for... reasons.

It boggles my mind that any westerner would choose to live and work in Dubai. Their laws and rules are very different from ours.

I do see that they have made some steps toward reform of their debtors prisons. I'm very glad to see that, but I still do not consider Dubai to be a safe place to even visit, let alone live there.

https://jamesberrylaw.com/news-details/no-prison-for-debt

▲

cs02rm0 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The list of reasons really is too long to include. From the continued worsening of individual bits of tax legislation such as IR35, dividend allowances, employers NI, corporation tax, etc. to the stalling of real GDP per capita combined with an increased population and the consequentially stretched hospitals, transport, etc, the draconian policing of social media... it's pointless me trying to list it all really.

Dubai is a bit of a trigger for some people. Others I know are going/gone to Portugal, Malta, Cyprus, the US, Aus, Can, NZ, Singapore, France. Your mileage may vary - people leaving can generally give you similar lists of why, but where they go seems varied.

I used to live in Saudi for a time (25+ years ago), and actually really liked much about it then and it had changed markedly when I've been back more recently. I've visited Iraq, I've been detained in Oman under suspicion of espionage and still see virtues in the place. Dubai is positively liberal by comparison and becoming more liberal, while the UK is becoming more authoritarian and despite the official crime statistics, I'm not sure it's as safe as it once was.

▲

logicchains 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>It boggles my mind that any westerner would choose to live and work in Dubai. Their laws and rules are very different from ours.

As long as you're not borrowing money from local entities, you're almost certainly not going to run into any trouble like that in Dubai. In practice Dubai is more libertarian than the UK; the government generally doesn't bother you or care what you're doing, as long as you don't get on the bad side of someone well-connected.

▲

barbazoo 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> In practice Dubai is more libertarian than the UK

Even for women?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_United_Arab_Emira...

▲

KaiserPro 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> in practice Dubai is more libertarian than the UK;

> as long as you don't get on the bad side of someone well-connected.

Thats a huge fucking caveat. given that the law is very much stacked in the favour of citizens, then if you do get into trouble, you're in deep shit fast.

▲

logicchains 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Yep, but if you're moving from the UK you've probably got some kind of international business or clients so are unlikely to have much interaction with the locals. This is even formalised in the business system there; if you're not doing business with locals, you can open a free-zone company, which are much easier/cheaper to open, but restricted to primarily doing business with overseas entities.

	▲	hermitcrab 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>so are unlikely to have much interaction with the locals. You really aren't selling it.
	▲	KaiserPro 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yeah, you're also pretty much at the whim of your sponsor.