Across All 7 Emirates · Federal Compliance · Next.js

Web Development Company for the UAE — Built for Federal Rules, Not Just a Local Market

We build custom websites and web applications for businesses across the Emirates. Every build handles the things that apply nationwide: 5% VAT at the data layer, UAE payment gateways chosen on economics rather than familiarity, data protection obligations designed in, Arabic and RTL where you need it, and accessibility built to standard.

Based in India, delivering across the UAE, with the full source code transferred to you at handover.

5% VAT
line-item architecture
PDPL Ready
federal data rights
All 7 Emirates
remote engineering
100% Code IP
full git repo transfer
Regional Routing

Where we work

A nationwide engineering presence tailored to the specific commercial and regulatory realities of each emirate.

Commercial Hub
UAE

Dubai

Our largest UAE market

Private sector: trade, property, e-commerce, hospitality, startups. Full detail on payment gateway selection and e-invoicing readiness on that page.

Government & Enterprise
UAE

Abu Dhabi

Government & institutional hub

Government, semi-government, energy, healthcare and education, and their supply chains. Bilingual and accessibility work matters more here than anywhere else in the country.

Industrial & SME
UAE

Sharjah

Manufacturing, logistics & SMEs

Manufacturing, logistics, education and a large SME base. Cost-sensitive buyers who still need the site to perform. Often the emirate where a headless rebuild pays back fastest, because the existing sites are older.

Free Zone Trading
UAE

Northern & Eastern Emirates

Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah & Umm Al Quwain

Regional trade & free zones

Smaller markets, frequently free zone entities trading regionally. We work with clients in all of them; delivery is remote either way, so location changes nothing about how we work.

Federal Regulatory Layer

What applies everywhere in the UAE

Emirate-level licensing differs. These four federal obligations do not — and every build must handle them at the architecture level.

VAT (5% Standard Rate)

Registration is mandatory once taxable supplies and imports exceed AED 375,000 over a rolling 12 months, and voluntary from AED 187,500. Non-resident businesses making taxable sales into the UAE must register immediately, regardless of volume.

Engineering reality: For a build this means VAT cannot be a display setting. It is stored per line item, with the rate applicable at time of transaction retained — so a refund issued next year uses the rate that applied at purchase.

Data Protection (UAE PDPL — Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021)

This Page Owns This Topic

The UAE has a federal data protection law: Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021, the PDPL, issued in September 2021 and in force.

The status matters and is widely misreported. The Executive Regulations — which set the operational detail — had not been issued as of the most recent authoritative review available to us. Once they are published, organisations get a six-month grace period to comply. So the law exists and is in force, while much of the procedural detail is still pending.

What that means practically: do not wait. Anything built now will still be running when the regulations land, and the obligations that are already clear are all design decisions that are cheap now and expensive to retrofit.

What the PDPL already establishes:

  • A lawful basis is required for processing. Consent unless another basis applies — contract performance, legal obligation, public interest, legal claims, health and social care.
  • Data subject rights: access, correction, erasure, restriction of processing, portability in defined circumstances, and objection to automated decision-making including profiling.
  • Cross-border transfer restrictions, with adequacy determinations to come from the UAE Data Office.
  • Breach notification to the Office, with timing and procedure to be set by the Executive Regulations.
  • A Data Protection Officer where processing is high risk, involves systematic assessment of sensitive data, or handles sensitive data at volume.

What we build in as standard:

Consent captured properly

Granular, recorded with a timestamp, and withdrawable as easily as it was given. Not a banner that assumes agreement by scrolling.

Data subject request handling

Built so a human can actually operate it — you need to find, export and delete one person's data without a developer writing a manual database query.

Documented data flows

Clear records of what you collect, where it is stored, which third parties receive it, and how long it is kept.

Retention rules implemented

Automated purge schedules and lifecycle rules implemented directly in code rather than just written down in a PDF.

Third-party scripts inventoried

Audited tag managers, marketing pixels, and analytics trackers — because every client-side script constitutes a data transfer.

Regional hosting configured

Local UAE cloud availability zones and Middle East edge presence where regional residency is required or preferred.

We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. We build to the requirements your legal adviser sets and document what we did. For an opinion on your specific obligations, you need counsel — and if an agency tells you they can make you “PDPL compliant”, ask who at that agency is qualified to say so.

E-invoicing (2027 Mandate)

The UAE is rolling out mandatory e-invoicing on a published timeline, with a voluntary pilot running now and phased mandatory dates from 2027. It is Peppol-based and requires structured XML through an accredited service provider; B2B and B2G are in scope.

If we are building a system that issues invoices, it needs to emit compliant structured output.

Digital Accessibility

The UAE's National Digital Accessibility Policy, issued March 2024, sets obligations for government and semi-government entities, private companies providing public services, telecom operators, and e-commerce and digital content providers. No public compliance deadline has been announced.

We build to WCAG 2.1 Level AA as standard across both Arabic and English interfaces.

Jurisdictional Clarity

Free zone or mainland — what changes in the build

There are over forty free zones across the Emirates, each with its own authority, alongside mainland licensing through each emirate's economic department. Which you hold does not change how we build a website — but it changes three things around it:

Contracting

Free zone entities in DIFC or ADGM operate under common-law frameworks distinct from UAE federal civil law. It affects which law governs your contract and where disputes are heard. We will ask; we will not advise.

Data arrangements

DIFC and ADGM have their own data protection regimes separate from the federal PDPL. If you are registered in either, your obligations differ from a mainland company's — worth confirming with your adviser before we decide where data lives.

Payment and banking

Merchant account requirements vary by entity type, and that affects which gateways are practically available to you. We factor this into gateway selection rather than discovering it at integration.

What we need from you: the entity type and jurisdiction, at the start. It takes one sentence and it prevents rework.

Engineering Scope

Web development services across the UAE

Full-stack engineering capabilities delivered nationwide for high-growth enterprises and digital-first brands.

Institutional

Business and corporate websites

Custom Next.js, headless CMS, bilingual where needed, technical SEO from the first commit.

Commerce

E-commerce

UAE gateways, VAT at the data layer, Arabic catalogues, regional shipping.

Full-Stack

Web applications and SaaS

Portals, marketplaces, internal tools, multi-tenant platforms.

Decoupled

Headless WordPress

Keep the CMS your team knows, replace the frontend with modern Next.js for 90+ Lighthouse speed.

Migration

Redesign and migration

Moving off an ageing build without losing search rankings or historical authority.

National Pricing Standard

Web development cost in the UAE

Fixed price, same across every emirate — we do not price by postcode.

8–15 pagesAED

Business / corporate website

AED12,000 – 20,000

Custom Next.js corporate build with semantic HTML, sub-second load times, and technical SEO architecture.

UAE Standard
Full RTL parityAED

Bilingual Arabic + English build

AED18,000 – 32,000

Complete mirrored RTL layouts, native Arabic typography, bidirectional bidi text handling, and dual-locale hreflang.

Storefront + CheckoutAED

E-commerce with UAE gateways & VAT

AED25,000 – 55,000

Local payment gateways, 5% line-item VAT data structure, regional courier APIs, and Arabic catalogue support.

Full-Stack Custom PlatformAED

Web application / SaaS

AED45,000 – 120,000

Customer portals, role-based access, multi-tenant databases, transactional workflows, and automated reporting.

Legacy CMS to Next.jsAED

Redesign and migration

AED15,000 – 35,000

Moving off WordPress or an ageing stack with 100% URL redirect maps and zero search ranking losses.

Included in every build across the Emirates:

Technical SEO & Core Web Vitals optimization
5% UAE VAT data layer architecture
Accessibility built to WCAG 2.1 Level AA
Analytics & Google Search Console configuration
30 days of post-launch engineering support
Full source code transfer & IP assignment
Collaboration & Delivery

Working with a team outside the UAE

India is 1.5 hours ahead of Gulf Standard Time, so our working day overlaps yours almost entirely. You talk to the engineers building your project. Staging URL from week one, weekly demos, milestone payments, written contracts with IP assigned to you, NDA on request.

1.5h Time Difference

India is 1.5 hours ahead of Gulf Standard Time, so our working day overlaps yours almost entirely.

Talk to Engineers

You talk directly to the engineers building your project, not account handlers or sales intermediaries.

Staging from Week One

Private preview URL updated continuously with weekly interactive sprint demos and progress reports.

Milestones & IP Assignment

Milestone payments, written contracts with IP assigned to you, and NDA signed on request before kickoff.

Proven Systems

Relevant work

Production web platforms built for high-traffic scalability, regional payment gateways, and zero-compromise speed.

Commerce Architecture01

Nature Medica

E-Commerce & Multi-Carrier Shipping

E-commerce with three shipping providers behind one checkout.

Split Payments & Inventory02

Online Planet

Multi-Vendor Marketplace

Multi-vendor marketplace with split payments and inventory across independent sellers.

Workspaces & RBAC03

Kaam Connekt

Multi-Tenant Platform

Multi-tenant platform with isolated workspaces and role-based access.

Clarity & Terms

Frequently asked questions

Straight answers on delivery, federal regulation, payment gateways, and milestone contracts across the UAE.

Business websites AED 12,000–20,000, bilingual builds AED 18,000–32,000, e-commerce AED 25,000–55,000, web applications AED 45,000–120,000. UAE-based agencies typically quote 1.5–2× for comparable scope, largely because of local overhead. Fixed-price contracts.

UAE Federal Delivery & Regional Engineering

Tell us what you're building

Send the problem, not a specification. You will get a fixed-price range in AED, an honest view of scope, and a straight answer on whether we are the right team.

hello@genforgestudio.com
Response within 12 hours, Gulf business hours
NDA on request