What is Abu Dhabi Global Market?

Most free zones are administrative: a defined area, a licensing authority, and a set of incentives layered on top of the country’s ordinary law. ADGM is not that. It is a jurisdiction — a place with its own civil and commercial law, its own financial regulator, and its own courts staffed by common-law judges, sitting inside the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. When two ADGM companies fall out, the law that decides the case is not UAE civil law; it is English common law as applied in ADGM, and the case is heard in English.

That is the whole proposition. Everything else — the fee schedule, the structures, the island — follows from it.

This is the part worth getting exactly right, because it is stated loosely almost everywhere and the loose version is misleading.

The Application of English Law Regulations 2015 make English common law, including the rules and principles of equity, directly applicable in ADGM[ADGM Courts — English common law]. That governs contract, tort, trusts, equitable remedies, unjust enrichment, damages, conflicts of laws, security and personal property.

But English law arrives in ADGM by two different routes, and they behave differently.

Common law is evergreen

English case law applies as it stands from time to time[ADGM — English law guidance]. When the English courts develop a principle, that development is part of ADGM law without anything needing to be enacted. ADGM’s own guidance uses the word “evergreen”.

Statute is frozen at a fixed date

English statutes are the opposite. 47 modified English statutes are scheduled to the Application Regulations, and they have effect in ADGM as at the effective date of those Regulations. Amendments made in England afterwards do not have effect in ADGM unless permitted by a specific ADGM enactment [ADGM — English law guidance]. Otherwise English statute law does not apply at all unless another ADGM enactment says so.

ADGM notes that a fixed-date approach is not unusual — Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore have done comparable things — and that the 47 were selected after a review of key English commercial statutes and were publicly consulted on.

Why this matters to you.If your adviser says “ADGM just uses English law”, they have the common law half right and the statutory half wrong. For most commercial questions the distinction never surfaces. For anything turning on a specific English statute — and particularly on a recent amendment to one — it is the first thing to check. ADGM’s own enactments, published in its official rulebook, sit alongside the 47 and are drafted from precedent statutes elsewhere.

We go into this further on English common law in ADGM.

People conflate these constantly, usually in ways that cost time. They do different jobs and you may deal with one, two, or all three.

The Registration Authority

ADGM’s independent commercial regulator, with powers granted under the Founding Law. It is responsible for the incorporation of corporate vehicles and the registration and commercial licensing of all businesses operating in or from ADGM, and administers ADGM’s commercial legislation [ADGM Registration Authority]. Its remit also covers data protection, employment regulation and real property registration.

If your business is not a financial service, the RA is the only authority you deal with. It is the rough equivalent of DIFC’s Registrar of Companies, but with a wider job.

The FSRA

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority regulates financial services under the Financial Services and Markets Regulations (FSMR), which are modelled on the UK’s Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 [FSRA]. It also acts as listing authority and handles financial-crime supervision.

For anyone who has dealt with the FCA, the architecture is familiar, and that familiarity is a real part of ADGM’s appeal to UK-based firms. Note the sequencing: a financial firm applies to the FSRA before the Registration Authority will consider incorporation [ADGM RA — Schedule of Fees].

ADGM Courts

Covered next, because they are the reason the rest works.

ADGM has independent Courts of First Instance and of Appeal, applying English common law, with procedure under the ADGM Courts, Civil Evidence, Judgments, Enforcement and Judicial Appointments Regulations 2015 [ADGM Courts — English common law].

ADGM states that its judges are “drawn from the most senior levels of judiciary of the world’s leading common law jurisdictions with extensive experience and long-standing, strong traditions in judicial independence” [ADGM Courts], and describes its platform as the world’s first end-to-end eCourts platform.

The practical significance is easy to underrate until you need it. A shareholders’ agreement is only as good as the forum that will construe it. Having a common-law court, in English, with judges from common-law benches, is what makes a common-law holding structure in the Gulf more than a drafting exercise — and it is the thing a co-investor’s counsel in London or New York will actually ask about.

More on ADGM Courts.

ADGM sits on Al Maryah Island and Al Reem Island in Abu Dhabi, covering 14.38 million sqm[ADGM — Our Jurisdiction] [ADGM — Our Jurisdiction].

It did not start that way. UAE Cabinet Resolution No. 41 of 2023expanded ADGM’s jurisdiction to include Al Reem Island, extending its legal and regulatory framework across it [ADGM RA — Al Reem guidance note]. Transitional arrangements began on 1 November 2023, and businesses already operating on Al Reem had until 31 December 2024[ADGM RA — Al Reem guidance note] to obtain an ADGM licence. That transition has closed: an Al Reem business today is simply an ADGM business.

This matters when you read older material — including ADGM’s own. Its SPV guidance note was published in March 2020 and still describes the Registration Authority’s remit as covering businesses “operating in or from Al Maryah Island”. That was accurate when written. Check the date on any document making a geographic claim.

More on the expansion: Al Reem Island.

Most people reading this page are not in Abu Dhabi, so it is worth answering the question directly rather than assuming a local reader.

You can complete the application without travelling. ADGM states that the registration and licensing process is digital, that shareholders are not required to be physically present, and that documents can be submitted as scanned copies online[ADGM — Setting up FAQs]. A witnessing service is available for USD 100[ADGM — Setting up FAQs] where signatures need witnessing.

The legal system is one you can already read. For a UK, Commonwealth, Singaporean or Hong Kong adviser, ADGM does not require learning a new legal method — only a new jurisdiction applying a familiar one.

It is a recognised name in structuring.An ADGM entity reads as a legitimate, regulated vehicle to a bank, a co-investor or an acquirer’s counsel in a way that a company from a jurisdiction with a weaker reputation does not.

And the constraint you need to know about

If what you want is a holding vehicle, ADGM’s Nexus Requirement may stop you. Every ADGM SPV must demonstrate an appropriate connection to ADGM, the UAE and/or the GCC, and ADGM states explicitly that an SPV owned by a foreign non-resident holding only assets outside the region does not qualify — and that appointing an ADGM or UAE-based service provider does not create that connection[ADGM RA — SPV Guidance Note].

This is the single most common reason an overseas enquiry goes nowhere, and it is worth resolving before you spend anything: fees are Non-refundable[ADGM RA — Schedule of Fees] if an application is rejected. The full test, with all four ways of satisfying it, is on the SPV page.

The two UAE financial centres are frequently described as interchangeable. They are not, and the differences are structural rather than cosmetic.

• Legal method. ADGM applies English common law directly. DIFC enacted its own codified civil and commercial laws, drafted on common-law lines. Both give you a common-law-flavoured system; only one of them updates automatically as English case law develops.
• Institutions. ADGM: Registration Authority, FSRA, ADGM Courts. DIFC: Registrar of Companies, DFSA, DIFC Courts.
• Structures.ADGM has the Restricted Scope Company and the DLT Foundation; DIFC has neither. DIFC has the Prescribed Company and the Variable Capital Company; ADGM has neither. Anyone offering you an “ADGM Prescribed Company” is describing something that does not exist.
• Location. Abu Dhabi versus Dubai — which decides your ecosystem, your commute and, often, where your investors already are.

Neither is better in the abstract. The honest comparison, written from the ADGM side, is on ADGM vs DIFC — including the cases where DIFC is the right answer.

A general UAE free zone gives you a licence, an address and a visa quota, under the country’s ordinary law. ADGM gives you a legal system.

Concretely: your company law, your employment framework, your insolvency regime and your security interests are ADGM’s, drafted from common-law precedent and published in full. Your disputes go to a common-law court in English rather than to the local civil courts. Your financial activity, if you have any, is supervised by a regulator modelled on the FCA.

That is worth a great deal to some businesses and nothing at all to others. A trading company selling into the local market with no external investors and no financing structure may find a general free zone both cheaper and better suited. Being clear about which of those you are is more valuable than any fee comparison.

It is not a tax haven, and not a tax structure. UAE corporate tax is federal and applies inside ADGM. The same Qualifying Free Zone Person test applies in every UAE free zone, and ADGM does not alter it [UAE Ministry of Finance]. If someone is selling you ADGM primarily on tax, they are selling you something federal law already decided and that you would have elsewhere too.

It is not offshore. ADGM is an onshore UAE jurisdiction under Federal legislation, and the Nexus Requirement for SPVs exists precisely to keep it from being used as an unconnected offshore holding location.

It is not a nationwide licence. ADGM licenses activity in or from ADGM. It does not give you the run of the UAE mainland.

It is not automatic.The grant of a commercial licence is at the Registrar’s discretion under section 10 of the Commercial Licensing Regulations 2025, decided case by case [ADGM RA — SPV Guidance Note]. Nobody can promise you an approval.

Depending on what brought you here:

• Setting up, and want the whole process — ADGM business setup.
• Holding assets or structuring a deal — the ADGM SPV, and read the nexus section first.
• Comparing centres — ADGM vs DIFC.
• Want to check any of this yourself — our sources and methodology, which lists every authority cited on this site and the rules we follow when two of them disagree.