# Dubai SME Seed Capital & Expansion Loans

- **Type:** grant
- **Status:** evergreen
- **City:** Dubai
- **Equity:** Debt (not equity)
- **Cost:** No application fee published
- **Duration:** Loan tenor per product
- **Apply:** https://thefund.ae/auth/register
- **Page:** https://www.dxbstart.com/programs/dubai-sme-loans

Dubai SME seed and expansion facilities via thefund.ae: debt for Dubai SMEs, not a venture round. Register on their portal. Evergreen as a product family. Expect SME paperwork — financials, a Dubai licence, and a business that looks like a company, not a weekend app. Nationality and SME-definition rules live on their site and change. Read them. This is not Khalifa Fund (Abu Dhabi) and not a SAFE.

## Desk take

Useful if you are a real Dubai SME that can service a loan. Useless if you are pre-revenue and hoping the government will be your seed investor.

## Eligibility

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Fund for SME (Dubai SME's funding arm) gives loans to Emirati founders of innovative Dubai startups.
- Project/business must be 100% owned and managed by UAE national(s)
- Applicant must be 21+ and personally committed to running the project
- Project must be less than 5 years old; new-project applicants may hold max 5 Dubai trade licences (6 for existing enterprises)
- For the Credit Bank Scheme, a business account is opened with the funding bank and debt burden ratio must not exceed 50% of monthly income
- Business plan required; online application via thefund.ae portal

## Questions

### Is this equity-free capital?

It is a loan. Equity-free is not the same as free money.

### Can a free-zone company apply?

Their rules decide. Check thefund.ae eligibility before you build a narrative.


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Source: DXBStart — the working index of the UAE startup ecosystem. Canonical page: https://www.dxbstart.com/programs/dubai-sme-loans
More machine-readable resources: https://www.dxbstart.com/llms.txt
Startups can request a listing at https://www.dxbstart.com/submit — free, editorially reviewed.