From the Netherlands to Dubai — Why I Made the Move

The Question Everyone Asks

“Why Dubai?”

I’ve been asked this question hundreds of times since I moved. By friends, by students, by strangers on Instagram. And I get it — when you’re from the Netherlands, Dubai isn’t the obvious move. London, maybe. Barcelona, if you want the lifestyle. Lisbon’s been the digital nomad darling for years.

But I didn’t move to Dubai for the weather or the tax benefits (though both are nice). I moved because I needed a different operating environment. And the distinction between “lifestyle move” and “operating environment move” is everything.

Let me explain.

What I Left Behind

Let’s start with the honest part. Leaving the Netherlands was hard.

I left my friends. My family. My comfort zone. The neighborhoods I grew up in. The cafes where I’d sit for hours working on DSA. The culture I understood instinctively — the directness, the humor, the gezelligheid that’s impossible to translate.

I left a country where everything works. Public transport? Reliable. Healthcare? Sorted. Infrastructure? World-class. The Netherlands is, by almost every metric, one of the best countries in the world to live in.

So why would anyone leave?

Because comfort and growth rarely share the same address.

I was building two companies — Digital Sales Ascension and what would become Salesflux. The Netherlands was a great place to live, but it wasn’t the best place to build at the pace and scale I wanted.

The business environment was solid but slow. Regulations were rigid. The entrepreneurial energy was scattered. And culturally, there’s something in Dutch culture — I love it, but it’s real — that subtly discourages going too big. The “doe maar normaal” mentality. Be normal. Don’t stick your head out.

I needed an environment that rewarded ambition instead of quietly questioning it.

Why Dubai, Not London or Lisbon

I considered every major hub.

London has incredible energy and access to talent, but the cost of living is brutal. Renting a decent office in Central London would have eaten into my margins for no clear upside. Plus, UK immigration post-Brexit is a maze.

Barcelona is beautiful and the quality of life is unmatched. But the Spanish business environment is slow, bureaucratic, and the timezone overlap with my key markets wasn’t ideal.

Lisbon is the trendy choice for entrepreneurs. It’s affordable, the weather is great, and there’s a solid startup scene. But it felt like a lifestyle play, not a business play. Great for remote workers. Less great for someone trying to build a tech company.

Dubai kept winning in every category that mattered to me:

Speed. Things happen fast here. Decisions that take months elsewhere take weeks in Dubai. The government actively removes friction for businesses. When I say “business-friendly environment,” I mean it at a level that Europeans can barely imagine.

Timezone. Dubai sits between Europe, Asia, and Africa. I can take a morning call with a student in Amsterdam and an afternoon call with a partner in Singapore. The timezone overlap with my key markets is almost perfect.

Infrastructure. The internet is fast. The buildings are new. The coworking spaces are premium. The airport connects you to everywhere in the world. It’s a city built for people who need to move fast and stay connected.

Talent pool. Dubai attracts ambitious people from everywhere. In one room, you’ll find founders from India, engineers from Pakistan, marketers from Lebanon, investors from Saudi Arabia, and closers from the UK. The density of driven people per square kilometer is absurd.

Tax environment. I’m not going to pretend this isn’t a factor. The 0% personal income tax and 9% corporate tax (with significant free zone exemptions) means more capital to reinvest into the companies. In the Netherlands, I was giving away nearly half my income. In Dubai, that money goes back into hiring, product development, and growth.

The Practical Side: Visa, Cost, and Setup

For anyone considering the move, here’s what I actually went through.

Business Setup

I set up through IFZA (International Free Zone Authority), operating out of Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO). DSO is where the tech companies cluster. It’s not the flashy Downtown Dubai you see on Instagram — it’s a quiet, functional tech park with good offices, meeting rooms, and a community of builders.

The setup process was surprisingly painless. The free zone handles company registration, visa sponsorship, and licensing. From first application to fully operational took roughly 3-4 weeks. Compare that to the months-long process of setting up a BV in the Netherlands with a notary, KvK registration, accountant alignment, and all the rest.

Cost for the license and visa? Roughly 15,000-20,000 AED (around 4,000-5,000 euros) for the first year, depending on the package. That includes your trade license, visa, Emirates ID — the full stack.

Cost of Living

Here’s where people’s expectations usually diverge from reality.

Dubai can be expensive. If you want the Marina apartment with the skyline view and you’re eating at Nobu three times a week, yes — you’ll burn through cash.

But if you’re smart about it, the cost of living is comparable to Amsterdam. My apartment in DSO costs less than what I was paying in Amsterdam-Zuid. Groceries are similar. Transportation is actually cheaper because petrol is subsidized and Ubers are affordable.

Where Dubai is cheaper: no income tax (obviously), dining out at non-luxury restaurants, gym memberships, and domestic help.

Where it’s more expensive: alcohol (heavily taxed), certain imported goods, and the temptation to lifestyle-inflate because everyone around you is spending.

My advice: live below the Dubai Average, invest the difference.

The Day-to-Day

My typical day in Dubai:

6 AM: Gym. The heat makes outdoor exercise impossible from May to September, so indoor training becomes non-negotiable.
8 AM: Deep work. Building Salesflux, reviewing product iterations, writing.
12 PM: Calls start. This is when Europe wakes up and my timezone advantage kicks in.
4 PM: DSA coaching calls or team meetings.
7 PM: Done. Dubai has a strong “work hard, switch off” culture. People here are ambitious but they also value their evenings.

The rhythm works. There’s no commute eating into my day (everything in DSO is 5 minutes away). There’s no weather-related seasonal depression (I didn’t realize how much grey Dutch winters were costing me until I didn’t have them anymore). And there’s no social pressure to “take it easy” — everyone here is building something.

What Surprised Me

The community. I expected Dubai to be transactional. People hustling, networking with ulterior motives, everyone trying to sell you something. And yes, some of that exists. But what surprised me was the depth of real community here.

I’ve made some of my closest business relationships in Dubai. Founders who share openly. People who show up for each other. A genuine sense of “we’re all building something far from home, so we might as well help each other.”

The speed of opportunity. Deals that would take 6 months of back-and-forth in Europe happen in weeks here. The decision-making culture is faster. People are biased toward action. When someone says “let’s do it,” they actually mean it — and the follow-through happens.

The diversity. Dubai is the most international city I’ve ever lived in. 85% of the population is expat. You hear more languages in a single elevator ride than you would in an entire Amsterdam neighborhood. This diversity isn’t just nice — it’s useful. It gave me perspectives on my business I never would have found in a homogeneous environment.

The motivation. Being surrounded by people who are building aggressively is contagious. In the Netherlands, my ambition sometimes felt out of place. In Dubai, it felt normal. That shift in environment had a bigger impact on my output than any productivity hack ever could.

What I Miss

I’m not going to romanticize everything. I miss things about the Netherlands.

I miss the seasons — specifically autumn. Crisp air, orange leaves, biking through Vondelpark. Dubai doesn’t have that. It has two seasons: hot and very hot.

I miss the food culture. The casual terraces, the bitterballen, the spontaneous Friday drinks that turn into 5-hour conversations. Dubai’s restaurant scene is world-class, but the casual social culture is different.

I miss the walking. Amsterdam is a walking city. Dubai is a driving city. My step count dropped significantly.

And I miss the groundedness of Dutch culture. For all the “doe maar normaal” that drove me crazy, there’s something healthy about a culture that doesn’t worship status symbols. Dubai’s relationship with luxury can be exhausting if you’re not intentional about tuning it out.

Would I Do It Again?

Without hesitation.

Moving to Dubai was the best bet I ever made on myself. Not because Dubai is perfect — no place is. But because the move itself forced growth that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

When you rip yourself out of a comfortable environment and drop into a new one, you find out what you’re actually made of. You learn to build from scratch — new routines, new relationships, new systems. And you realize that most of the things you thought you “needed” were actually just things you were used to.

Dubai gave me the space, speed, and environment to build Salesflux from zero. It gave me a global perspective on DSA that I couldn’t have gotten from the Netherlands. And it gave me a version of myself that’s more focused, more decisive, and more comfortable with discomfort.

If you’re thinking about making a move — whether it’s Dubai or anywhere else — my advice is simple: go where the environment matches the person you want to become, not the person you currently are.

Want the behind-the-scenes of building a company from Dubai? Follow me on Instagram — I share the real stuff, not just the highlight reel.