Oman
The Gulf's lowest VAT, full foreign ownership, and the port of Duqm outside the Strait of Hormuz
Oman is the quieter, cheaper alternative to the Emirates. A company can be formed with one hundred per cent foreign ownership in most sectors, profit tax is 15 % and 3 % for small businesses, and VAT at 5 % is the lowest in the region. Geographically it has one property nobody else in the Gulf has: the port and zone at Duqm lie outside the Strait of Hormuz, outside the bottleneck almost all Gulf cargo must pass through. For supply-chain resilience that is a genuine argument. From 2028 Oman becomes the first Gulf state to levy personal income tax — 5 % above an annual income of OMR 42,000.
Loading the indicators…
Setting up a company
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Legal forms
- ·Foreign ownership
Taxes
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Corporate income tax
- ·VAT
Visas and residence
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Short stay
- ·Work permit
Investment opportunities
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Zones and incentives
What it makes and needs
Oil and gas, petrochemicals, mining, fishing and fish processing, logistics and transhipment, tourism, green hydrogen. It buys machinery, energy and water-sector equipment, building materials and food.
Money and payments
The Omani rial (OMR), pegged to the US dollar, with no exchange controls.
Importing into their market
The Gulf Cooperation Council's common tariff: 5 % of CIF value on most goods, with exceptions — some food and medicines are at zero, while tobacco and alcohol carry excise duties an order of magnitude higher. Duty is paid once on entry into the customs union and the goods then move between member states without further duty.
Toys and low-voltage electrical appliances may be sold in the Gulf only with the G mark (Gulf Conformity Mark) under GSO technical regulations. Since 1 April 2017 it is shown as the GCTS tracking symbol: the G mark with a QR code. It is mandatory in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Yemen, and is issued by a GSO notified body.
Prepackaged food is labelled under GSO 9/2013: the information must be in Arabic, and another language may appear only alongside it with identical content. Halal food follows GSO 2055-1:2015 across the whole chain from receipt to storage; GSO published a draft of its new version on 17 February 2026.
Outlook
What to watch: the personal income tax coming in January 2028, the first in the Gulf and a possible template for the neighbours; the green hydrogen projects around Duqm, the country's largest investment wave; and how far Duqm's capacity fills, which will decide whether it becomes a real alternative to the Hormuz route.
Write to us. Our representative for this market or our team receives it.
Tell us what you came to this page for and did not find. We will add it — with a source.
A visa, legalising a document, an invitation letter, the commercial attaché before a trade fair — these only go through a mission. Below are the official registers rather than transcribed addresses: missions move and consular hours change several times a year, so a link to the register stays current where a transcript would not.
Where a country has no mission in Bratislava or Prague it is usually accredited from Vienna, Berlin or Warsaw — the register says which.
Every figure names the authority that published it and the date the line was last worked on. This is not legal or tax advice — verify a figure with the named source before you act on it.