News

Let’s start with something familiar. You’ve got a shipment en route from Southeast Asia. ETA’s tight. Client’s already twitchy. Everything’s fine—until it isn’t. Suddenly, port duties spike. A new compliance form shows up. Or customs decides they now require different documentation (that no one mentioned yesterday). Why? Because someone, somewhere, signed a new trade agreement.

Because it’s built for this. Seriously. Look at the map—Dubai and Abu Dhabi are basically logistics heaven.

You’d think moving freight around the country (or across borders) would be as simple as loading a truck, hitting the road, and showing up at the other end. Yeah… no. Between licensing, safety rules, emissions limits, cross-border logistics, and what feels like a never-ending checklist of “you need a permit for that,” it quickly becomes obvious: someone has to be coordinating this mess. That someone—at least in the UAE—is the Federal Transport Authority (FTA). Or, more accurately, the FTA – Land & Maritime. (Yes, that last part matters.)

If you've ever dealt with importing or exporting cargo—especially in or out of a Free Zone—you already know: it's not just paperwork and trucks. It's forms that don’t make sense, systems that barely talk to each other, and that one document you always forget until it’s 5 PM on a Thursday. Free Zones are supposed to make life easier. Duty exemptions, faster processes, fewer rules. In theory. In practice? You still need to know the dance. Let’s break it down so it actually makes sense.