Comment l'environnement fiscal, économique et administratif de Dubaï contribue-t-il à l'attractivité de Dubaï auprès des petits entrepreneurs belges souhaitant y développer leur entreprise ?

Abstract

This thesis explores how Dubai’s fiscal, administrative, and economic environment influences the expatriation decisions of Belgian entrepreneurs. Combining an in-depth literature review with a qualitative field study based on ten interviews, it sheds light on the complex factors shaping entrepreneurial mobility. The literature review establishes that entrepreneurial attractiveness cannot be reduced to a mere comparison of tax rates. Rather, it results from an intricate interplay of institutional, regulatory, and administrative elements that jointly determine a jurisdiction’s appeal. Dubai emerges as a hybrid model that combines targeted tax incentives, sectoral free zones, and streamlined administrative processes, all embedded within a framework perceived as stable and action-oriented. In contrast, Belgium, while offering innovation-driven incentives and a dense entrepreneurial ecosystem, faces structural rigidities linked to institutional complexity, overlapping competences, and normative opacity. Empirical findings refine and humanize these insights. Interviews with Belgian entrepreneurs who relocated to Dubai reveal that personal income taxation often triggers the move. Yet it is the combined experience of administrative simplicity, economic dynamism, and a proactive business culture that reinforces Dubai’s attractiveness. The diversity of interviewed profiles, ranging from tax pragmatists to global strategists, reflects different motivations, but points to a shared perception of bureaucratic and parafiscal burdens in Belgium. Fiscal experts consulted propose reforms focused on rebalancing the tax burden, simplifying procedures, and consolidating existing incentives. Dubai is not seen as a model to replicate but as a reference point to reassess Belgium’s own constraints. This research highlights broader policy tensions between competitiveness and equity, simplification and control, mobility and national cohesion. It calls for a strategic rethinking of Belgium’s entrepreneurial environment, not through mimicry of low-tax jurisdictions, but through a deliberate effort to make the system more legible, fair, and functionally effective.