TL;DR: Two unrelated businesses answer to "ACE" in Dubai. Al-Futtaim ACE is a home improvement retailer trading from about ten stores. ACE Interior Design and Decoration LLC, in Ras Al Khor Industrial Area 2, is a fit-out contractor with its own joinery factory. If you searched for a contractor, you want the second one.
Two different ACEs, and only one of them builds anything
Type "ace interiors dubai" into a search box and you get two businesses with no connection to each other. Most people who land here do not yet know that.
Al-Futtaim ACE (aceuae.com) is the retailer. It arrived in the UAE in 1991 through Al-Futtaim and trades from roughly ten locations across the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar, with the largest stores at Dubai Festival City and Yas Island. It sells paint, power tools, garden furniture and homeware. It does not price your villa, it does not submit drawings to Dubai Municipality, and it holds no contracting licence.
ACE Interior Design and Decoration LLC (aceinterioruae.com) is the contractor. Business directories also list a second registered name at the same address, ACE Interior Design and Furniture Industry LLC, at Plot 131, Street 7, Ras Al Khor Industrial Area 2, with published landlines of +971 4 333 4466 and +971 4 410 7188. Two trading names, one industrial address, going by what the directories show.
That split is normal here. A group often holds one licence for contracting and another for manufacturing, because the activities sit under different codes. It is also the first thing to pin down: the legal name on your contract, on the trade licence, on the invoice and on the bank account should match exactly. When those drift apart you no longer know who you are contracting with, and neither will a court.
What ACE Interior Design and Decoration actually does
The company gives its founding year as 2013 and describes activities spanning construction, interior fit-out, lighting, electro-mechanical works, glass, aluminium and joinery. It lists hospitality, residential, commercial, retail and office work, and names the venue types it targets: restaurants, hospitals, spas, gyms, hotels, malls and theatres.
The part that carries real weight is the factory. The furniture industry arm manufactures kitchen cabinets, wardrobes, wall panelling, doors and frames, upholstery and wooden flooring. Joinery is the most common cause of a late handover in Dubai, because a wardrobe run gets measured, drawn, approved, cut, sprayed and delivered, and each step is somebody else's queue when the work is bought in. A firm with its own workshop controls that queue. It also carries that workshop as a fixed cost, which pulls firms of this shape toward carpentry-heavy jobs and away from a plain paint-and-tiles refresh.
On certification the company states ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 18001, plus USGBC and APID affiliation. One detail there matters. OHSAS 18001 was withdrawn on 11 March 2021 and replaced by ISO 45001, so a company still listing 18001 in 2026 is quoting a standard that no longer exists. Usually that means an unedited website rather than a lapsed safety system. Ask for the certificate PDF with its number and expiry date, then check it on the certifier's register.
What I could not find in open sources is the detail you would actually shortlist on: a named project list, client references, contract values or completion dates. That is ordinary for a mid-market fit-out firm and it is not a mark against them, but it does mean you cannot benchmark ACE from your desk. Ask for three completed projects of your own type, with the month each finished and a client contact you may call, and ask to walk one.
Where ACE sits in the Dubai market
ACE does not appear on the shortlists of best fit-out companies in Dubai that circulate online. Those lists recycle the same names, CK Architecture, Depa, Summertown, Khansaheb, ALEC Fitout, Gemaco, and most of them are published by fit-out companies themselves, so read them as marketing rather than ranking.
The absence still tells you something about scale. ACE reads as a mid-tier specialist rather than a name a landlord's cost consultant recognises unprompted. That is often the right choice: a tier-one contractor prices a 1,200 square foot office at a premium and puts your job behind a mall in its programme. Mid-tier costs you on performance bonds, on towers with a closed approved-contractor list, and on jobs above the value band the firm usually handles. Ask what the largest contract they delivered in the past two years was worth.
The licence line that decides what a firm can legally build
This is where Dubai renovations go wrong before the first tile is cut.
An interior design or decoration implementation licence covers finishes, partitions, joinery and the fit-out trades. It does not cover structural work. Load-bearing changes, new openings through slabs or shear walls, and anything touching the building's structure need a building contracting licence, a registered engineer behind the drawings, and a submission to Dubai Municipality or Trakhees depending on where the property sits. A design consultancy licence goes further the other way and permits no site execution at all.
MEP and waterproofing sit in a similar grey zone. Moving a bathroom means new drainage falls and a fresh waterproofing membrane with a tanking test, and swapping split units for a ducted system is an MEP scope with its own approval. Ask which licensed party carries each of those, and whether it is the company signing your contract or a subcontractor. Get the answer written into the contract, and read the listed activities line by line against your scope. Our checklist for vetting an interior design LLC sets out what each activity permits.
How to check any contractor yourself in an afternoon
None of this requires a lawyer.
- Trade licence copy: legal name, licence number, expiry date, listed activities. Verify the number on the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism portal at invest.dubai.ae or in the Dubai REST app. Free zone entities verify through their own authority instead.
- Current insurance certificates in the company's name. Contractor's all risk with third-party liability is the base, workmen's compensation sits alongside it, and professional indemnity applies where the firm also designs. Check the sum insured against your contract value.
- ISO certificates as documents with numbers, confirmed on the certification body's register. Logos in a website footer prove nothing.
- Three finished projects of your type, with dates and a client you can phone.
- The name and mobile number of the project manager who will run your site, and how many other sites they carry in the same weeks.
- Bank details in the licensed company's name, never a personal account.
On money, the Dubai pattern runs an advance of 15 to 20 percent, milestone payments against verified progress, and retention of 5 to 10 percent through a 12-month defects liability period. Retention is the only leverage you keep once the crew has left.
Which type of firm suits which project
Sort by the shape of the job rather than by who ranks highest.
A cosmetic apartment refresh, meaning paint, flooring and light joinery, is best served by a small contractor priced trade by trade. A firm carrying a furniture factory has overheads your job will never use.
A villa with heavy carpentry, wardrobes through every bedroom, a full kitchen, panelling and solid doors, is where an in-house workshop earns its money. That is the shape ACE's published model fits.
Hospitality and food and beverage work needs a contractor fluent in Civil Defence submissions, kitchen extraction, grease traps and gas approvals. Those approvals set the programme, and pressure on the contractor does not compress them.
An office in a managed tower has a hidden gatekeeper. If the building runs an approved contractor list, that list beats your shortlist regardless of who impressed you, so ask the building manager for it first. Retail inside a mall adds the mall's fit-out manual, night working hours and a fixed handover window.
When you want design, construction and approvals under one contract and one warranty, a design and build contractor is the right shape. That is how we work at DOMECO: our own crew rather than per-job subcontractors, a price fixed at signature, a one-year workmanship warranty, and a daily penalty on ourselves if we miss the handover date. Our scope is set out in services, finished work sits on the projects page, and you can send a floor plan through contacts. Ask us for the licence copy first, the same way you should ask ACE.
What this work costs in Dubai
Treat these as current market bands, not a quote for your unit.
Apartment renovation runs roughly AED 150 to 1,500 or more per square foot depending on finish level, with a full mid-range one-bedroom generally landing between AED 100,000 and 200,000. Villa work sits at about AED 150 to 300 per square foot for cosmetic scope, AED 350 to 600 mid-range and AED 600 to 1,200 for high specification. On a turnkey basis that runs roughly AED 150,000 for a 3-bedroom to AED 1.5 million or more for a large 5-bedroom-plus project, before VAT and contingency.
Office fit-out runs about AED 280 to 600 per square foot, and food and beverage typically AED 500 to 2,000 or more, driven by kitchen complexity. MEP takes 30 to 40 percent of an office budget and 45 to 55 percent on a restaurant, which is why a quote that leaves MEP unnamed can look 40 percent cheaper while covering half the job. The full breakdown sits in our fit-out cost per square foot guide.
Our own residential benchmarks start at AED 1,500 per square metre for cosmetic work and AED 3,000 per square metre for a capital renovation, with turnkey at AED 8,500 to 16,000 per square metre including furniture and appliances. A 150 square metre apartment typically runs two to six months on site.
FAQ
Is ACE Interiors the same company as ACE Hardware in Dubai?
No. Al-Futtaim ACE is a retail chain selling hardware, paint, garden and home products from about ten stores across the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar since 1991. ACE Interior Design and Decoration LLC is a separate fit-out contractor in Ras Al Khor Industrial Area 2. They share three letters and nothing else.
Does ACE Interior Design have its own factory?
Its furniture industry arm publishes a manufacturing scope covering kitchen cabinets, wardrobes, panelling, doors, frames, upholstery and wooden flooring at the Ras Al Khor address. In-house joinery usually means better control over the longest lead item on a residential job. Ask to visit the workshop, which any firm with a real one will arrange.
What projects has ACE Interiors completed in Dubai?
No named project list, client references, contract values or completion dates appear in public sources, so we are not going to invent any. Request three finished projects of your own type with dates and a client contact, and ask to walk one. Apply that test to every firm you shortlist.
Do I need a contractor with a building contracting licence?
Only if your scope touches the structure, which covers removing or opening a load-bearing wall, cutting through a slab, or building an extension. Finishes, partitions and joinery sit under an interior decoration or fit-out implementation activity. An interior licence used for structural work invalidates your permit and your contract, so read the activities against your scope before signing.
How much should I pay a Dubai fit-out contractor upfront?
The market pattern is an advance of 15 to 20 percent, then milestone payments against verified progress on site, with 5 to 10 percent retained through a defects liability period of roughly 12 months. Anything above 30 percent upfront hands over your leverage on day one. Pay into the licensed company's account only.