INC Interiors Dubai: what the public record shows and how to vet a fit-out firm

What the public record shows about INC in Dubai

The brand you find when you search "INC interiors Dubai" mostly resolves to INC Solutions, also styled INC Group, at inc-solutions.com. A separate Dun & Bradstreet record exists for INC Interiors LLC with an Abu Dhabi branch entry. Same family of names, different registration, and that distinction matters later.

The Dubai office is listed at Dubai Hills Business Park 1, with +971 4 392 9975 and info@inc-solutions.com as the published contacts. The company states 17 years in the market and a footprint covering the UAE, Saudi Arabia (Riyadh), South Africa (Johannesburg), the UK (London) and the United States (New York, Miami, Dallas).

RocketReach puts headcount at roughly 32 people and revenue at roughly USD 3 million. That is an aggregator estimate built from scraped signals, not filed accounts, so treat it as an order of magnitude rather than a number. It is still useful: a firm of that size runs a handful of live sites at once, not thirty.

On its own site the company claims the title Design & Build Firm of the Year 2025 and names Visa, Gibson Dunn and Hogan Lovells among its clients. Those are the company's published claims, and we have not seen third-party confirmation of the award. The client names do tell you something concrete about positioning. Payments and international law firms buy corporate office fit-out with a confidentiality and security overlay on top, which is a different animal from a villa in Meadows.

The name is ambiguous, and that is the first thing to fix

Search HiDubai and you will find similar INC names registered at other addresses, including Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid and Al Barsha. Those are almost certainly separate legal entities. Three letters make for a short brand, and Dubai's commercial register has plenty of collisions.

So before anything else, confirm that the company whose portfolio you looked at is the company that will sign your contract. The legal name on the agreement, the name on the trade licence, the name issuing the invoice and the name on the bank account should all be identical. When they diverge, you have no idea who you are actually contracting with, and neither does a court.

The DED licence number for this brand does not appear in the open sources we could reach. That is not an accusation. Plenty of legitimate contractors keep the number off the website, and licence data is not uniformly exposed in public directories. It simply means the check falls to you. Asking any contractor for a copy of the trade licence is normal practice in Dubai, and a straight firm sends it the same day. Reluctance is the signal, not the absence of a number from a homepage.

When the copy arrives, read four things. The legal name, the licence number, the expiry date, and the listed activities. Fit-out work needs an activity that covers interior decoration or fit-out contracting. A design consultancy licence or a general trading licence does not permit site execution, and if the firm intends to build under someone else's licence, you want that stated in the contract rather than discovered in week three.

Approvals, and who carries them in your contract

Authority depends on where the property sits, not on who your contractor is. Mainland addresses go to Dubai Municipality. Nakheel communities such as Palm Jumeirah and the Jebel Ali belt go through Trakhees. TECOM zones including Dubai Design District sit with the Dubai Development Authority, and JLT with DMCC. Several master-developer and industrial zones run their own engineering departments. Confirm the specific zone authority for your unit before anyone drafts a programme, because the wrong assumption costs weeks.

Civil Defence is a separate track and applies on top. Fire alarm, sprinkler coverage, extraction, emergency lighting and escape routes are reviewed on their own timetable. On offices and F&B this is where programmes slip most often, and it is not a line item you can compress by pushing the contractor.

Realistic planning numbers: allow one to three weeks per approving authority before mobilisation, and 8 to 16 weeks on site for a standard office fit-out. Between 15 June and 15 September the midday break rule stops outdoor work from 12:30 to 15:00, which is a real constraint on any summer programme with external scope.

Your contract should name each authority in the scope, say who prepares and submits the drawings, say who pays the fees, and say what happens to the completion date if an approval runs long. "Approvals are the client's responsibility" is a legitimate arrangement only when it is priced and scheduled somewhere. Undefined, it is a hole you will fall into.

Insurance, money, and one named person

Ask for current insurance certificates, not a line in a brochure. Contractor's all risk with third-party liability is the base cover, workmen's compensation sits alongside it, and professional indemnity applies where the firm is also doing the design. Check the sum insured against your project value. A policy capped at a token figure protects nobody.

Payment structure is where leverage lives. The market pattern in Dubai runs an advance of 15 to 20 percent, milestone payments of roughly 20, 20 and 20 to 25 percent against verified progress, a balance at handover, and retention of 5 to 10 percent held through the defects liability period, typically 12 months. Retention is the only money you still control after the crew has gone home. We set out how the milestones and the retention should be written in our payment schedule guide.

Then get a name. Not "our team will manage it", but the project manager who will run your site, their phone number, and how many other projects they are carrying in the same period. For a firm operating across several countries with an estimated three dozen staff, that last question is worth asking twice.

The scope of work should be detailed enough that a variation is obvious when it happens: room by room, trade by trade, with a material schedule attached. Demolition, MEP, tiling, joinery and paint separated into their own lines. If those sit inside one lump sum, every change becomes a negotiation with no reference price, and you will lose it.

Red flags worth walking away from

• A fixed price with no defined scope. The number means nothing until you know what it buys.
• No named project manager anywhere in the proposal.
• Subcontracting that is not disclosed. Ask who holds the MEP scope specifically, and whether they are licensed.
• An advance above 30 percent, which hands over your leverage on day one.
• A quote 30 percent below everyone else's. Something has been excluded, usually the approvals or the MEP.
• Payment requested to a personal bank account rather than the licensed company's.

Where this profile fits, and where you want someone else

A commercially focused design and build firm is the right shape for an office, a restaurant, a retail unit or a corporate headquarters. That is where INC's published work and named clients sit, and specialisation in that segment is a genuine advantage. Commercial approvals, MEP coordination and landlord requirements are their own discipline, and generalists learn them expensively on your programme.

The same focus tells you when to look elsewhere. If your project is a villa or an apartment, a firm whose residential portfolio you can actually walk through will serve you better. A multi-country footprint helps with regional brand rollouts and matters very little on a single Dubai floor plate, so ask what resource the Dubai entity holds rather than what the group does globally. And if your building operates an approved contractor list, that list overrides your shortlist regardless of who impressed you.

If the unit is a rental, a cosmetic refresh usually returns better than a capital renovation, and saying so costs us work. Tenants do not pay a premium for reworked MEP they cannot see. Save the capital spend for a property you occupy or for a unit where the rent band genuinely jumps after a full rebuild. Per-square-foot numbers by property type are broken down in our fit-out cost guide.

We work the same market from the residential and commercial side, with an in-house crew rather than per-job subcontractors, a price fixed at signature, a one-year workmanship warranty and a daily penalty on ourselves if the handover date slips. Finished work is on our projects page, the scope of what we cover is set out in services, and you can send a floor plan through contacts. Ask us for the licence copy and the insurance certificates first, the same way you should ask anyone else.

FAQ

Is INC Interiors the same company as INC Solutions?

They appear to be related but not identical. The active Dubai-facing brand is INC Solutions at inc-solutions.com, while INC Interiors LLC exists as a separate record with an Abu Dhabi branch entry in Dun & Bradstreet. Similar INC names also appear at other Dubai addresses in HiDubai, most likely different legal entities. Confirm the exact legal name on the contract before you sign.

Why can I not find their DED licence number online?

Licence numbers are not consistently published on company websites or in third-party directories, so absence from public sources says nothing about legitimacy. The fix is direct: ask for a copy of the trade licence with the number, expiry date and listed activities. Any established contractor in Dubai sends it without hesitation.

What does a commercial fit-out cost in Dubai?

Standard office fit-out runs roughly AED 280 to 600 per square foot, and F&B typically AED 500 to 2,000 or more depending on kitchen complexity. MEP scope drives the figure more than floor area does, taking 30 to 40 percent of an office budget and 45 to 55 percent on a restaurant. Any quote that leaves MEP unnamed can look 40 percent cheaper while covering half the job.

How much retention should I hold on a fit-out contract?

Five to 10 percent of the contract value, released after the defects liability period ends, usually 12 months from handover. Retention is what keeps a contractor answering the phone once the site is clean. Write it into the contract alongside a dated delay penalty, because a missed deadline without a written consequence is only a conversation.

Who handles the authority approvals, me or the contractor?

Whoever the contract says, which is why the wording matters more than the promise. A design and build firm normally prepares and submits the drawings to Dubai Municipality, the free zone authority or Trakhees, and to Civil Defence, with fees either included or listed as a separate cost. If approvals are pushed to you, insist they are priced and placed on the programme.