That is no longer the case, and QFC licensed entities now serve a wide array of businesses. 

The permitted activities that can be undertaken in or from the QFC are prescribed by Qatari Law No. 7 of 2005, as amended (the QFC Law) and are termed “Permitted Activities”, which include regulated and non-regulated activities.

The QFC Law provides six permitted non-regulated activities, the first being “The business of providing professional services, including but not limited to provision of audit, accounting, legal, tax or consultancy services”.

In order to help promote the non-regulated side of businesses and following a review of professional services in 2014, the Board of the QFC Authority approved 17 additional activities which it considered could fall within the realm of professional services, namely:

• information technology consultancy activities

• advertising agencies

• architectural activities

• engineering design activities for industrial process and production

• engineering related scientific and technical consulting activities

• media representation services

• translation and interpretation activities