Remote AI and Web Developer for the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar

What can you hire me to build?

AI chatbots and agents first, then the software around them. Each line of work has its own page with the scope and the limits.

I build in English. Some of my own products publish translated pages in Arabic, but I do not design or build Arabic or right-to-left websites for clients.

How do our working hours and work weeks line up?

Closely. India (UTC+5:30) is 1 hour 30 minutes ahead of the UAE (UTC+4) and 2 hours 30 minutes ahead of Saudi Arabia and Qatar (UTC+3), and none of the four uses daylight saving time, so the gap never changes.

The work weeks differ. The UAE federal government has worked Monday to Thursday with a half day on Friday since 1 January 2022, and Sharjah's government takes Friday to Sunday off. The official weekend in Saudi Arabia and Qatar is Friday and Saturday. I work Monday to Friday, so with Riyadh and Doha we share Monday to Thursday in full. We agree in the quote how Sunday requests are handled, and I do not schedule a production release for a day your team is off. During Ramadan, when working hours in the region shorten, we move the call slot to fit.

Do we pay VAT on your invoice, and what about Saudi withholding tax?

My invoice from India carries no Gulf VAT. The points below are what each tax authority publishes; your accountant decides how they apply to you.

Because of the Saudi withholding tax, my quote for a Saudi client says whether the price is gross or net of it. Payment is by direct invoice in US dollars, or through Upwork or Fiverr if you prefer a marketplace's payment protection.

What does WhatsApp cost per message in the Gulf?

Meta charges per delivered message, and the rate depends on the customer's country code. Since 1 October 2026, replies to customers are charged too, after 1,000 free service messages per business number each month. These are Meta's list rates in US dollars from its 1 October 2026 rate card:

Authentication messages to local numbers cost the same as utility messages; Meta's international authentication rate is $0.051 in the UAE and $0.0598 in Saudi Arabia. So 10,000 service replies a month from one number (the first 1,000 free) cost about $141 in the UAE, $96 in Saudi Arabia and $108 in Qatar in Meta fees, before the AI model and any WhatsApp provider's markup. Messages in the free window that opens when a customer starts the chat from a click-to-WhatsApp ad are not charged, and Meta says that window can stay open for up to 7 days. My WhatsApp chatbot cost guide works through a full month, and the build itself is described on WhatsApp AI chatbot development.

Where can your data stay, and which privacy laws apply?

All three countries have data protection laws, and the Saudi and UAE laws both reach processing done from abroad. Saudi Arabia's Personal Data Protection Law applies to processing of data about people residing in the Kingdom "by any means from any party outside the Kingdom", and SDAIA's transfer regulation names standard contractual clauses as one safeguard. The UAE's Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 applies to processing "inside or outside the country". Qatar's Law No. 13 of 2016 requires processors to protect personal data and report breaches to the controller.

In practice, an agent can be built to keep personal data out of AI prompts unless the task needs it. I review and sign a data processing agreement when you need one, and host in the region when your rules call for it. These are the in-region options each cloud provider lists today:

Can your billing system meet the e-invoicing deadlines?

Two deadlines matter for VAT-registered businesses that ZATCA notifies or that fall under the UAE system, including hosting companies that bill from WHMCS.

• Saudi Arabia. ZATCA's Wave 25 covers taxpayers whose VAT-taxable revenue exceeded SAR 187,500 in any year from 2022 to 2025. They must integrate their e-invoicing solutions with the Fatoora platform by 1 February 2027.
• UAE. Under Ministerial Decision No. 244 of 2025, as amended, businesses with revenue of AED 50 million or more had to appoint an Accredited Service Provider by 30 October 2026 and must implement e-invoicing by 1 January 2027; smaller businesses have until 31 March 2027 and 1 July 2027. Business-to-consumer transactions are excluded for now. Ministerial Decision No. 197 of 2026, effective 1 October 2026, removed the requirement to store e-invoice data inside the UAE.

WHMCS has no built-in support for either. Its only e-invoicing add-on, released with WHMCS 9.0, is a limited release for installations in Belgium. A Saudi host on WHMCS needs an e-invoicing solution integrated with Fatoora, and a UAE host needs a connection to an Accredited Service Provider. I can connect WHMCS to an e-invoicing provider's API, scoped as a WHMCS module project.

Which payment gateways and domains work for Gulf customers?

Stripe lists the UAE among its supported countries but not Saudi Arabia or Qatar, so Saudi and Qatari businesses usually need a regional gateway. These are common gateways for merchants in the region, and what each vendor says about WHMCS:

Domains have their own rules. A plain .ae domain needs no documents under the TDRA policy, while co.ae needs a UAE trade license, a free zone license or a UAE trademark. Saudi domains are limited to applicants tied to the Kingdom, such as a local entity, a Saudi national or the owner of a trademark registered there, and .com.sa needs a commercial registration or equivalent, or a locally registered trade name or trademark. Qatar's com.qa needs a Qatari commercial registration or trademark. WHMCS 9.1 ships no extra domain fields for .ae, .sa or .qa, so a hosting company that sells co.ae, com.sa or com.qa needs custom fields, or a registrar module that collects those documents at checkout.

What work have I done in the region?

I was Technical Lead at Fada.cloud, a cloud provider serving Jordan and Saudi Arabia, where I worked on billing, workload isolation and operations tools. That was a past role. I now have clients in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who are not named here. My own product ElyAgents, multi-tenant business software with WhatsApp, payment and lead integrations, is also in the portfolio. Public reviews are on my Upwork and Fiverr profiles: Top Rated on both, with 580+ five-star reviews on Fiverr.

When am I the wrong choice for you?

• You need an Arabic or right-to-left website.
• You need a developer on site in Dubai, Riyadh or Doha, or a local legal entity on the contract.
• Your tender requires a locally licensed company or in-country staff.
• You need a large team at once. I am one developer and take a few projects at a time.

Disclosure: I am CTO at ElySpace, a freelance developer for Marmaids LLC, and founder of WHMCSPilot and MagizAI, and I was Technical Lead at Fada.cloud. Tax, e-invoicing, privacy and domain points on this page summarize the UAE Federal Tax Authority and Ministry of Finance, ZATCA, SDAIA, Qatar's General Tax Authority and Communications Regulatory Authority, TDRA, SaudiNIC, Meta, the cloud providers and the gateway vendors as read on 28 October 2026. They are not legal or tax advice.