Restaurant Feasibility Study Consultant in Oman

By Ralph Homer, founder of Praxis Model · 33 years and more than 300 restaurant projects · Updated October 18, 2026 · اقرأ بالعربية

In short. Praxis Model prepares restaurant and cafe feasibility studies for investors opening in Muscat, Salalah, Sohar, Nizwa and across Oman. You get a complete study of your concept, your location and your numbers, with a clear verdict, delivered in seven days. One location costs USD 3,999 (about OMR 1,540) at our founding price.

Scope, price and timeline

Praxis Model is a restaurant feasibility study consultancy for Oman and the six GCC markets. Fixed, published prices from USD 3,999. Delivered in seven days. Built for investment licence, bank, investor and landlord submissions.

Most feasibility work in the Gulf is priced after a call and delivered in weeks. Ours is priced on this page and delivered in days.

Who it is for

You have a concept and a budget, and you are close to signing something in Oman: a lease in a Muscat mall or on the Qurum strip, a partner agreement, a franchise contract, or an investment licence application. Before that signature, you want to know whether the restaurant will make money, how much it will really cost to open, and how long the cash has to last.

Our clients are usually one of three people. An Omani founder with a concept, who may also want Development Bank or bank finance. A Gulf operator with a proven restaurant in Dubai or Riyadh who wants to bring it to Muscat or Salalah. Or a foreign investor setting up a fully owned company in Oman, who needs a feasibility study for the investment licence as well as for the decision.

What a feasibility study is, and why a free template is not enough

A feasibility study answers one question in writing: is this restaurant worth your money? Free templates are easy to find and they show the general shape. What they cannot know is your unit in Al Mouj or Al Khuwair, your menu, your rent, or what work permits and Omanisation will cost for your team. Restaurants in Oman rarely fail in the general shape. They fail on the details a template leaves blank.

That is why we start with the concept and work outward. The menu decides the equipment, the equipment decides the floor area you lease, and the seats multiplied by the average bill decide the sales the site has to deliver.

How we prepare a restaurant feasibility study in Oman

1. The concept first. The idea, the menu and the guests, before a single rial is committed.
2. The site, at every hour. Morning, afternoon, evening and late at night, and in summer too, or through the Khareef season in Salalah. Footfall, parking, the mall or street around you, and the neighbours: who trades well, who has closed, and why.
3. The capital budget. Fit-out, kitchen, the commercial registration and, for a foreign owner, the investment licence, civil defence and municipal approvals, signage, deposits, pre-opening salaries, marketing, working capital and contingency. Our rule: a 5 percent contingency on the build, and working capital for three months of fixed costs.
4. Sales. Covers and average spend by time of day and by season, Ramadan, the summer and Khareef included, built from your menu and your seats rather than from hope.
5. Costs. Food, staff, work permits, Omani hires and social insurance, rent, utilities, VAT, any tourism fee and delivery commissions, line by line.
6. Break-even and payback. The monthly sales that cover your costs, when you reach them, and when the money comes back.
7. The verdict. Go, or Go with Conditions. When the answer is no, we say so plainly, with what would have to change.

Opening a restaurant in Oman: the rules we price

Rules change, so we check them live for every study. This is what the official sources said when we last checked, on 18 October 2026.

Licensing

• The company. The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion registers companies on the Oman Business platform. It puts registration at one week to ten working days when the file is complete, with government fees for a standard limited liability company of about OMR 50 to 150.
• The investment licence, for foreign owners. Every company under the Foreign Capital Investment Law registers for an investment licence after its commercial registration. The government portal lists a technical and economic feasibility study among the required documents, with the lease, a bank statement and the investor's experience. The fee is OMR 0.900 and the licence lasts two years.
• Civil defence. Under Decision No. 34 of 2023, plan review costs OMR 0.050 per square metre and the facility licence OMR 10 a year. A temporary licence of OMR 15 for three months, renewable twice, covers the fit-out.
• Tourism classification. Since 17 April 2026, a restaurant or cafe in a tourist area, inside a hotel or run under a franchise is a tourist establishment. It needs a classification certificate (OMR 200) before opening, and adds a 4 percent tourism fee and an 8 percent service charge, paid to staff, to the bill. A franchised cafe in a Muscat mall falls under this rule.

Ownership

• Up to 100 percent, no minimum capital. Foreign investors may own 100 percent in more than 1,700 activities, with no minimum capital requirement. Dine-in restaurants and fixed cafes are open to them.
• What is reserved for Omanis. Mobile cafes, grocery stores and Omani halwa making are on the list closed to foreign investors, which stood at 123 activities after 2024.
• The owner supervises, he does not work. A foreign investor may only supervise his business, not work in it, so an owner-chef model does not fit. The study budgets a head chef from day one.
• One Omani, within a year. Since 6 October 2025, every company set up by a foreign investor must hire at least one Omani within a year of starting trade, or face a block on the platform.

Your team

• Work permits depend on Omanisation. Under Decision No. 602 of 2025, a work permit costs OMR 301, 251 or 201 by category. The fee falls by 30 percent when the employer meets its Omanisation ratio and doubles when it does not. For a 20-person team on the lowest category, that is about OMR 2,800 a year when compliant and OMR 8,000 when not, by our arithmetic.
• Some roles are Omani-only. Delivery drivers and marketing specialists are among the professions reserved for Omanis, which pushes most concepts towards the delivery apps. In 2024 the Ministry of Labour also suspended new recruitment from abroad of waiters and general cooks for six months; we confirm the current position for every study.
• Omani pay. The minimum wage for an Omani in the private sector is OMR 325 a month, and the employer adds 14.5 percent social insurance (3 percent for expatriate staff).

Tax

• VAT is 5 percent, while 488 basic food items are zero-rated, so many of your kitchen purchases carry no VAT while your sales do. The study plans the cash flow around it.
• Excise is 50 percent on sweetened and carbonated drinks and 100 percent on energy drinks.
• Corporate tax is 15 percent, or 3 percent for a small business with capital up to OMR 60,000, revenue up to OMR 150,000 and up to 25 staff. A single cafe may qualify, which changes its profit after tax; we confirm eligibility for your structure.

What restaurant space costs in Muscat

None of the research houses publishes retail rents per square metre for Muscat, so any figure you see quoted without a source is a guess. What the reports do say is that Mall of Oman and Oman Avenues Mall keep high occupancy, that food and leisure are taking a larger share of mall space, and that landlords now offer hybrid leases with a base rent plus a share of turnover. We price your unit from its own offer and the comparable units around it, and we model the turnover rent at your forecast sales, because a percentage rent can quietly take the margin.

Our rule on rent: 12 to 15 percent of sales is the norm, and 20 percent is the absolute maximum, only for a very prime site. Above that, the restaurant works for the landlord. You can test your own numbers with our free restaurant break-even calculator.

The feasibility study for Oman's investment licence, and for financing

• Foreign investors need the study for the licence. The investment licence lists a technical and economic feasibility study as a required document. In May 2024 the ministry said, through the state news agency, that this study should come from one of the offices approved by the Development Bank. The current portal does not repeat that condition, and no list of approved offices is published, so ask the Investment Services Centre which offices it accepts before you commission any study.
• How we work with it. We build the full study, the market work, the financial model and the location analysis, in seven days, and we structure it so an Oman-approved office can review and file it. We never claim our study replaces that approval.
• Omani founders have more doors. The Development Bank offers small-enterprise loans, including interest-free loans of up to OMR 15,000 for full-time entrepreneurs. The Riyada card from the SME Development Authority is for enterprises fully owned and run by Omanis. Commercial banks set their own requirements, so ask your lender which study format it expects.

We build every study to be read by a lender or a licensing officer: sources and uses, a monthly profit and loss, cash flow and break-even, with every assumption written down. We never arrange financing and we take no fee from any bank or fund. The study is yours to present, and the Investor Edition gives you a presentation version for exactly that meeting.

The Oman market in four numbers

• About 4 million visitors in 2025, staying 6.5 nights on average (National Centre for Statistics and Information).
• OMR 198.8 million: restaurants' share of tourism value added in 2025, third after hotels and travel agencies.
• 43.5 percent of Oman's tourism businesses are in Muscat, then Dhofar and North Al Batinah.
• 1,116,051 visitors to Salalah in the 2026 Khareef season, up 8.6 percent, in about ten weeks.

Hotel occupancy fell in the first half of 2026, so a concept that leans on hotel guests needs careful covers, and a Salalah site has to pay its rent in the other 42 weeks of the year too. We model both.

The four questions investors ask us first

• What kind of concept? Any food and beverage concept: a cafe, a quick-service counter, casual dining, fine dining, a cloud kitchen or a kiosk. Sales are built from your own menu, seats and dayparts, so the model fits the concept rather than the other way round.
• Which area? Qurum, Shatti Al Qurum, Al Mouj, Al Khuwair, Muttrah, Seeb and the main malls of Muscat, as well as Salalah, Sohar, Nizwa and Duqm. The study is built for your exact site, its rent and the trading pattern around it.
• Is it for the investment licence, a bank, investors or your own decision? All of them. The same study serves your own go or no-go and a submission to a licensing officer, a lender, an investor or a landlord.
• Omani founder or foreign investor? Both. The structure decides which licence and financing doors are open, as the sections above show, so we price your route before we price your kitchen. For the legal structure itself you will need a lawyer; our guide to local partners and sponsors in 2026 explains the options.

What the study contains

Every study is built from the ground up for your concept and your site. No templates with your name pasted on top. It covers nine sections:

1. Company at a glance. The concept, the site, the people and the plan on one page.
2. Sources and uses. Where the money comes from and exactly where it goes.
3. The capital budget. Every line it takes to open: build-out, kitchen, licences, deposits, pre-opening salaries, launch marketing, working capital and contingency.
4. Sales, engineered. Covers, average spend and seasonality, Ramadan, summer and Khareef included, built from the menu and the seats, not from hope.
5. The cost engine. Food, staff and permits, rent, utilities and every other cost, line by line.
6. Profit and loss. Month by month for the first year.
7. The five-year view. Growth, cash and returns over five years.
8. Break-even. The sales you need each month to cover your costs, and when you reach them.
9. The thesis. Our verdict and the reasons for it.

How it works

1. The conversation. We start with what you want to achieve and the risks you carry, not the numbers you want to hear.
2. The analysis. We test your concept against the market, the numbers, the competition and what has actually happened to restaurants like it in the Gulf.
3. The report. You receive the study within seven days, with a direct recommendation and the next steps.
4. The meeting. We walk you through it and answer your questions. Most investors have plenty, and we take the time to answer them properly.

Prices

A feasibility study is the cheapest money you will spend on a restaurant. It costs a fraction of one month’s rent on a good Muscat site, and it is the only point where every mistake is still free to fix.

Commission your study ›

Why Praxis Model

I have spent 33 years opening and running restaurants and advising the investors behind them, with more than 300 projects across the Gulf and beyond, Oman among them. I know which line in a budget goes wrong first, which lease clause hurts in year two, and why a concept that queues around the block in one city can sit empty in another.

Our studies are built on that experience, and on a simple rule: make every mistake on paper, never with your money.

You can read how we think about costs in what a restaurant feasibility study costs in the GCC, or see a full sample study before you commission one.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a restaurant feasibility study cost in Oman?

USD 3,999 (about OMR 1,540) for one location at our founding price (standard price USD 6,999). Studies covering two or more locations cost less per site.

How long does a feasibility study take?

Seven days from the moment we have your information.

Do you cover Salalah, Sohar and Nizwa as well as Muscat?

Yes. We work across Oman, and in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Does a foreign investor need a feasibility study in Oman?

Yes, for the investment licence: the government portal lists a technical and economic feasibility study as a required document. The ministry has said the study should come from an office approved by the Development Bank, so ask the Investment Services Centre which offices it accepts. We build the full study and structure it so an approved office can review and file it.

Can a foreigner own 100 percent of a restaurant in Oman?

Yes, a dine-in restaurant or a fixed cafe can be 100 percent foreign-owned with no minimum capital. Mobile cafes are reserved for Omanis, the foreign owner may supervise but not work in the business, and the company must hire at least one Omani within a year of opening.

Do restaurants in Oman add a tourism fee to the bill?

Restaurants and cafes in tourist areas, inside hotels or run under a franchise are tourist establishments since April 2026. They add a 4 percent tourism fee and an 8 percent service charge to the bill and need a classification certificate before opening.

Is my concept kept confidential?

Always. We never name or show a client’s concept, numbers or location to anyone.

Commission your study · See a sample study · thesis@praxismodel.io

Praxis Model is a financial feasibility specialist for GCC hospitality. Prices shown are founding prices in US dollars and may change; rial amounts are approximate at 0.3845 to the dollar. Rules, fees and figures are summarised from the official and published sources listed above as of 18 October 2026, are not legal or tax advice, and are checked again for every study. Client work is confidential: we never name or show a client’s concept, numbers or location.