Free Zone License Dubai 2026: Cost, Types and Process

A free zone license in Dubai costs between roughly AED 12,500 and AED 30,000 a year depending on which zone issues it. DMCC publishes the most transparent schedule in the emirate at AED 20,285 for the annual trade licence, AED 9,020 registration and AED 1,035 application, while Meydan and Dubai South start near AED 12,500 a year for a zero-visa licence and IFZA sits around AED 12,900. The licence itself is only part of the bill: the establishment card, visa allocation, medical, Emirates ID and health insurance are all priced separately, and a licence with one investor visa realistically lands between AED 17,000 and AED 25,000 in a Dubai zone.

That gap between the headline licence fee and the number you actually pay is where most Dubai free zone budgets break. This guide sets out what a free zone license in Dubai buys you in 2026, the licence categories you can choose from, what each of the main Dubai zones charges, which zones publish real prices and which publish nothing at all, how visa quota is calculated, the new mainland access route introduced by Executive Council Resolution No. 11 of 2025, and the corporate tax position that now applies to every free zone company. Where a figure is set by an authority we say which authority, and where nothing is published we say that too, because a confident price table over a zone that discloses nothing is fiction.

What a free zone license in Dubai actually is

A free zone licence is a trade licence issued by a free zone authority rather than by the emirate's economic department. In Dubai, the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) licenses mainland companies, while each free zone runs its own registry, issues its own licences and maintains its own immigration establishment file. DMCC, Dubai Airport Free Zone (DAFZA), Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), Jebel Ali Free Zone, Dubai South, Meydan Free Zone, Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), Dubai Internet City and Dubai Media City are separate authorities, not branches of one system.

Three practical consequences follow from that, and they matter more than the marketing.

Your company is registered where the licence is. The licence names the issuing authority, the legal form (commonly a Free Zone Establishment for a single shareholder or a Free Zone LLC for several), and the exact activities you may perform. Banks, clients and government portals all read that document. Changing zones later means a new company, not a transfer.

Your immigration quota comes from the zone, not from the federal system. Free zone companies file visas through their own authority's establishment file, in Dubai typically routed to the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA), while companies in several other emirates use the ICP-linked eChannel system. Your quota is fixed by your workspace, which we cover below.

Full foreign ownership is no longer the differentiator. The Commercial Companies Law reforms opened full foreign ownership to most mainland activities from 2021. If someone is still selling a Dubai free zone licence on the basis that it is the only way to own 100% of your company, the pitch is several years out of date. The real reasons to choose a free zone in 2026 are customs treatment on re-export, a lighter registration process, predictable annual pricing, and the corporate tax position for qualifying activities.

The licence categories, and which one you need

Dubai free zones group activities into a small number of licence types. The names vary between zones but the substance does not.

• Commercial or trading licence. Import, export, distribution and re-export of specified goods. Most zones cap the number of related activities on one licence, typically three to ten, and charge for additions.
• General trading licence. The unrestricted version, allowing most non-regulated goods under one licence. It costs materially more. In KEZAD, for example, general trading renewal runs to AED 15,000 against AED 5,000 for a standard licence, and Dubai zones apply a similar premium.
• Service or professional licence. Consulting, marketing, IT services, management, design and similar. This is the cheapest and fastest category in most zones and the right one for the majority of founders who sell time and expertise.
• Industrial licence. Manufacturing, assembly, processing and packaging. It requires a warehouse or industrial unit, which pushes the annual cost well beyond a desk-based licence and usually adds municipal and civil defence approvals.
• E-commerce licence. A distinct category in several zones for online retail. It is not always cheaper than a standard commercial licence, so compare rather than assume.

Two category traps are worth naming. First, regulated activities do not sit inside a standard licence: financial services, insurance, healthcare, education and legal practice all need a sector regulator's approval on top, and some are simply not available in a given zone. Second, an activity list that looks generous on a website is often subject to the zone's own internal approval. Confirm your exact activity in writing before you pay, because an activity amendment after issuance is a paid change in every zone.

Free zone license Dubai cost in 2026: the real numbers

The table below separates what the authority publishes from what a client actually pays through a consultancy. Figures marked as published come from the authority's own fee schedule and should be confirmed on the official portal, since Dubai revised several fee positions during 2026.

For contrast, licences outside Dubai start far lower. Ajman Media City publishes AED 4,999 for a zero-visa licence that renews at the same figure, Ajman NuVentures Centre Free Zone quotes 4,899 at zero visas and 10,800 with one, SHAMS is 5,750 for a media licence and 6,875 for trading, RAKEZ starts at 5,999, and Umm Al Quwain Free Trade Zone publishes an all-in package at AED 12,500 that already includes one investor visa, Emirates ID, medical and insurance.

That last comparison is the one founders react to. A Dubai zone's entry price frequently buys you a licence and nothing else, while a northern-emirates package at the same number can include the first visa outright. If your clients never ask where your licence was issued, and many B2B and online clients do not, the Dubai premium is buying you an address rather than capability.

Which Dubai zones publish prices, and which publish nothing

This is the single most useful thing to know before comparing quotes, and almost nobody states it plainly.

Publishes a full, itemised schedule: DMCC. Every line above can be checked against its own schedule of charges.

Publishes a headline or a partial tariff: Meydan, JAFZA and DWTC. You can see a starting figure or a fee list, but not a complete package price.

Publishes nothing at all in dirhams: IFZA, DAFZA, Dubai Silicon Oasis and Dubai South. IFZA operates through a channel-partner model and carries no prices sitewide. Dubai DET also publishes no mainland trade licence fee schedule, which is worth remembering the next time you see a precise mainland-versus-free-zone cost comparison.

Two further cautions from checking these sources directly. Several official pages carry stale pricing that scrapers and AI tools keep recycling: Ajman Free Zone still hosts 2020 newsroom prices, SAIF Zone packages are labelled effective April to June 2020, and DWTC's package page has placeholder text where the prices belong. And Dubai announced relief packages totalling AED 2.5 billion across two Executive Council decisions in April and May 2026, covering fee deferrals and one-time market-fee exemptions, so any Dubai cost snapshot needs a date stamp against it. Ours is September 2026.

Visa quota: the number that decides your real cost

A free zone license in Dubai almost never includes visas. Quota is a function of the workspace you lease, and this is where a cheap licence becomes an expensive company.

The published allocations differ sharply. Dubai South works to roughly one visa per 8 square metres. DWTC allocates about one per 7.4 square metres, or two per desk on a serviced arrangement. Dubai Silicon Oasis gives two visas on a flexi desk and three on a fixed desk. DAFZA grades by office size, with around three visas at 25 square metres and six at 50. Dubai Internet City works to one visa per 60 square feet. Meydan is the outlier in Dubai, permitting up to six allocations with no office lease at all, which is why it appears so often in low-cost Dubai proposals.

Then there is the immigration stack itself, which is government-priced and separate from the zone's fee. Establishment card is AED 300, plus AED 2,000 for the e-system the first time. A residence permit runs AED 100 for the application plus AED 100 per year plus AED 100 for smart services. Emirates ID is AED 100 per year of residence plus AED 100 smart service, with AED 150 more for urgent processing. A standard medical in Dubai is AED 270, rising to AED 700 for a same-week premium service. Changing status from a visit visa inside the country is AED 500 federally, and zones add their own charge, AED 1,600 at IFZA and AED 1,500 at Meydan and Dubai South. Overstay accrues at AED 50 per day. Confirm each of these on the ICP or GDRFA portal before you commit, because fee positions change.

Run that stack once and the pattern is obvious. In Sharjah Publishing City, a licence at AED 5,750 plus an immigration stack of AED 7,415 produces a real licence-plus-one-visa figure of AED 13,165, which is 129% on top of the headline. Dubai zones behave the same way. Budget the stack, not the sticker.

Mainland access: what Resolution No. 11 of 2025 changed

Until 2025, a Dubai free zone company that wanted to work onshore had to open a separate mainland entity. Executive Council Resolution No. (11) of 2025, published on Dubai's official legislation portal, created a formal route instead. It is the most consequential change to the value of a Dubai free zone licence in years, and it applies only to Dubai.

Article 4 sets out three routes, all requiring approval from DET and the free zone authority:

Three conditions deserve attention. Article 2 excludes financial establishments licensed in the Dubai International Financial Centre. Article 3(b) requires the establishment to maintain separate financial records for activities conducted outside the free zone, distinct from those kept for in-zone activity, which is an accounting obligation, not a formality. And DET controls the list of eligible economic activities, so the route is open for permitted activities rather than for everything on your licence.

If your licence is issued in Ajman, Sharjah or Ras Al Khaimah, none of this applies to you. Those companies remain governed by the federal position: under the Commercial Companies Law, a free zone company practising its activities on the mainland needs a licence from that emirate's economic department. Services performed from free zone premises and invoiced to mainland clients are a different matter and remain permissible, but physical on-site work onshore is not. That distinction, where the work is performed rather than where the invoice goes, is the whole test.

Corporate tax and VAT on a free zone licence

Free zone status is not a tax exemption, and treating it as one is the most expensive misunderstanding in this market.

The Ministry of Finance states that all taxable persons, including free zone persons, must register for corporate tax and obtain a registration number, and that returns are due within nine months of the end of the tax period, with payment on the same timeline. It also states that a free zone person meeting the conditions to be a Qualifying Free Zone Person can benefit from a corporate tax rate of 0% on its qualifying income. Non-qualifying income falls under the standard regime, where the first AED 375,000 of taxable income is taxed at 0% and the balance at 9%. Verify the current thresholds and conditions with the Federal Tax Authority before relying on them.

Two mechanics matter for planning. Qualifying status carries a de minimis limit on non-qualifying revenue, set at the lower of 5% of total revenue or AED 5 million, and breaching it costs qualifying status for five years, not one. Mainland-sourced revenue is generally non-qualifying, so the Resolution 11 route above has a tax consequence attached to its commercial benefit. Small business relief remains available to smaller companies and the Ministry of Finance has extended it to tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2029, with a revenue cap of AED 3 million per period. Confirm eligibility on the official portal.

On VAT, the standard rate of 5% applies to services supplied to mainland clients in the normal way. Free zone status does not remove a VAT registration obligation. Designated zones receive specific treatment for goods, not for services, which is a distinction that catches out consultancies incorporated in a designated zone.

The setup process, step by step

The sequence is consistent across Dubai zones even though the portals differ.

1. Fix the activity first, then the zone. Activity availability, not price, should drive zone selection. A zone that cannot licence your activity is not cheap, it is unusable.
2. Reserve the trade name. Names cannot suggest government affiliation, religious terms or the names of countries, and initials are restricted unless they match a shareholder. The federal trade name fee is AED 620 where it applies.
3. Submit the application with documents. Passport copies and photographs for all shareholders and the manager, the activity list, the proposed name and proof of address. Corporate shareholders add certificate of incorporation, board resolution and power of attorney, generally attested.
4. Pay and receive initial approval. Most Dubai zones require payment at submission, and several partner-model zones, IFZA among them, require the full amount before the file moves.
5. Sign the lease or desk agreement. Your registered address inside the zone, and the document that sets your visa quota.
6. Collect the licence and incorporation documents. Licence, certificate of incorporation, memorandum and share certificates. Expect roughly 12 to 15 working days in most Dubai zones and around 10 at DMCC.
7. Open the immigration file and the establishment card. Nothing visa-related can start before this exists.
8. Process visas in sequence. Entry permit, status change if the applicant is already in the country, medical, Emirates ID, then stamping. Two to three weeks per person is realistic.
9. Register for corporate tax, and for VAT if you meet the threshold. Registration is an obligation, not an option, and late registration carries penalties.
10. Open the bank account. This runs in parallel with visas and is the step with the least predictable timeline, because approval sits with the bank's compliance team and no consultancy can commit to an outcome on its behalf.

Renewals, amendments and the cost of year two

Year two is where the zone you picked either rewards you or punishes you, and almost no comparison table covers it.

DMCC's annual trade licence stays at AED 20,285 and its establishment card at AED 1,825, so the registration fee falls away but the recurring base is high. Meydan and Dubai South renew near AED 12,500 at zero visas and around AED 14,350 with one, and IFZA renews near AED 12,900 at zero visas but steps up differently from its formation tiers. The cheaper northern-emirates zones diverge most sharply: SHAMS renews at AED 5,750 with zero visas and AED 7,350 with one, and Ajman NuVentures renews at AED 4,888 and AED 9,900 respectively.

Amendments are all chargeable events. Adding an activity, changing a shareholder, changing the manager, increasing share capital, changing the company name or moving to a larger workspace each carry a fee and, in most cases, reissued documents. If you expect to add shareholders or activities within the first year, ask for those prices before you choose the zone rather than after.

Two recurring items are commonly left out of first-year quotes and are genuinely mandatory. Health insurance is required by law for every resident and is not included in free zone packages, budgeted at around AED 500 per person per year for a basic plan. And corporate tax registration and VAT registration are administrative tasks with a real cost if outsourced, in our case AED 400 and AED 500 respectively.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Comparing licence fees instead of total first-year cost. The licence is often less than half of what you pay in year one once establishment card, visa stack, medical, Emirates ID and insurance are added.
• Assuming the licence includes a visa. In most Dubai zones it includes zero. Check the visa count attached to the tier you are quoted, in writing.
• Picking a zone before confirming the activity. Activity lists differ, and regulated activities need a sector approval that some zones cannot obtain at all.
• Believing a free zone licence exempts you from corporate tax. Every free zone person must register and file. The 0% rate applies to qualifying income under conditions, and mainland-sourced revenue generally does not qualify.
• Treating a flexi desk as unlimited. Quota follows workspace. A team of five almost always forces an office lease that costs more than the licence.
• Applying Resolution No. 11 of 2025 to a non-Dubai licence. It is a Dubai instrument and excludes DIFC firms. An Ajman or Sharjah company gains nothing from it.
• Trusting a price found on an official page without a date. Several UAE free zone pages still display 2020 pricing, and one Dubai zone's package page carries placeholder text where prices should be.
• Ignoring the share capital line. Dubai Silicon Oasis sets a minimum of AED 100,000 and SAIF Zone requires AED 150,000, figures routinely omitted from cheap-zone comparisons.
• Leaving the bank account to the end. Compliance review is the least predictable part of the timeline, and no one can guarantee an approval.
• Choosing Dubai for prestige your clients never check. If your buyers are overseas or online, a northern-emirates licence can deliver the same capability for materially less.

What Noble Core does for you

We are an independent private consultancy founded in 2020, with six offices across the UAE. We are not a government entity and we do not act for any single free zone, which is the point: we quote the zone that fits the activity and the visa count you actually need.

Our Dubai free zone formations start at AED 12,500 for Meydan and Dubai South and AED 12,900 for IFZA at zero visas, with DMCC at AED 43,999. Mainland LLC formation starts at AED 24,999. Packages cover the trade licence, registration, establishment card, e-channel, visa, medical and Emirates ID where a visa tier is selected. Health insurance is legally required and priced separately at around AED 500 per person per year. Bank account introduction is AED 800, VAT registration AED 500 and corporate tax registration AED 400. Change of status, where the applicant is already inside the UAE, is collected at actual and paid to the authority.

We do not guarantee visa approvals, government approvals or bank accounts, because no consultancy can. What we do commit to is a written quote with every line itemised before you pay anything, including the government fees other firms leave until the invoice.

Send us the activity and the number of visas you need and we will send back the three zones that fit, with the total first-year cost for each.

Message us on WhatsApp or call +971 52 253 5694.

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