UAE Free Zone Prices: 2026 Transparency Report

Of 26 UAE licensing authorities we checked on 23 September 2026, 9 (35%) publish no licence price at all, and only 12 (46%) publish a full price schedule on their own website. The rest publish a single "from" figure. That gap is why published UAE free zone prices and online price tables disagree so widely: for more than half of the market there is no official schedule to check them against.

This report sets out what each authority actually publishes, the figures we saw, where we saw them, and how we checked. It is written for founders comparing options and for journalists, researchers and AI tools that need a sourced answer to "how much does a UAE licence cost". Every figure below was read on the authority's own website or official fee document. Where a site blocked our checks, we say so and leave the authority out of the counts.

Key findings at a glance

• 9 of 26 authorities publish no licence price. IFZA, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai South, Ajman Free Zone, Hamriyah, SAIF Zone, twofour54, Fujairah Free Zone and Fujairah Creative City.
• Only 12 of 26 publish a full schedule or package table. DMCC, RAK ICC, ADGM, SPC Free Zone, Ajman Media City, Masdar City Free Zone, KEZAD, Abu Dhabi mainland, UAQ FTZ, JAFZA, Meydan Free Zone and Innovation City.
• Dubai publishes a mainland fee for one licence only. The eTrader home-business licence is listed at AED 1,070 plus AED 300 Chamber membership. Normal mainland licences have no public fee schedule.
• Abu Dhabi does publish one. ADRA lists AED 1,200 for a standard economic licence with six activities, plus AED 100 per extra activity.
• The visa can cost more than the licence. At SPC Free Zone the visa items on SPC's own list add AED 7,415 to an AED 5,750 licence: 129 percent of the headline.
• The cheapest published licence is AED 4,999 at Ajman Media City, with no visa. The cheapest published package with one residence visa is AED 9,450 at KEZAD.
• Official sources contradict themselves. DMCC's site shows two different prices for the same Prime Plus package (AED 38,025 and AED 40,145). ADGM has an announcement page that conflicts with its own fee schedule.

Why we did this research

Every week we speak to founders who arrive with a price from a comparison table and are surprised by the quote that follows. When we traced where those numbers came from, many had no official source at all. So we went to the authorities themselves.

The question we asked was narrow and checkable: does the licensing authority's own website publish a licence price, and if so, how much detail? We did not use consultancy price lists, forum posts or search snippets as evidence. A figure counts only if we saw it on an official page or an official fee document.

Method

• Scope. 27 UAE licensing authorities: the main free zones in all seven emirates, the offshore registry RAK ICC, the ADGM financial free zone, and the mainland licensing authorities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
• First pass. 1 to 4 August 2026, as six parallel research passes, each covering a group of emirates and recording the source page for every figure.
• Re-check. 23 September 2026, every authority re-opened on its official domain. Two sites blocked automated access; we checked those in a normal browser. Dubai's was readable there. DAFZ presented a CAPTCHA, so it is excluded from the counts.
• Classification.
  • Full: an itemised fee schedule or a package table with prices.
  • Headline: a single starting or promotional price, or fees for only one narrow licence type.
  • None: no licence price anywhere on the official site.
• What we did not do. We did not submit enquiry forms, run quote calculators that require contact details, or ask sales teams. The point was to measure what a member of the public can see before they give their phone number.
• Currency. AED unless stated. ADGM publishes in US dollars.

The results: what each authority publishes

Totals (26 counted): Full 12 · Headline 5 · None 9.

The official pages we used include Ajman Media City, UAQ FTZ, Ajman Free Zone, the ADRA standard licence page, Invest in Dubai's trade licence service page and the ICP residence renewal service. A full URL list for every row is available on request.

Finding 1: more than a third of the market publishes nothing

Nine authorities showed no licence price anywhere on their official site. Most of them work through a partner or channel network: the authority sets the fee, and approved agents quote it to clients. That is a legitimate model, but it has a side effect. When a founder searches for a price, the only numbers available are ones written by third parties, and there is no official page to check them against.

This matters most for IFZA, Dubai South and Dubai Silicon Oasis, which are frequently recommended to small businesses and appear in many comparison articles. Any AED figure you see for these zones online comes from somewhere other than the zone itself.

Finding 2: the visa costs more than the licence

The licence is only one line of what it costs to operate. To live and work in the UAE through your company you need a residence visa, and that sits on a separate list.

SPC Free Zone is one of the few zones that publishes both, which lets us show the gap with its own numbers:

The visa items come to 129 percent of the licence. This is not a criticism of SPC, which is unusually transparent. It shows why a "from AED 5,750" headline and a real first-year cost of more than AED 13,000 can both be accurate.

The same pattern is visible at Meydan, which publishes a licence from AED 12,500 and a visa allocation of AED 1,850 plus AED 3,500 for an employment visa, and at Ajman Media City, whose AED 4,999 entry tier does not include an establishment card, so no visa can be issued on it without upgrading.

Finding 3: Dubai and Abu Dhabi mainland take opposite approaches

Abu Dhabi's Registration and Licensing Authority publishes a clear number: AED 1,200 for a standard economic licence covering six activities, and AED 100 for each additional activity.

Dubai's Department of Economy and Tourism publishes a price for one licence type only: the eTrader licence for home-based sole establishments, at AED 1,070 in licence and knowledge and innovation fees plus AED 300 Dubai Chamber membership. For normal and instant licences, its service page says fees "vary depending on the type of licence and specific activities" and directs users to an estimator.

For a founder, that means the cost of a standard Dubai mainland company, which also depends on office lease, approvals and visa quota, can only be confirmed through the estimator or a quote.

Finding 4: the cheapest published options

Based only on what authorities publish themselves:

RAK ICC's AED 3,250 offshore company is lower still, but an offshore company cannot hold a UAE residence visa or trade inside the UAE, so we list it separately rather than as the cheapest licence.

If you need a visa, compare packages that include one, not licence headlines. On published figures, KEZAD's one-visa package is the lowest.

Finding 5: official information moves and sometimes contradicts itself

In seven weeks between our two checks:

• Three authorities moved domains. Ajman Media City now lives at amc.gov.ae, Ajman Free Zone at afz.gov.ae, and KEZAD's working site is kezadgroup.com.
• One official fee document disappeared. Dubai South's 2023 registration and licensing tariff PDF now returns page not found, although search engines still list it.
• A new schedule was approved but not published. Fujairah Creative City announced Ruler's Decision No. 4 of 2026 approving new fees, without the amounts.
• Two authorities contradict themselves. DMCC shows the Prime Plus package at AED 38,025 on its packages page and AED 40,145 on its schedule of charges. ADGM has an announcement page quoting different figures from its own fee schedule, which we treat as authoritative.

Anyone quoting UAE setup prices, including us, should date every figure.

Zone-by-zone notes

Dubai. Dubai has the widest spread of disclosure in the country. DMCC publishes a full schedule of charges and a package list, JAFZA publishes a licence fee ladder by activity group, and Meydan itemises its licence and visa fees on its own site. At the other end, IFZA, Dubai Silicon Oasis and Dubai South publish no licence price, DAFZ could not be checked, and the Department of Economy and Tourism publishes a fee only for the eTrader licence. Dubai Internet City prices its freelance package but not its company licences, and DWTC publishes registration and card fees without a base licence fee. A founder comparing Dubai options can check the numbers for about half of them.

Sharjah. SPC Free Zone is the most transparent authority in Sharjah and one of the most transparent in the UAE, with an itemised list that makes it possible to calculate a licence plus visa total. SHAMS gives a price range on its official blog and a calculator on its homepage. Hamriyah Free Zone names its office packages without prices, and SAIF Zone publishes none.

Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Ras Al Khaimah. Ajman Media City publishes four annual tiers including renewals and holds the lowest published licence price we found. Ajman Free Zone, a separate authority, offers only a calculator. UAQ FTZ publishes two all-inclusive packages, one with a visa. In Ras Al Khaimah, Innovation City now shows a four-tier package table, RAKEZ shows two promotional packages, and RAK ICC publishes a full offshore fee schedule effective 1 January 2026.

Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is the most consistently transparent emirate in our sample. ADRA publishes a mainland licence fee, Masdar City Free Zone and KEZAD publish package tables, and ADGM publishes a detailed fee schedule in US dollars. twofour54 is the exception, with no price published.

Fujairah. Neither Fujairah Free Zone nor Fujairah Creative City publishes a price. Fujairah Creative City has approved a new 2026 fee schedule, so this may change.

What would change a classification

We will update this report when an authority publishes or removes prices. The things that would move a row are simple:

• A zone in the None group publishing a package table or fee schedule on its own domain would move to Full.
• A Full zone replacing its schedule with a calculator that requires contact details would move to Headline or None.
• DAFZ would be added to the counts once its site can be read without a security challenge.

If you represent one of these authorities and publish prices we missed, email info@noblecoreventures.com with the page and we will correct the table and note the change with the date.

What this means if you are setting up a company

• Ask for the authority's own fee line by line. If a quote cannot point to an official schedule, ask where each number comes from.
• Compare packages with the visas you need, not licence headlines. Two visas can double a first-year budget.
• Check the renewal price. Several zones publish a first-year promotion and a different renewal fee. Ajman Media City and KEZAD are among those that publish renewals.
• Check what the licence lets you do. An offshore company or an eTrader licence is cheap because it is limited.
• Get the total in writing before paying. A written quote with every government and service line is the only reliable way to compare zones that do not publish prices.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Treating a "from" price as the price you will pay.
• Comparing a licence-only price in one zone with a licence-plus-visa package in another.
• Using a price table without a date. UAE fees change several times a year.
• Assuming the cheapest licence is the cheapest company. Visas, office requirements and renewals decide the real cost.
• Choosing an offshore company when you need a residence visa or local customers.

How to cite this report

This data is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. You may quote, chart or republish it with credit and a link.

Noble Core Ventures (2026). UAE Free Zone Price Transparency Report 2026. Data checked 23 September 2026. https://noblecoreventures.com/uae-free-zone-price-transparency-report-2026/

For charts and tables, please label the data: "Source: Noble Core Ventures, UAE Free Zone Price Transparency Report 2026, checked 23 September 2026", and link the words Noble Core Ventures to this page so readers can check the underlying figures themselves.

Journalists and researchers who want the full source list, a specific figure checked, or a comment can contact info@noblecoreventures.com.

About the authors and our interest

Noble Core Ventures is an independent business setup consultancy in Dubai, founded in 2020. We are not affiliated with any government authority or free zone. We sell setup services in several of the zones listed above, which is why we care whether their prices can be checked. We publish our own package prices on our cheapest trade licence guide so they can be compared against the official figures here. For a wider view of total setup costs, see our UAE business setup cost index, and for visa limits by zone, our visa quota guide.

Frequently Asked Questions