Pricing Packages
What every package includes
The six above differ by zone and by what you are allowed to do. What they have in common is the part people actually worry about, so it is worth stating once rather than six times:
- The trade licence itself, issued in your company's name
- Incorporation documents — the paperwork that proves the company exists
- 100% foreign ownership. No local partner, no nominee, no sponsor taking a share
- Free transfer of capital and profits out of the UAE
- A workspace address — flexi-desk or shared office, depending on the zone
- A named advisor, so you are not re-explaining your case to whoever picks up
- Zero visas. Every entry price on this page is for a licence without a residence visa attached
That last one is not a catch, but it is the single most common misreading of a package price anywhere in this market. A zero-visa licence is a complete, legitimate product. It is simply not the same product as a licence you can sponsor yourself or a hire on.
What sits outside the package price
We quote these separately because they depend on you rather than on the zone — how many people you sponsor, what you do, whether you cross a tax threshold. Our fees for the ones we handle:
| Item | When it applies | Our fee |
|---|---|---|
| Establishment card | Before any residence visa can be issued | Quoted per case |
| Immigration portal registration | Once, before the first visa | AED 300 |
| Visa typing | Per person | AED 200 |
| WPI, the unemployment insurance | Per person | AED 300 |
| Health insurance | Per person, mandatory for a residence visa | From AED 500 |
| Corporate tax registration | Every company, profitable or not | AED 600 |
| Bank account assistance | If you want us to prepare and introduce the file | AED 1,000 low risk, AED 2,000 higher risk |
Government charges for the visa stages themselves — entry permit, status change, medical, Emirates ID — are billed at cost on top. We do not mark those up and we do not present them as ours. If a quote you are comparing does not separate the two, ask which is which before you compare it to anything.
The six side by side
Same information as the cards, in the order that matters when you are comparing rather than browsing. Every figure comes from the same price file the cards use, so the table cannot drift away from them. The UAE Free Zone package is the one row that is not tied to a named zone — we place it where the activity and visa needs land best.
| Package | Where | Visas at this price | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFZA — AED 12,900 | Dubai | None | Consultants and agencies who need a Dubai address |
| RAKEZ — AED 6,000 | Ras Al Khaimah | None | Anyone who needs a warehouse, workshop or land |
| SPC — AED 4,999 | Sharjah | None | Teams that will hire, with no cap tied to the licence |
| UAE Free Zone — AED 5,750 | Zone chosen to fit | None | General trading and e-commerce on one licence |
| Dubai Mainland — AED 10,999 | Dubai | Follows your office | Selling to UAE customers, or bidding for government work |
| Dubai Free Zone — AED 14,900 | Dubai | None | A Dubai licence with a wider activity list |
Could you just go direct to the zone?
Fair question, and the honest answer is sometimes yes. Free zones sell licences directly. Four of the five zones we work with publish their own rates, so you can check them yourself — RAKEZ, SHAMS, SPC and Ajman Media City all do, and Ajman Media City publishes renewal prices as well. IFZA is the exception and publishes nothing at all.
If you are already in the UAE, your activity is straightforward and you have the time to sit in the queues, going direct is a real option and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
What we are actually for is the part that is neither the licence nor the price: choosing the activity codes so you are not amending them in six months, keeping the visa stages in the right order so nothing gets rejected and restarted, preparing a bank file that a compliance officer will accept, and telling you when the cheaper zone is the wrong one. Most of what goes wrong in a UAE setup goes wrong before the licence is issued, not after.
One thing nobody can shortcut: corporate tax registration is required of every company whether or not it makes a profit, and the thresholds are the Federal Tax Authority's, published at tax.gov.ae. We handle the registration as part of setup — see tax and VAT registration.
Which one, if you are not sure
Four questions get most people to an answer:
- Will you invoice UAE customers? If yes, you need Dubai mainland, not a free zone licence. A free zone company cannot bill a mainland client directly, and buying the cheap one first usually means paying for both.
- Will you sponsor anyone, including yourself? Then compare the visa position rather than the entry price. SPC states no cap tied to the licence; most zones tie the quota to your desk or office.
- Do you hold physical stock? RAKEZ is the one here with warehouses and land. SHAMS covers e-commerce plus general trading on one licence.
- Does the address matter to your clients or your bank? IFZA is the Dubai option, and you pay for that. Ajman Media City is the cheapest entry, and it publishes its renewal prices, which almost no zone does.
If you want to see the zones side by side rather than the packages, that is the free zone comparison. To model your own numbers, including visas and renewal, use the cost calculator. For the mainland and DMCC as well, at the authorities' own fees, see business license cost.
Frequently asked questions
It is the price of the licence package. If you need a residence visa, the establishment card and the per-person stages sit on top, and those are listed above rather than buried. You get one written figure covering everything before anything is filed — that is the number worth comparing, not the headline.
Because plenty of people genuinely do not need one — you can own a UAE company without living here. Bundling a visa into every package would make every price higher and would be wrong for a lot of buyers. Tell us how many people you will sponsor and we price it properly.
Yes. In most zones the quota follows your workspace, so more people can mean a larger desk or office as well as more fees. It is worth saying up front if hiring is likely within the year, because it can change which package is cheapest overall rather than cheapest today.
A different number from setup, and one most quotes leave out. The one-off formation work does not repeat; the licence, the immigration portal and each visa do. We give you the renewal figure alongside the original quote, because a cheap first year that resets in month thirteen is not a cheap licence.
Yes, we offer Tabby at checkout for the setup fee. The government charges within a setup still have to be paid when they fall due, so ask us to split out what is financeable and what is not before you plan around it.
Not to form the company. If you take a residence visa yourself, you will need to be here for the medical and Emirates ID stages, which is usually a short trip rather than a relocation.
It is normally a fresh incorporation rather than a transfer — new licence, new visas, and a gap to plan around. That is why we would rather spend twenty minutes on the questions above than sell you the cheapest line on the page.
Yes. A UAE trade licence is renewed annually, in every zone on this page and on the mainland.
