Sharjah Free Zone Company Setup

A Sharjah free zone company setup starts at AED 5,750. That is the lowest entry price published by any Sharjah free zone authority today, and two zones quote it: SPC Free Zone and SHAMS. The other two large Sharjah zones, Hamriyah and SAIF Zone, publish no licence price at all. This page compares what each zone actually states, adds the government fees that sit on top of the licence, and marks every figure that is not published rather than filling the gap with a guess.

The four Sharjah free zones compared

Sharjah has four free zones that take foreign-owned company formation. They are not interchangeable: two publish prices and two do not, and the two that publish are aimed at small service and media businesses while the two that do not are industrial and logistics zones where pricing is quoted per plot or per warehouse.

Checked on 14 August 2026: hfza.ae and saif-zone.com carry no licence price on their public pages, so any specific Hamriyah or SAIF figure you find elsewhere is a third-party quote, not an official one. Ask the zone directly and get the number in writing before you compare it with the AED 5,750 above.

What a Sharjah free zone company setup costs, by component

The licence price is the part zones advertise. It is rarely the part that surprises people. The costs below are charged separately, and they are the reason a headline AED 5,750 turns into a first-year figure two to three times larger as soon as one residence visa is involved.

The refundable AED 5,000 inside the e-channel registration is the single figure most comparison articles omit. It is a deposit rather than a fee, but it leaves your account in year one exactly like a fee does.

How a Sharjah free zone company setup works, step by step

1. Choose the zone and the activity list. A Sharjah free zone company setup allows up to five activities on one licence at both SPC and SHAMS, and they may cross sectors. Decide this first, because adding activities later is a licence amendment.
2. Reserve the company name. Names are checked against the register and against naming rules; religious references and the names of existing companies are refused.
3. Submit passport copies and the application. For most entry packages the shareholders never need to be in the country at this stage.
4. Pay the licence fee and receive the licence. This is the AED 5,750 or AED 6,875 step, and it is where fast-track promises apply.
5. Open the immigration file. Only needed if you want visas; this is the e-channel or establishment card cost above.
6. Apply for the entry permit, then convert it. The medical test and Emirates ID registration happen inside the country during this step.
7. Open the corporate bank account. Budget several weeks. No zone and no agent can guarantee approval.

What a Sharjah free zone licence does not give you

These are the limits that cause the most expensive surprises, and no zone leads with them:

• A Sharjah free zone company setup does not let you trade freely on the UAE mainland. Selling directly to mainland customers needs a mainland distributor, a branch, or SPC’s dual licence route.
• It does not include a residence visa. Zero-visa packages are exactly that, and the visa route has to be bought separately.
• It does not guarantee a bank account. Banks assess the business, not the zone, and budget zones are commonly reported to attract more questions.
• It does not exempt you from corporate tax by itself. The 0% rate applies only to a qualifying free zone person meeting the conditions (see qualifying free zone person).
• It does not remove accounting duties. Corporate tax registration and bookkeeping apply regardless of the licence price.

Sharjah against Dubai and Ajman on entry price

Sharjah’s position is the middle one: it is not the cheapest emirate in the country, but it is the cheapest that still gives a five-activity licence and a mainland-access route through a dual licence. If price is the only criterion, compare all of them in the cheapest free zones in the UAE guide or run the numbers in the free zone comparison tool.

What Sharjah zones do not publish

Stating this openly is more useful than inventing it. As of 14 August 2026:

• Hamriyah and SAIF Zone publish no licence price on their own websites.
• Renewal prices are not published by any of the four zones. Assume renewal is close to the first-year licence fee and confirm it in writing.
• Per-visa costs beyond the first are not itemised by SPC.
• Office upgrade prices are quoted on request rather than listed.

Choosing between them

Take SPC Free Zone if you want the lowest published price with a documented dual licence path to Sharjah mainland work. Take SHAMS if your business is media or content led, or if you want the licence without a mandatory FZ suffix in the company name. Talk to Hamriyah or SAIF only if you need land, a warehouse or air-freight adjacency, and expect a bespoke quote rather than a package price. For a side-by-side across the whole country, use the UAE free zone comparison table, the UAE free zones dataset, or read mainland against free zone before committing. If you would rather hand the process over, see free zone company formation.