UAE Free Zone Company Setup Cost

UAE free zone company setup cost is quoted with total confidence across this search result and published by fewer than half the authorities that charge it. We checked sixteen UAE free zone offerings on the zones’ own websites on 14 August 2026. Nine publish a starting figure, five publish none at all, and not one of them publishes what renewal will cost. This page is that census: what each zone states, what is charged on top of the licence, and where a published number stops being the whole number.

Every zone, cheapest published price first

The right-hand column is the one that matters. A zone that publishes its price can be compared; a zone that does not can only be quoted at, and the quote is an agent’s offer rather than a tariff.

Two rows repay a second look. DMCC’s AED 1,925 is an AstroLabs co-working licence and not a comparable mainstream package: DMCC’s cheapest ordinary route, Basic Biz, is AED 35,484. And UAQ’s AED 2,266 reads as the cheapest number on this page while being the most expensive entry in the set, because it is charged monthly and works out at AED 27,192 over twelve months. A monthly framing is not a discount.

UAE free zone company setup cost, component by component

The licence is one line on a bill with six or seven lines. This table carries only amounts a zone or authority publishes, with the source against each; where nobody publishes a figure, the row says so rather than filling the gap.

The last row is the important one. A first-year price without a renewal price is half a decision, and because no zone in the set publishes renewal, a three-year comparison between any two zones is a quotation exercise rather than a research exercise. Ajman Media City is the one partial exception in the census: it states that its zero-visa licence renews at the same AED 4,999, and that its one-visa package drops from AED 12,999 to AED 8,999 on renewal.

How a free zone company setup actually runs

1. UAE free zone company setup begins with the activity list, not the zone. The activity decides which zones can licence you at all and how many activities your package includes before the per-activity charge starts.
2. Reserve the company name with the zone. ADGM charges USD 200 for a 30-day hold; most dirham zones fold this into the package.
3. Submit the incorporation file: passport copies, a photograph, the application form, an ultimate beneficial ownership form, and a no-objection certificate if you already hold a UAE residence visa. A corporate shareholder adds a notarised and embassy-attested board resolution, power of attorney, certificate of incorporation and memorandum.
4. Pay the licence and receive the trade licence. This is the AED 4,999 or AED 5,750 or AED 12,500 step, and it is the only step the headline price covers.
5. Register for immigration and take the establishment card. Nothing visa-related can start until this exists, and it is the single largest cost most first-year budgets omit.
6. Apply for visas: entry permit, status change, medical test, Emirates ID, then the residence stamp, priced per person and not per company.
7. Open the bank account last, and expect it to take longer than everything above combined.

What a UAE free zone licence does not give you

• UAE free zone company setup does not include a residence visa. The licence and the visa allocation are separate purchases, and a zero-visa package means exactly that.
• It does not let you trade on the mainland without a mainland route: a distributor, a branch, or a dual licence where the zone offers one. SPC and Ajman Media City publish dual licence paths; most zones do not.
• It does not include an office beyond the flexi desk or co-working allowance named in the package. Fujairah Free Zone prices its flexi desk at AED 18,000 a year on its own, which is more than several zones charge for an entire entry package.
• It does not exempt you from corporate tax by itself. The 0 per cent rate belongs to a qualifying free zone person meeting conditions on qualifying income, and holding a free zone licence is not on its own sufficient.
• It does not guarantee a bank account. No zone in this census undertakes to obtain one, and account opening is where free zone timelines usually break.
• It does not fix your renewal price, which no zone here publishes.

Free zone against mainland and offshore

The comparison that decides most cases is the third row. An offshore company cannot sponsor a residence visa at all, which rules it out for anyone whose reason for incorporating is to live here. A fuller treatment sits in mainland against free zone against offshore, and the ranked budget view is in the cheapest UAE free zones.

Choosing on price without being caught by it

• UAE free zone company setup cost comparisons only work between published figures. Nine of the sixteen offerings above publish one. Comparing a published AED 5,750 against an agent’s quote for a zone that publishes nothing compares two different kinds of object.
• Ask for the renewal price in writing before paying the first invoice, since no zone publishes it and year two is where a cheap entry is recovered.
• Count visas per person, not per company. The allocation, the visa, the medical and the Emirates ID all repeat for each individual.
• Convert every monthly price to twelve months before putting it in a table, as the UAQ row above shows.

Zone by zone detail sits on the individual guides linked in the census: IFZA and its activity list, Sharjah free zone company setup, the full comparison table, our free zone comparison tool and the UAE free zones dataset. If you want the licence handled rather than researched, that is free zone company formation.