Business Setup Services in Dubai

What you are actually buying

No consultant in Dubai issues a trade licence. The Department of Economy and Tourism issues mainland licences. Each free zone authority issues its own. Immigration files sit with GDRFA. Work permits sit with MOHRE. Tax sits with the Federal Tax Authority. Every meaningful decision on your file is taken by a government body, and a firm that describes itself as issuing your licence is describing a courier service in the language of a regulator.

What you buy from a business setup firm is three things, and only three. Judgment about the record, so that the activity written on your licence is the activity you will actually perform and the one your bank, your customers and your auditor will later be shown. Sequence, so that each application is filed with the artefact the next one requires, in the order the authorities expect. And a person who owns the file when it stalls — because it will stall, and the difference between a two-week delay and a two-month one is usually whether somebody noticed on the day.

Everything else that gets bundled into a package — the typing, the portal submissions, the courier runs — is the cheap part. The value in this engagement is concentrated almost entirely in decisions made in the first week, before a dirham of government fee is paid. Those decisions are also the only ones that are expensive to reverse.

ConsultZone is an authorised channel partner of several free zone authorities, which means we file directly into their systems and are accountable to them for what we submit. It does not mean we obtain approvals other people cannot obtain, and it does not mean a zone will waive a requirement because we asked. Anyone implying otherwise is selling you a relationship that does not exist.

This page is about the engagement — what gets done, in what order, at what cost, and what you hold when it closes. The decision the engagement serves is a separate question, and business setup in Dubai is where the three routes are compared before anyone is paid to execute one.

What draws founders to Dubai is mostly a fact about the country, not the company

The reasons founders give for choosing Dubai are, for the most part, true. Most of them also arrive whether or not you form anything, which is worth knowing before you compare packages: a quote that lists the country's advantages as its own features is charging you for something no firm supplies.

The location is real, and it moves goods rather than permissions. Dubai sits between the markets of Europe, Asia and Africa, and the infrastructure follows the map — Jebel Ali Port with the Jafza free zone behind it, two international airports in Dubai International and Al Maktoum International at Dubai South, and road links across the UAE and into the neighbouring Gulf states. For a business that ships physical stock, or whose people travel the region every week, that is a genuine operating advantage. It is not market access. Selling into another Gulf country still needs that country's approvals, and selling into the UAE mainland from a free zone is decided by the counterparty table in stage three, not by the distance.

No personal income tax, and the company is a separate taxpayer. The UAE does not levy income tax on individuals. A founder's salary is not taxed here, there is no separate capital gains tax, and income an individual earns from personal investments — dividends from the company included — sits outside the corporate tax regime. The company itself is taxed: federal corporate tax applies for financial years beginning on or after 1 June 2023, at 0% on taxable income up to AED 375,000 and 9% above it, and an individual trading in their own name rather than through a company can be drawn into the same regime once turnover passes a threshold. None of this settles what your home country charges, which is why stage one asks about it first. The condition attached to each of these benefits is set out in what the UAE actually gives you, and what each benefit costs.

Money leaves without a permit. There are no exchange controls on ordinary business payments: dirhams convert and move abroad without an approval, and the dirham is pegged to the US dollar. Profits and capital can be sent out in full, from a mainland company or a free zone company alike, and the corporate tax law sets withholding tax on dividends and similar payments to non-residents at 0%. What stops a transfer is never the border. It is whether the profit was distributable under the company's accounts, whether the bank can document where the money came from and where it is going, and — for payments inside a group — whether the price would survive an arm's length test. Repatriating profit from a UAE company takes those in the order they apply.

Ownership is full in both jurisdictions, with one carve-out. Foreign founders can hold every share of a mainland company for most activities, and of a free zone company, where full foreign ownership has always been the model. The carve-out and the reasons for it are in stage three.

Long-term residence exists, but a licence does not produce it. The Golden Visa gives five or ten years of self-sponsored residence to investors, entrepreneurs and specialised talent. A company sponsors the ordinary permit; the long-term categories are decided by immigration on evidence the licence does not contain. Stage ten sets out the difference.

D33 is a stated direction, not a rule. Dubai's economic agenda, D33, was launched in January 2023 with the aim of doubling the size of the emirate's economy over the following decade, and names trade and logistics, financial services, the digital economy, manufacturing and small and medium-sized businesses among its priorities. The economy it starts from is already overwhelmingly non-oil: trade, real estate, transport and logistics, and financial services carry most of it. That is useful context for a founder weighing where public investment is heading. It changes no requirement on your file — no licence condition, fee or approval refers to it.

Only the right-hand column is work, and it is the work the rest of this page is about.

The order is the service

A Dubai formation is a dependency chain, not a checklist. Each stage produces an artefact that the next stage consumes. Getting an item early does not help. Getting one out of order forces a restart, and the restart is usually paid for twice.

The chain has five hard gates:

• Your activity determines your jurisdiction. An activity that is not on a particular free zone's approved list cannot be licensed there, whatever the package price. Choose the zone first and you have chosen your activity by accident.
• Your activity determines whether a regulator gates the licence. For regulated activities, the sector authority's approval is a precondition of licence issue, not a follow-up task. The licensing timeline becomes the regulator's timeline.
• Your premises determine your visa allocation. Quota is assessed against the space you have leased. Decide headcount after signing a flexi-desk and you may have capped your company at fewer visas than you need.
• Your licence and establishment card determine when anyone can be sponsored. No visa application of any kind exists before the company has an immigration file.
• All of it determines whether a bank opens the account. Banks read the activity, the premises, the shareholders and the substance as one document. Weakness anywhere shows up there.

The rest of this page walks the chain in order. If this is your first UAE company, the same chain is told from the founder's side in each stage produces the evidence the next one demands, including the clocks running against you that nobody else is watching.

Stage one — commercial discovery, before anything is filed

Nothing is filed in the first conversation. What we are trying to establish is narrow and specific, and most of it has nothing to do with licensing.

Who your counterparty is. Not your market — your invoice recipient. A UAE mainland company, a free zone company, a government entity, a consumer, or a business outside the UAE. This single fact drives jurisdiction, VAT treatment, corporate tax analysis and, frequently, whether you need a UAE company at all.

How the money moves. Who signs contracts, who receives payment, in what currency, from which countries, and whether funds pass through the UAE entity or around it. Banks assess this more closely than any incorporating authority does, and they assess it after you have already paid for the licence.

Where you are personally tax resident. A UAE company managed from London, Mumbai, Berlin or Toronto can be taxed in that country regardless of what the UAE charges. We would rather raise this before incorporation than have you discover it from your home tax authority. See UAE corporate tax for new companies for what the UAE side actually requires.

What year three looks like. Headcount, premises, whether you will want to sell to mainland customers or bid for government work, whether investors will take shares. Amending a structure later is possible and routinely done; it is simply more expensive than getting it right when nothing is enrolled yet.

The output of this stage is a written structure recommendation naming the activity codes, the incorporating authority, the legal form, the share capital, the premises type and the visa count, with the reason for each. Ask for that document in writing from any firm you engage, before you pay them. A firm that cannot produce it is not doing this stage at all.

Stage two — activity classification against the published list

Every licensable business in the UAE operates against codes drawn from a published activity record maintained by the licensing authority. Choosing a code that is "close enough" is the most common and most costly error in Dubai company formation, because the code is not a description. It is a set of consequences:

• Which licence category you fall into — commercial, professional, industrial, tourism or a regulated category
• Which incorporating authority can issue the licence, and which free zones are permitted to host you at all
• Whether a sector regulator must approve you before the licence exists
• Whether you become a designated non-financial business or profession for anti-money-laundering purposes, with enrolment on goAML and reporting duties under Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025 and Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025
• Whether the activity is a Qualifying Activity for free zone corporate tax purposes — a question decided by what you do, not by where you are licensed
• How a bank rates your risk, and which of your intended revenue streams it will be willing to see credited to the account
• Whether certain roles are eligible for visas under the licence

We search the record against the business described in stage one, not against the name you have in mind. Where the real business spans two categories, we say so — that outcome sometimes means two licences, sometimes a different jurisdiction, and occasionally that the second activity should wait a year. Our business activity database lists licensable activities with their category, approving authority and AML status, and it is a reasonable place to start before you speak to anyone.

One warning about the shortcut. Some agents load a licence with a long list of activities on the theory that more is safer. It is not. Extra activities can push you into a different category, trigger an external approval you did not need, raise your fee, and — most damaging — give a bank compliance officer a reason to decline a file they would otherwise have opened. The correct number of activities is the number you can explain.

1. 01Describe the business, not the licence you wantCounterparty, money flow, personal tax residence, and what year three looks like
2. 02Search the published activity record against that descriptionNot against the name you have in mind
3. 03Read the code as consequences, not as a descriptionCategory, authority, regulator gate, AML status, bank risk, visa eligibility
4. 04Keep to the number of activities you can explainExtra codes change the category, trigger approvals you did not need, and worry a bank
5. Does the real business sit inside one category, or span two
6. One category fits itOne licence, and the code carries the business you will actually perform
7. It spans twoTwo licences, a different jurisdiction, or the second activity waits a year
8. The activity is the decisionJurisdiction, regulator, AML status and visa eligibility are outputs of it

Stage three — legal form and jurisdiction, as a consequence

Jurisdiction is an output of stage two, not an opening question. Once the activity is fixed, the field of possible incorporating authorities narrows on its own, and the remaining choice is usually between two or three realistic options rather than forty.

Mainland or free zone, decided by who you invoice

This is the question every founder opens with, and it should be answered near the end rather than the beginning. It is not a preference and it is not a philosophy. It is a consequence of who pays your invoices and what you hand them.

Two corrections worth making, because both errors are repeated constantly in Dubai.

"A free zone company cannot work with the mainland" is too blunt to be useful. Free zone companies contract with mainland clients routinely, particularly for services. What a free zone licence does not give you is the right to occupy premises and trade in the mainland market, or to act as importer of record for goods entering it. Where that is genuinely needed, a mainland branch of the free zone company is an ordinary, well-trodden route — not an exotic structure.

the same seven demands, judged for each licence

Judged on	Mainland licence	Free zone licence
Contract with mainland clients for services	Yes	Yes
Occupy premises and trade in the mainland market	Yes	No
Act as importer of record for goods entering the mainland	Yes	No
Sell to UAE consumers — retail, food, clinics	Yes	No
Bid for most government and semi-government tenders	Yes	No
Hold full foreign ownership	Partial	Yes
Sponsor residence visas on the company's own file	Yes	Yes

Some zones have had dual-licence arrangements with DET, allowing a free zone company to hold a mainland licence without taking a second physical office. Availability and terms have changed more than once. Treat any such arrangement as something to confirm with DET and the specific zone before you build a plan on it, never as a settled feature of the market.

And a note on the two that are not really free zones at all. DIFC and ADGM are common-law jurisdictions with their own incorporating authorities, their own courts, their own employment law and their own company statutes. They are the right home for funds, regulated financial firms, and holding structures that need English-law documentation and an enforceable local judgment. They cost several times an ordinary free zone and carry a heavier compliance load. A trading company shopping on price does not belong in either, and a consultant who suggests one without asking why you need common law is guessing.

Free zones are wholly foreign-owned, and most are organised around a sector

Free zone companies have permitted full foreign ownership since the model began, under each zone's own regulations — a single-shareholder establishment and a multi-shareholder company alike. The 2021 onshore reform changed the mainland, not the zones. What a free zone restricts is not who owns the company but what it may do and where: the activity must be on that zone's own permitted list, and trading in the mainland market is governed by the table above.

Most zones are built around a sector, which is why the choice usually narrows quickly once the activity is fixed:

• DMCC, the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre — founded on commodities trading and now home to a broad base of trading and services companies; the zone founders choose when a bank or a counterparty will judge them by where they are licensed.
• DAFZA, the Dubai Airport Free Zone — beside Dubai International, for businesses whose goods travel by air.
• Jafza, the Jebel Ali Free Zone — port-side warehousing, customs-bonded storage, manufacturing and physical trade.
• Dubai Media City — the business of media: advertising, publishing, broadcasting and the services around them.
• Dubai Healthcare City — clinics and healthcare businesses, where the facility and every clinician inside it are licensed separately.

A zone's reputation for a sector is not a limit on its list — several carry general trading and consultancy activities as well — and it is no substitute for confirming that your exact activity code is on it. The whole field is compared on the free zone comparison.

The legal form follows from ownership, liability and category

One correction is worth making plainly, because a great deal of published material in Dubai is still years out of date. Most mainland activities no longer require an Emirati shareholder. Under the Commercial Companies Law as amended, foreign investors may hold full ownership of mainland companies across the large majority of commercial and industrial activities. What remains restricted is a defined list of activities with strategic impact set out in Cabinet Resolution No. 55 of 2021, and certain forms — a branch of a foreign company, for instance, still appoints a local service agent, who holds no equity. If a consultant is still selling you a 51% sponsor arrangement for an ordinary trading or services company, they are selling a product the law stopped requiring.

• Limited liability company — the standard mainland vehicle for commercial and industrial activity. Compare on the mainland company page.
• Sole establishment or civil company — professional activities, where liability sits with the practitioner rather than behind a corporate veil.
• General or limited partnership — forms the Commercial Companies Law provides alongside the LLC, for two or more people who agree to share both the ownership and the liabilities of a business. In a general partnership every partner answers for the firm's debts personally and jointly with the others; a limited partnership pairs at least one such partner with silent partners whose liability stops at their contribution. Both are uncommon for foreign founders, and whether a foreign partner may take the unlimited-liability role for your activity is a question to settle with DET before planning around one. For professionals who want to practise together, the civil company above is usually the form that fits.
• Free zone company or establishment (FZ-LLC, FZE, FZCO) — see free zone company formation and the free zone comparison.
• Branch of a foreign or UAE company — no separate legal personality; the parent carries the liability, and the parent's documents must be attested.
• Offshore vehicle — a holding container with no residence visas and no local trading rights. Read offshore company formation before assuming it fits. Dubai's own offshore option is the Jafza offshore company, formed under the Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority's offshore companies regulations rather than under its ordinary free zone licensing.

Share capital, honestly

Most Dubai LLCs face no general minimum capital requirement; the figure is stated in the memorandum and is a matter of commercial judgement. Some free zones require evidence of paid-up capital, and regulated activities carry real, enforced capital floors that are conditions of the permission rather than formalities. A licence advertising "no minimum capital" is describing the ordinary case, not granting you a concession.

Set the figure with two audiences in mind rather than one. A bank reads stated capital as a signal about the scale you claim to operate at, and an immigration officer assessing a partner visa may do the same. A capital figure wildly below the turnover you are projecting invites a question you will have to answer twice.

Where a zone or a regulated activity does require paid-up capital to be evidenced, the authority sets the form of the evidence — typically a letter from a UAE bank confirming that the amount has been deposited, sometimes into an account opened before the licence on the strength of a letter from the authority itself. That creates a sequencing point most founders meet unprepared: the money has to move before the company fully exists. Ask the zone exactly which evidence it accepts, into which account, and when the funds are released for the company's use, before you transfer anything.

Stage four — trade name reservation

The name is reserved with the incorporating authority before the company exists, and it fails more often than founders expect. Names may not conflict with an existing enrolled name, may not imply a regulated activity you are not licensed for, may not use religious, political or governmental terms, and where a personal name is used it must be the full name — no initials, no abbreviations. The legal form suffix is mandatory and forms part of the enrolled name.

Three further conditions catch founders out. The name may not offend public morals or public order, which is the ground on which obscene, insulting and deliberately provocative names are refused. It may not borrow the name or logo of an outside body — a foreign government, an international organisation, another business's brand. And it has to fit both the activity being licensed and the legal form: a name promising one business on a licence for another is refused for the mismatch alone.

A reservation is typically valid for six months. Some incorporating authorities charge a supplementary fee for a non-Arabic or invented name; in Dubai this has commonly been quoted at around AED 2,000 and should be confirmed against the current DET schedule before you budget for it.

One point that is almost never made at the point of sale: a reserved trade name is not a trademark. It stops another company reserving the same name with the same incorporating authority. It gives you no protection against someone using the mark commercially. If the brand matters, a separate trademark filing with the Ministry of Economy and Tourism is a different application, on a different timeline, at a different cost — and the time to make it is when the name is reserved, not after somebody else has filed it.

The trademark is one of three federal rights, and the other two are missed more often. Copyright in written work, software, photography and design — including the logo you commissioned — arises under Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2021 on Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights without any filing, but it belongs to whoever the commissioning contract says it belongs to, which may be the designer rather than you. Patents, utility models, industrial designs and trade secrets sit under Federal Law No. 11 of 2021 on industrial property, and an invention or a product design shown publicly before it is filed can be damaged by that disclosure. No free zone and no licensing authority grants any of these; the licence file does not touch them. Raise them in the first conversation, because the name decision and the filing decision belong together — your intellectual property sits outside the licence file sets out which right covers what, and the order to file in.

Bring three names to this stage, ranked. Refusal here is a rule being applied, not a judgement being made about you, and having alternates ready turns a week's delay into an afternoon's. The name is also tested against the activity line and keeps constraining it afterwards, which is the argument of your trade name is tested against the activity line.

Stage five — initial approval

Initial approval is the state saying it has no objection to you, as this shareholder and manager, carrying on this activity. It is not permission to trade, hire, lease or invoice. It is the gate that lets the remaining applications proceed.

In Dubai the initial approval certificate is generally valid for six months and is not renewable. If it expires before the licence is issued, the application is made again and the fee is paid again. That is the single most avoidable expense in a slow formation, and it is why the attestation and external-approval work described below must run in parallel with this stage rather than after it.

Two things extend this stage unpredictably. Certain nationalities and certain activities trigger a security clearance with no published service level — it takes what it takes, and no consultant can shorten it. And where a shareholder is a corporate entity, the parent's constitutional documents must be attested before they can be filed, which is a foreign-country process (see stage seven) that routinely takes longer than everything happening in Dubai.

Stage six — external approvals, where the activity is regulated

This is where formation timelines are won or lost, and where package quotes become misleading. For a regulated activity, the sector authority's approval is a precondition of the licence. Until it exists, nothing downstream can happen.

Two honest observations. First, the timelines in this stage belong to the regulator, not to us — a firm quoting "3 to 5 working days" for a DHA facility licence is quoting the formation step and quietly omitting the approval. Second, several of these authorisations are not formation work at all. A Central Bank, SCA or DFSA authorisation is a regulatory project measured in quarters, requiring a law firm and a specialist compliance adviser alongside any formation agent. We will tell you when that is the case rather than take the file and learn on it.

Stage seven — constitutional documents, attestation and premises

The memorandum and articles. A mainland LLC's memorandum sets out shareholders, shareholding, management authority and the licensed objects, is drawn in Arabic, and is notarised. Free zones issue their own standard articles, executed before the zone authority. Where a shareholder cannot attend, a power of attorney can be used — but only one drawn and attested specifically for use in the UAE. A general POA from home, correctly notarised there, is rejected here more often than not.

Read the memorandum before you sign it, even when it is presented as a template. It fixes who can bind the company, what happens on a deadlock, how shares move, and what a departing shareholder is owed. Those clauses cost nothing to set sensibly today and are expensive to renegotiate the week a partnership breaks down.

Attestation, and why it happens abroad. The UAE is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so an apostille is not sufficient. Foreign corporate documents — certificate of incorporation, memorandum, board resolution, certificate of good standing, passport copies where required — must complete the full consular chain: notarisation in the country of origin, authentication by that country's foreign ministry, legalisation by the UAE embassy or consulate there, then attestation by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, followed by legal translation into Arabic by a translator licensed by the Ministry of Justice. This runs on foreign timelines and foreign holidays. On files with overseas corporate shareholders, it is the most common reason a Dubai formation misses its date, and it should be started on day one — in parallel with everything above, never after it. Our document attestation and legal translation pages set out the chain in detail.

Premises. Mainland licences require a tenancy contract recorded on Ejari, the Dubai Land Department's system for recording leases; the Ejari number is filed with the licence application, and a lease that is not Ejari-recorded does not exist for licensing purposes. Free zones issue a facility agreement — flexi-desk, shared desk, serviced office or warehouse — usually alongside the licence itself. The choice is not only a cost line. It sets your visa ceiling, it is inspected for some activities, and it is read by banks as evidence of substance.

Read the lease before it goes to Ejari. Ejari records the contract; it does not check that the contract says what you agreed. Dubai tenancies are governed by Law No. 26 of 2007 on landlords and tenants, and the signed document is what any dispute will be decided on. Before signing, check that the permitted use of the unit matches the activity you are licensing; that the rent, the payment schedule, the term and any rent-free fit-out period discussed with the landlord actually appear in the text; that the landlord's consent to your fit-out and to the Civil Defence works is written in; and that the renewal and break terms line up with your licence renewal date rather than fighting it. Terms agreed in conversation and missing from the text are, for practical purposes, terms you do not have.

What we need from you, by shareholder type

The list below is what a Dubai file is actually assembled from. The right-hand column is where these files stop, taken from the failures we see rather than from a brochure.

The ownership chart deserves its own sentence. Every incorporating authority now maintains a beneficial ownership record, and every bank will trace your shareholding to the natural persons behind it. If your structure runs through a nominee arrangement, a trust, or a holding company in a jurisdiction that does not publish ownership, prepare that explanation before the bank asks for it — not after a compliance officer has already formed a view.

Stage eight — licence issue, and what it does not include

Fees are settled and the licence is issued, typically within a few working days of the file being complete. It carries the company name, legal form, activity codes, shareholders, manager, premises and expiry date. It is the document everything else in the UAE will ask to see.

It is worth being precise about what the licence does not give you, because founders routinely assume otherwise. It is not permission to employ anyone — that requires an immigration file and, on the mainland, a MOHRE establishment file. It is not a bank account, and no bank is obliged to open one. It is not an import/export permission — that is a customs client code, applied for separately with Dubai Customs. It is not a tax enrolment; corporate tax and VAT are federal filings you make yourself, on their own deadlines. And it is not evidence of substance for corporate tax purposes.

Set the ordinary acts of a trading company against the documents each one actually requires, and the licence turns out to be the entry ticket rather than the finished company.

five ordinary acts of a trading company, weighed against one document

The trade licenceWhat it still waits on

1. Trade the activity written on the licenceAsked for, and enough on its ownNothing — the one act that licence issue completes
2. Employ anyoneAsked for, and not permission to employ anyoneAn immigration file and, on the mainland, a MOHRE establishment file
3. Sponsor a residence permitAsked for, and not the sponsorship itselfThe establishment or immigration card, before which no visa application exists
4. Import or export goodsAsked for, and not an import/export permissionA customs client code, applied for separately with Dubai Customs
5. File corporate tax and VAT returnsAsked for, and not a tax enrolmentFederal enrolment and returns you make yourself, on their own deadlines

The licence appears in every row and stands alone in only the first. Each of the others is waiting on a document the licensing authority does not issue, cannot chase and will not be told about — which is why an engagement that ends at licence issue ends one stage early.

Stage nine — the establishment card and the immigration file

The company now needs its own identity in the immigration system. Mainland companies obtain an establishment card from GDRFA and, where staff will be employed, open a labour establishment file with MOHRE. Free zone companies obtain an immigration card issued through the zone, which acts as sponsor of record; employment terms in most zones sit under the zone's own employment regulations rather than MOHRE, and DIFC and ADGM operate separate employment laws entirely.

Quota is assessed at this stage. There is no published statutory ratio of office area to visas. The working figure commonly applied in Dubai is roughly nine square metres of leased office per visa for commercial activity, but assessment is discretionary and takes account of the activity, the premises, the business case and the company's compliance record. Free zone quota is set by the facility type in your package. No consultant can guarantee you a quota number in advance, and any firm that does is guessing with your money. If headcount is central to your plan, size the premises for it before signing.

Stage ten — visas, in the order they actually happen

Each person follows the same sequence, and each step gates the next: quota approval, then entry permit, then either a status change inside the country or an exit and re-entry, then the medical fitness test at an approved centre, then Emirates ID biometrics with ICP, then issue of the residence permit and — for employees — the labour contract and work permit.

Since April 2022 the residence permit has been issued digitally. Passports are no longer stamped with a residence sticker; the Emirates ID is the document that evidences residency, with the record available through the ICP and GDRFA channels. Anyone still quoting you for "visa stamping" as a distinct line item is quoting for a step that no longer exists.

Dependants come after the sponsor's residency is issued, and are assessed on salary and accommodation evidence. Practical points that cause most of the delays we see: names that differ between passport and supporting documents; medical results referred for further testing; and prior UAE immigration records — a previous visa cancelled improperly, an old absconding report, an unresolved file — which surface here and nowhere earlier. Our visa services and PRO services pages cover the ongoing side of this.

If you are already living in the UAE

A large share of the people forming companies in Dubai are already here on somebody else's visa, and the rules that apply to them are different enough to matter.

Holding shares is not the same as being sponsored. You can own a company while resident on an employment or family visa. What changes the picture is wanting that company to sponsor your own residency, or being named as manager on the licence — at which point incorporating authorities and immigration commonly ask for a no-objection certificate from your current sponsor. Requirements differ by incorporating authority and by visa category, so confirm yours with the specific authority rather than with a forum post.

Status change or exit and return. Where your category permits it, an in-country status change converts your existing status to the new entry permit without a flight. It costs more than the flight sometimes does, and it is not available for every nationality or every category. The alternative is an exit and re-entry, which is routine and often cheaper.

Long-term residency holders do not need company sponsorship at all. If you already hold a ten-year residence, the company still needs its own immigration file to sponsor staff, but not for you.

Family-sponsored residents can work on a permit. A person sponsored by a spouse or parent can be issued a work permit by an employer without transferring sponsorship. Founders on a spouse visa frequently miss this and buy a visa allocation they do not need.

Mind the grace period. After a residence visa is cancelled, a grace period runs before you are overstaying — commonly thirty days for standard categories, longer for some. Overstaying accrues daily fines and complicates the next application, so cancellation and the new entry permit should be sequenced deliberately rather than discovered.

The ten-year routes are decided by immigration, not bought with the licence

The Golden Visa is real, and for some founders it is the right target. It gives five or ten years of self-sponsored residence, and unlike the ordinary permit it is not voided by more than six months spent outside the country. The categories that concern founders are the investor route, which turns on capital actually placed at a published minimum; the entrepreneur route, which asks for evidence that the project is innovative or technical, documents proving its value and a letter from a business incubator or the competent authority in the emirate; and the specialised-talent routes, each endorsed by the body competent for the field.

What none of them asks for is a trade licence. The company formed in this engagement sponsors the ordinary residence permit described above — renewable, tied to the licence, and cancelled with it. If long-term residence is the real objective, say so in the first conversation: it changes what evidence the file needs to generate, and in some cases whether a company is needed at all. A trade licence is not a Golden Visa sets out each category and the body that endorses it.

What being an employer costs from the first hire

None of this is formation work, and no package price includes it. It starts the day your first employee signs.

• An enrolled employment contract. It goes through MOHRE on the mainland, or through the zone's own portal in a free zone. The terms filed are the terms enforced.
• The Wage Protection System. Mainland salaries are paid through WPS, and several free zones operate equivalents. Late or partial payment is visible to the authority and can block permit services.
• Health insurance. Employee cover is mandatory in Dubai under DHA rules and is the employer's obligation, not the employee's.
• Unemployment insurance. The ILOE scheme under Federal Decree-Law No. 13 of 2022 requires employee subscription, with a penalty for non-subscription and defined exempt categories. Owners and investors are outside it.
• End-of-service gratuity. It accrues under the Labour Law from the first day of service, at a rate stepped by length of service. It is a liability building on your balance sheet whether or not you have provisioned for it, and it comes due at the least convenient moment — when someone resigns.

Finding the people is a separate market from employing them. Recruiting workers on behalf of others is itself a MOHRE-licensed activity — it appears in the approvals table in stage six — so an agency you pay to source candidates should be able to show you that licence before you engage it.

Our human resources and business support pages cover the ongoing administration once staff are on the file.

Stage eleven — the corporate bank account, which we introduce and do not promise

This is the stage most likely to fail, and the one most often sold as though it were administrative.

UAE banks conduct their own onboarding under Central Bank rules and their own risk appetite. They decline applications routinely, and they are not required to give a reason. The recurring causes are consistent: the licensed activity does not match the business described in the application; the shareholders' countries of residence or the expected counterparties fall in a category the bank has withdrawn from; there is no evidence the company does anything in the UAE — no real premises, no local staff, no local expenditure; or the projected turnover is inconsistent with the structure being presented.

What actually improves the outcome is prepared before the application: an activity code that matches reality, a coherent explanation of the source of funds, contracts or invoices evidencing the trade, premises proportionate to the claim, and a shareholding chain that can be traced to natural persons without gaps. Realistically expect two to eight weeks from submission, longer where shareholders sit behind offshore holding structures.

We make introductions to relationship managers and prepare the file to the standard they ask for. We do not guarantee an account, because no one outside the bank's compliance function can. Banking advisory sets out how we approach it — including the cases where the honest recommendation is to change the structure before applying rather than apply and be recorded as declined.

The realistic timeline, stage by stage

Elapsed time assumes the previous stage is complete. The right-hand column is where files actually stop. Read the whole table from the point at which the file is complete rather than from the day you paid a deposit — the setup clock starts at a complete file takes that distinction apart, because it is the assumption every published turnaround rests on.

For an unregulated free zone company with individual shareholders, all of them already in the UAE, a licence in five to ten working days is realistic, residency two to four weeks after that, and a functioning bank account four to ten weeks after that. Call it eight to sixteen weeks before you are invoicing and banking normally — and those three stages are nothing like equal in length, which is why a turnaround quoted on the licence alone tells you very little about when you can trade.

elapsed time, each stage beginning when the one before it completes

1. Licence issued5–10 working daysUnregulated free zone company, individual shareholders, all of them already in the UAE
2. Residency, after the licence2–4 weeksEntry permit, status change or exit and re-entry, medical fitness test, Emirates ID biometrics
3. A functioning bank account4–10 weeksThe stage most likely to fail, and the one outside every consultant's control

Before you are invoicing and banking normally8–16 weeks

The longest of the three is the one nobody in this engagement controls. A mainland company with a leased office adds the lease and fit-out. A regulated activity is measured in months, and any quote that says otherwise is quoting a different job.

Indicative costs, and why one number is dishonest

Every figure below is an indicative range and nothing more. Authority fees, free zone package prices and visa costs change without notice, promotional pricing distorts published rates, and your own file may sit outside these ranges entirely. Verify each line with the relevant authority before you budget. When you set two quotations beside each other, separate the authority's fees from the firm's — the three kinds of line on a formation quotation explains which of them anyone is actually free to move.

Set the six lines that decide a first-year budget on one scale and the widest band is not the licence at all. It is the premises, which the mainland licence figure excludes and which the visa quota is derived from.

AED — a year on every line except the permit, which is per personWhat the band turns on

1. Residence permit, per person3,500 – 7,500Entry permit, status change, medical, Emirates ID
2. Statutory audit where required5,000 – 20,000+Mandatory for every Qualifying Free Zone Person, any size
3. Free zone licence, no visa allocation11,000 – 25,000Promotional packages fall below this; check what renews at
4. Mainland licence, government fees15,000 – 30,000Excludes premises entirely
5. Free zone licence with flexi-desk and visa allocation15,000 – 35,000Allocation, not the visas themselves
6. Ejari-official office address, mainland15,000 – 80,000+Location and area dependent; drives visa quota

040k80kAED — a year on every line except the permit, which is per person

The single largest variable is not on this table, because it is not a fee. It is how many times an application is refiled. A file assembled correctly the first time costs the government fees once.

Two lines are also missing on purpose, because they are not formation costs and quoting them alongside would be misleading: employee cost, which begins at the first hire and carries insurance and gratuity with it, and the cost of exit, which is set out further down this page and which almost nobody quotes at all.

The five refusals, and what actually fixes them

Refusals are ordinary. What separates a controlled formation from a chaotic one is knowing which refusals are rules, which are judgements, and which are permanent.

The trade name is refused. Almost always a rule — a conflict, an abbreviated personal name, an implied regulated activity. The fix is alternates prepared in advance. Cost: an afternoon, if you planned for it.

Initial approval sits in security clearance. Not a refusal and not appealable, and nothing accelerates it. The fix is procedural rather than persuasive: keep attestation, premises and external approvals moving in parallel so the wait costs you calendar time only once, and watch the six-month clock on the certificate.

An external approval is refused or granted with conditions. Usually premises or qualifications. Conditions are the common outcome, and they are cheaper to satisfy at design stage than after fit-out. The expensive version of this mistake is building out a space before the layout has been approved by the sector authority and Civil Defence.

A medical is referred. A referral is not a refusal. The health authority follows its own procedure and the file continues under it. The practical advice is unglamorous: do not book flights, start dates or client meetings against a medical appointment date.

The bank declines. The worst of the five, because unlike the others it is recorded and it follows you. Reapplying to the same bank with the same file wastes your second attempt. The fix is to change what the file says about the business — activity, premises, substance, counterparties, ownership trace — and then apply, whether to the same institution or another. If a consultant's answer to a decline is "we will try three more banks", ask what they intend to change before the next submission.

What continues after the licence

Formation is the short part. These fall due for as long as the company exists.

Two points worth stating because the industry is slow to update them.

Economic Substance filings are no longer live. Under Cabinet Decision No. 98 of 2024, ESR obligations were limited to financial years from 2019 to those ending on or before 31 December 2022, and penalties for later periods were cancelled. If you are being quoted an annual fee for an ESR notification for a current financial year, you are being charged for a filing that does not exist. Historic periods can still be examined.

Corporate tax applies to free zone companies. They are not exempt. The 0% rate is a conditional status attaching to particular income, self-assessed annually, and most free zone service businesses selling to mainland or overseas customers earn little qualifying income. That analysis belongs before incorporation — it is set out in full on the corporate tax page, alongside VAT and corporate tax compliance and audit and accounting, and it is the reason our tax and financial advisory team sits in the first conversation rather than the last.

1. 2021Most mainland activities stop requiring an Emirati shareholderCabinet Resolution No. 55 of 2021 defines the activities left restricted
2. April 2022Residence permits go digital and passports are no longer stampedThe Emirates ID is the document that evidences residency
3. 31 December 2022Economic Substance obligations stop after financial years ending hereCabinet Decision No. 98 of 2024 also cancelled penalties for later periods
4. 1 June 2023Corporate tax begins — 0% to AED 375,000, 9% aboveFinancial years beginning on or after this date, free zone companies included
5. 1 March 2024Corporate tax enrolment falls due within three months of incorporationFor companies formed on or after this date, through EmaraTax

Changing the company after it exists

Nothing here is unusual and all of it is routine work. It is listed because founders consistently underestimate it, and because knowing the cost of a change is part of choosing the structure in the first place.

What it costs to leave

Formation firms quote to get you in. Very few quote to get you out, and the omission matters, because the exit is where an ill-chosen structure finally presents its bill.

In a free zone the process is usually contained: an application to the zone, settlement of outstanding dues, cancellation of every residence visa and then the immigration card, sometimes an audited closing statement, and finally a de-licensing certificate. Weeks rather than months, if the visas are cancelled cleanly.

A mainland LLC is a formal liquidation. A shareholders' resolution is notarised, a licensed liquidator is appointed and their acceptance letter filed, and a notice is published giving creditors a statutory objection window — commonly cited as forty-five days under the Commercial Companies Law. Clearances are then collected from immigration and labour, utilities, telecoms and the landlord, visas are cancelled, and the licence is cancelled with a de-licensing certificate issued at the end. Plan for months, not weeks, and for a liquidator's fee that no formation quote mentioned.

The federal side does not close itself. VAT cancellation is due within a short window of ceasing taxable supplies — commonly cited as twenty business days — and corporate tax cancellation requires an application and a final return. Leaving either undone leaves live filing obligations, and penalties, attached to a company that has stopped trading.

Simply not renewing is the most expensive route of all. Fines accrue against the licence, the immigration file stays open with visas live under it, and the shareholders and manager can find themselves blocked from other filings until the position is regularised. An abandoned licence is not a closed company; it is an open liability with your name on it.

Budget the exit at formation. It is a real number, and knowing it changes which entity you choose. Our company liquidation page sets out both routes properly.

Where this service is the wrong purchase

We would rather lose the engagement than take it on a false premise.

If your activity is plain and you already hold UAE residency, buy direct. Several free zones sell straightforward trading and consultancy licences through their own portals. If you need one activity, no external approval, no visas and you can read a form, an intermediary adds cost without adding judgment. Pay us when the file has a decision in it.

If you have one UAE customer, you may not need a company at all. A single contract can often be served from your existing entity, or through a UAE-licensed distributor, without incorporating anything. Formation makes sense when you need to invoice locally at scale, employ people, hold assets or sponsor residency — not because you have one invoice to raise.

If you need a regulated financial, virtual asset, healthcare or education licence, a formation agent is the wrong first call. Those are regulatory applications requiring a law firm and a specialist compliance adviser. We can carry the corporate work alongside them. We should not be leading them, and neither should anyone selling you a package.

If the licence is really a visa purchase, say so. A trade licence bought purely to obtain residency is an expensive route with annual renewal costs, tax enrolment duties and bookkeeping attached to a company that does no business. Depending on your circumstances a freelance permit, employment, or another residency category may be cheaper and cleaner. It is a legitimate objective — it is just frequently the wrong instrument.

If you are choosing DIFC or ADGM for the prestige, choose again. They are the correct answer for regulated financial firms, funds and structures that need common law and an enforceable local judgment. For a consultancy or a trading company they are a multiple of the cost and the compliance load, bought for a letterhead.

If price is the deciding factor, take the cheapest quote. We will not win that comparison and will not try to. What we will do is tell you what a low quote usually excludes: visa costs, the establishment card, medicals and Emirates ID, attestation, the second-year renewal at a non-promotional rate, and any external approval. Get every one of those in writing before comparing two numbers.

If anyone guarantees you a bank account, walk away. Including us, if we ever said it. The decision belongs to a bank's compliance function and is outside every consultant's control.

And if the pitch is 0% tax, ask who your customers are. If nobody has asked that before quoting you a free zone package, they are describing a brochure rather than the law.

Seven questions to ask before you pay anyone

Ask these of us as readily as of anyone else. How firms in this market are paid, and which way that bends the answer you get, is set out separately in choosing a business setup consultant in Dubai.

1. Which exact activity code, on which record? If the answer is a category name rather than a code, the classification work has not been done.
2. What is excluded from this quote? Ask for the exclusions line by line — visas, medicals, Emirates ID, establishment card, attestation, external approvals, second-year renewal.
3. Who holds the portal credentials? Your EmaraTax, immigration and licensing logins belong to your company. Some agents keep them, which makes leaving them expensive. Insist on ownership in writing.
4. What happens if the application is refused? Get the refund and refiling position in writing before payment, not after a rejection.
5. Which steps do you perform, and which does the authority perform? Then ask whose timeline the quoted turnaround describes. It is almost always the first group.
6. Who will be named as manager on my licence, and what can they sign? If an agent proposes their own staff member, establish exactly what that person can bind the company to and how they are removed.
7. Will you put the structure recommendation in writing before I pay? Activity, incorporating authority, legal form, premises, visa count, and the reason for each. A firm that will not is selling a filing service and pricing it as advice.

What you should physically hold at the end

A completed formation leaves you holding a specific set of documents, and every one of them is issued by the authority that owns the stage it came out of rather than by the firm you paid to assemble it. That is precisely why the set is easy to leave half-collected: no one counter issues more than a part of it. Check it off line by line before the engagement is closed.

	Which stage produces it	Who issues it
The trade licence	Stage eight — licence issue	The Department of Economy and Tourism on the mainland; each free zone authority issues its own
The memorandum and articles as filed	Stage seven — constitutional documents	A notary on the mainland; the zone authority in a free zone
Share certificates, or the zone's incorporation certificate	Stage seven — constitutional documents	The incorporating authority
The shareholder and beneficial ownership records	Stage seven — the ownership chart	The incorporating authority, which maintains the beneficial ownership record
The Ejari certificate, or the facility agreement	Stage seven — premises	Dubai Land Department; a free zone issues the facility agreement instead
The establishment or immigration card	Stage nine — the immigration file	GDRFA on the mainland; the zone as sponsor of record
The MOHRE establishment file details, where applicable	Stage nine — the immigration file	MOHRE
Emirates ID and residence records, for each sponsored person	Stage ten — visas	ICP, with the record available through the ICP and GDRFA channels
The customs client code, if you import	Stage eight — what the licence excludes	Dubai Customs, applied for separately
EmaraTax account credentials and the corporate tax enrolment number	Stage eight — what the licence excludes	The Federal Tax Authority
The full set of attested corporate documents	Stage seven — attestation	The consular chain, ending at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs

If any of those sit only with your agent, you do not fully control your own company.

Start with the counterparty, not the package

Tell us who you will invoice, where they are, what you will actually do for them and where you are personally tax resident. From those four answers the activity codes, the incorporating authority, the legal form, the premises and the visa count follow — in that order, which is the order the authorities work in.

Speak to a consultant on +971 56 411 0920 or +971 56 515 5115, email info@consultzone.ae, or visit us at International Business Tower, Office 1710, Al Amal Street, Business Bay, Dubai. If the honest answer is that you should buy direct from a free zone portal, or that you do not need a UAE company this year, you will get that answer in the first conversation, at no charge.

Nothing on this page is legal or tax advice on your own facts, and no figure here should be relied on without checking it against the authority cited.

Frequently asked questions