UAE Business Setup Cost Calculator
Pick your real business activity from ten registrars' published lists, then see what the licence actually costs across 31 mainland, free zone and offshore jurisdictions. Every fee itemised, year two renewal included, and the jurisdictions that cannot legally issue your activity excluded with the reason shown.
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What will the company actually do?
Search the published activity lists of ten UAE registrars. Your activity decides your licence type and, more importantly, which jurisdictions are legally able to issue it.
Setup cost questions
A single-owner free zone licence with one visa and a bundled flexi-desk starts around AED 12,000 to AED 20,000 for the first year in the Northern Emirates, and AED 20,000 to AED 35,000 in Dubai. A Dubai mainland company with a leased office and one visa realistically lands between AED 40,000 and AED 90,000. The spread is driven by three things: the emirate, whether you need a real office, and how many visas you sponsor.
Because a registrar can only issue a licence for an activity on its own published list. We mirror the full activity lists of ten UAE registrars, so when your activity is absent from one of them, that jurisdiction is excluded and the tool names the activity that caused it. Most cost calculators cannot do this, because they hold no activity data and simply multiply a stored package price.
Confirmed jurisdictions are the ten whose activity lists we publish, so their eligibility is a lookup against real data. Indicative jurisdictions are priced so the comparison is useful, but we hold no activity list for them and never assert that they can issue your activity. Every indicative row is labelled in the results.
A free zone is almost always cheaper in year one, mainly because most bundle a flexi-desk into the licence while every mainland licence needs a real Ejari or Tawtheeq lease. The trade-off is reach: a free zone company sells freely outside the UAE and inside its own zone, but selling directly to the UAE mainland needs a distributor, a dual licence, or 5% customs duty on goods crossing over.
Budget AED 3,200 to AED 7,000 per person depending on the emirate and jurisdiction. That covers the entry permit, status change, medical fitness test, Emirates ID and visa stamping. Visas run two years, so they fall due again in year three rather than year two. Medical insurance is mandatory on top and is not a government fee.
Corporate tax at 9% above AED 375,000 of taxable profit, VAT at 5% above AED 375,000 of turnover, bank minimum balances, medical insurance, refundable security deposits, and any fit-out. Share capital is stated by most free zones but rarely has to be paid up, except for regulated financial activities.
It depends on the activity. Healthcare, education, financial services, virtual assets, real estate brokerage, food service, contracting, security and transport all need a sector authority to clear you before the trade licence issues. The calculator flags these from your activity and budgets an allowance, but regulated activities are quoted case by case.
Eligibility is exact for the confirmed jurisdictions, because it comes from the registrars' own published lists. The money is a range, not a quotation: the low column is the lean promotional package a zone advertises and the high column is what a realistic file lands at. Government fees change without notice and promotional packages come and go, so use it to budget, then get a live quote before you commit.
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