Registering a company in Dubai is not one fee. It is a stack of separate payments made to the licensing authority, the immigration authority, a medical centre, an insurer, a landlord and…
Registering a company in Dubai is not one fee. It is a stack of separate payments made to the licensing authority, the immigration authority, a medical centre, an insurer, a landlord and — usually — a service provider, and the trade licence itself is rarely more than half of the real first-year bill. The licence alone ran when this article was first published. Everything else on this page sits on top of that.
Below is every line item in a UAE company setup, grouped the way they are actually invoiced: one-time registration and licence costs, per-person visa costs, office costs, capital and documentation, and the recurring annual costs that begin in year two. Build your own number from it rather than trusting a single package price.
Costs fall into four families. Most quotes you receive cover the first two and are silent on the rest.
| Cost family | Paid when | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| Registration and incorporation | Once, at setup | Free zone authority or the Department of Economy and Tourism |
| Trade licence | At setup, then annually | The same licensing authority |
| Immigration and residence visas | Per person, per visa cycle | Immigration authority, medical centres, insurers |
| Premises and compliance | Annually | Zone, landlord, auditors, tax authority |
The jurisdiction decides the level of every one of these. A mainland limited liability company registered through the Department of Economy and Tourism is priced differently from a free zone company in IFZA or Meydan, and both differ from an offshore structure that carries no visa entitlement at all. For the process itself rather than the pricing, our guide to starting a business in Dubai walks through the sequence.
These are paid before your licence is issued. Some are genuinely one-time; the trade licence is not, and reappears every year.
| Cost component | Notes |
|---|---|
| Trade name reservation | Higher for foreign or non-Arabic names |
| Initial approval certificate | Time-limited; expires if you do not proceed |
| Company registration / incorporation fee | One-time, at setup |
| Trade licence — mainland LLC | Original quoted full foreign ownership, no paid-up capital and up to 10 business activities |
| Trade licence — Dubai free zone | Varies sharply by zone and activity |
| Trade licence — Sharjah and northern emirates | Original noted other northern zones below |
| Memorandum of association drafting and notarisation | Scales with shareholder count |
| External or ministry approvals | Regulated activities only — healthcare, education, tourism, financial services |
| Chamber of Commerce registration | Mainland entities |
Two structural notes that change the total. A mainland limited liability company must have, and certain activities — the original named financial investment, insurance and banking — cannot be conducted under a standard LLC at all. Details of the structure and what it permits are on our mainland company page.
This is the line item most setup quotes understate, because it is charged per person and repeats at every renewal cycle rather than once at incorporation.
| Cost component | Notes |
|---|---|
| Establishment card | Once per company, before any visa can be issued |
| Immigration (e-channel) card and registration | Once per company; renewed on its own cycle |
| Entry permit | Per person |
| Status change (in-country) | Avoided if the applicant enters on the permit from outside the UAE |
| Medical fitness test | Mandatory; express and VIP tiers cost more |
| Emirates ID | Per person, per visa cycle |
| Visa stamping | Per person |
| Mandatory health insurance | Annual, per person; required for residence |
| Refundable visa deposit | Held by the authority; refund conditions vary |
Two things reliably catch founders out here. The establishment and immigration cards are company-level costs that must be paid before the first visa, so a “one visa included” package still has prerequisites attached. And the visa cycle is not the licence cycle — your licence and your visas renew on different clocks. Investor, partner and employment visas are priced differently from one another; the routes are set out on our visas page.
Every UAE company needs a registered address. What differs is how much space that address has to represent, and the answer is usually driven by how many visas you intend to sponsor.
| Premises option | Notes |
|---|---|
| Flexi-desk or virtual address | Free zone only; visa quota is capped |
| Shared or co-working desk | Raises visa quota in most zones |
| Serviced private office | Fit-out and utilities usually included |
| Leased commercial unit | Mainland entities typically require this |
| Ejari or tenancy registration | Mandatory for mainland leases |
| Municipality / market fee on rent | Charged on commercial tenancies |
Free zones bundle a desk into most packages, which is why their headline price looks lower than mainland — the premises cost is inside the number rather than beside it. Compare like for like before concluding one is cheaper.
Share capital. The UAE Ministry of Economy requires capital to be stated in the company’s articles without specifying a statutory minimum. In practice, most free zone packages are sold with no paid-up capital requirement, meaning the figure is declared rather than deposited — but a bank may still ask to see it for account opening, and certain regulated activities carry real capital thresholds.
Documentation and attestation. Foreign-issued documents need legalisation before a UAE authority will accept them. Budget for notarisation in the country of issue, embassy or apostille legalisation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs attestation in the UAE, and legal translation into Arabic. Each is charged per document, so cost scales with the number of shareholders and whether any shareholder is a corporate entity rather than an individual.
Add a power of attorney if you are incorporating remotely, and a no-objection certificate if any shareholder or manager already holds UAE residence sponsored by someone else.
The recurring bill is what a setup quote almost never shows, and it is the number that determines whether a structure is affordable. Year two has no registration fee, but it has everything else — plus compliance obligations that did not exist at incorporation.
| Recurring cost | Notes |
|---|---|
| Trade licence renewal | May differ from a promotional first-year rate |
| Office or flexi-desk renewal | Usually renewed with the licence |
| Establishment and immigration card renewal | Required to keep sponsoring visas |
| Residence visa renewal, per person | Medical and Emirates ID repeat in full |
| Health insurance, per person | Annual and mandatory |
| Accounting and bookkeeping | Record-keeping is a legal obligation, not optional |
| Statutory audit | |
| Corporate tax registration and filing | |
| VAT registration and returns | |
| UBO and AML filings | Penalties apply for late or missing filings |
Late renewal is the most avoidable cost on this page. Penalties accrue, and an expired licence can block visa processing for your entire team while it is being cured — see licence renewal for the current cycle and what a lapse costs.
If you are working backwards from a budget rather than forwards from a structure, four decisions carry almost all of the weight: the jurisdiction, the number of residence visas, the premises type, and whether your activity is regulated. Everything else moves the total by comparatively little.
Our companion guide to low-cost business setup in Dubai works through those four decisions from the opposite direction — starting from the cheapest viable structure and showing what each upgrade costs.
For a single-shareholder company with one residence visa, the total is the trade licence plus registration, the establishment and immigration cards, one visa with its medical, Emirates ID and insurance, and a premises component. The licence is only one component; the visa and premises components sit on top of that and are quoted separately by most providers.
Annual. The registration and incorporation fees are one-time, but the trade licence is renewed every year for as long as the company exists, and so are the office component and health insurance. Any quote presented as a single setup number is a first-year number.
For most free zone and mainland structures, capital is declared in the company’s articles rather than deposited, rather than paid into a bank. Specific regulated activities do carry real paid-up requirements.
Yes, though modestly. Additional shareholders add attestation, legal translation and notarisation costs per person, and corporate shareholders add more again because the parent company’s documents must also be legalised. The licence fee itself usually does not change with shareholder count.
Corporate tax filing, VAT returns if you are registered, a statutory audit where required, and UBO and AML filings — none of which are billed at incorporation. Add the licence, office, insurance and card renewals. Year two is frequently within a small margin of year one for that reason, which is why an annual figure is more useful than a setup figure.
Often, substantially. Licences in Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah price below Dubai’s, and a company registered there can still trade internationally and across the UAE subject to the usual mainland-access rules. The trade-off is address, banking familiarity and proximity to clients rather than legal capability.
Most of the confusion around Dubai setup costs comes from comparing quotes that describe different things — one includes the desk and the visa, another includes neither, and neither mentions year two. There is no single correct number, but there is a correct method: price the jurisdiction, the visas you will actually need, the premises your visa quota requires, and the renewal, as one figure across two years.
Bizvisor quotes it that way as standard, itemised, with government fees shown separately from our own, and we will tell you when a structure you are considering will cost more to correct later than to set up properly now.
Book a free consultation and we will build your line-by-line number in one conversation.
Filed under Business Setup, Company Registration