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The headline “AED 12,500 licence” is real — and it is almost never what you actually pay. Here is the honest, itemised breakdown of what a Dubai company really costs in 2026, including the fees most consultants leave off the first quote.
Every few days a new advert promises a Dubai company “from AED 12,500.” The number itself is not a lie — it is a real government licence fee in several free zones. The problem is what it quietly leaves out. A trade licence registers your company and one activity; it does not grant you the right to live in the UAE, hire staff, or open a bank account on its own. The moment you need any of those — and almost every founder does — the price climbs.
The single biggest add-on is the residence visa, and it is never one fee. A visa is a chain of steps, each with its own charge: an establishment (immigration) card for the company, an entry permit, a status change, a medical fitness test, Emirates ID biometrics, and finally the visa stamping itself. Skip any one and the process stalls. On top of that, most zones now expect you to hold at least a flexi-desk, and many require basic medical insurance before a visa can be stamped. None of that appears in the sticker price, which is why the honest all-in figure lands well above it.
Below is what a typical one-to-two-visa company actually pays in its first year, laid out line by line. The colour column shows whether each item usually appears in the advertised price. Read it once and the “from AED 12,500” gap explains itself.
| Cost item | Typical range (AED) | In headline? |
|---|---|---|
| Trade licence (1 activity) | 12,500 – 18,000 | Yes |
| Establishment / immigration card | 1,200 – 2,000 | No |
| Residence visa (per person) | 3,500 – 6,000 | No |
| Medical + Emirates ID | 700 – 1,200 | No |
| Flexi-desk / office | included – 15,000+ | Sometimes |
| Medical insurance (per visa) | 800 – 2,500 | No |
| Realistic year-one all-in | 18,000 – 35,000 | — |
Notice how the licence — the only figure in most adverts — is roughly a third to a half of the true total. Everything below it in red is real, unavoidable and payable in the same first few weeks. That is not a hidden trick by the free zones; it is simply the difference between registering a company and actually operating one with a resident owner.
Beyond the core line items, a handful of smaller costs catch nearly every first-time founder. Individually they are modest; together they can add several thousand dirhams and, worse, weeks of delay if you did not plan for them.
There is no universal winner — it depends on where your customers are. Free zones are usually cheaper to start and give 100% ownership, which is why they dominate the low-cost adverts. The mainland costs a little more but lets you trade directly with the UAE market, take on local retail or F&B premises, and bid for government contracts. Choosing on price alone is the classic first-timer mistake: a cheap free-zone licence is poor value if your customers are all local and you end up needing a mainland presence anyway six months later.
| Factor | Free Zone | Mainland |
|---|---|---|
| Start-up cost | Lower | Moderate |
| Ownership | 100% | 100% (most activities) |
| Trade with UAE market | Via distributor / branch | Direct |
| Office requirement | Flexi-desk often enough | Physical office usually needed |
| Best for | Services, trading, holding | Retail, F&B, local contracts |
For a full side-by-side, see our Business Setup Cost breakdown and the free zone comparison.
The variable that moves your budget most is not the free zone you pick — it is how many visas you take. The licence is broadly fixed, but every visa multiplies the immigration chain: another establishment-card allocation, another medical, another Emirates ID, another insurance policy and another stamping fee. A licence-only company can sit near the bottom of the range; the same company with three or four visas can easily double.
This is also where over-buying quietly wastes money. Many founders take more visa quota than they will fill in year one “to be safe,” then pay to hold desks and allocations they never use. A leaner approach — start with the visas you genuinely need now and scale quota as you hire — keeps year-one cash where it belongs. If you are unsure how many you will need, that is exactly the kind of thing worth a quick conversation before you commit to a package.
Save: choose a free zone whose package already bundles the flexi-desk and one visa, so you are not buying them separately at a markup; start with only the activities you actually need; and avoid over-buying visa quota you will not fill this year. Bundled packages are frequently better value than they look precisely because they absorb several of the red-row items above.
Do not cut: insurance (it is mandatory and blocks stamping), the establishment card, or professional help on activity selection — picking the wrong activity can force a costly amendment later, or get your bank account rejected at KYC when the licence and stated business do not match. The cheapest licence in the market is no bargain if it is the wrong one for how you actually plan to operate.
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