What does it really cost to set up a company in the UAE?

There is no single official all-in price for a UAE company. A realistic budget combines the authority’s registration and annual licence charges with premises, establishment and immigration files, visas, external approvals, corporate documents and recurring tax, accounting and governance work. The cheapest advertised licence is therefore not necessarily the cheapest usable structure.

The right comparison is first year versus renewal for the same business model: same activity, emirate, legal form, number of owners and visas, premises and market access.

The seven cost layers

Refundable capital or security deposits should be labelled separately. They affect cash flow but are not the same as a non-refundable fee.

Official examples show why one UAE number is misleading

DMCC

DMCC’s February 2026 institutional guide lists a Basic Biz package at AED 35,484 for one year and a standard price structure including AED 1,035 application, AED 9,020 registration, AED 2,020 articles of association, AED 20,285 annual licence and AED 1,825 annual establishment card. The guide also lists other packages and office/capital assumptions.

These figures illustrate a DMCC route. They do not price another Dubai free zone, Abu Dhabi, another emirate or a mainland licence.

Masdar City Free Zone

Masdar City Free Zone currently displays a Startup package at AED 7,000 and a Business One package at AED 17,500. The latter includes stated items such as licence/registration, activities, one visa and a flexi-desk component, with notes about e-channel renewal, employment-visa deposit and lease deposit.

The comparison is useful only after reading what each package includes and what the chosen activity actually permits.

Federal Tax Authority registrations

The FTA corporate-tax registration service is currently free of charge. That does not make the tax work free: the entity still needs classification, records, filings and payment where applicable. The same service card states an AED 10,000 late-registration penalty and describes the current waiver initiative conditions.

For VAT, the FTA currently states a mandatory registration threshold of AED 375,000 in taxable supplies and imports, subject to the legal tests. Buying a licence does not automatically mean immediate VAT registration, and being below the threshold does not answer corporate-tax obligations.

Mainland or free zone: compare function before price

A low-cost free-zone package can fit a remote export consultancy and fail a mainland retail, regulated finance, warehouse or client-facing model. Conversely, a full mainland structure may be unnecessary for a narrow overseas service business. The facts decide.

First year versus renewal

First year

Budget the one-time incorporation steps, first licence period, premises and deposits, owner documents, immigration file, visas, external approvals and initial tax/accounting setup.

Renewal year

Remove genuinely one-time items, then add annual licence, lease/facility, establishment/e-channel renewals, visa renewals when due, audit where required, accounting, tax returns, corporate records and any regulatory fees.

Exit cost

Before choosing the cheapest entry price, ask what amendment, suspension, liquidation, visa cancellation, lease exit and document retrieval will cost. A company left to expire informally can accumulate penalties and block later steps.

Five misleading quote patterns

1. Licence-only headline. Registration, premises, immigration and approvals appear later.
2. First-year promotion compared with standard renewal. The discount disappears after incorporation.
3. Visa included without process scope. Entry permit, medical, ID, status change, deposit or insurance may sit outside the package.
4. “0% tax” as a formation feature. Corporate-tax treatment follows the law and operations, not the sales page.
5. All UAE routes presented as interchangeable. Activity, market access and regulator constraints are hidden.

How the Futura estimator should work

The estimator should ask about activity, customer market, emirate, shareholders, visas, premises, regulated status and mainland access. It should then return up to three possible routes, cost layers, incompatibility warnings and missing evidence.

Only current, source-linked authority figures should render. A stale record should fall back to “current authority quotation required”. The result must appear before any contact form; email or PDF is optional.

This is intentionally narrower than calculators that claim instant precision across every free zone. A smaller verified dataset is more useful than twenty unverifiable totals.

Budget worksheet

For each candidate route, request the following columns:

• authority and exact legal form;
• licensed activities;
• application and registration;
• annual licence;
• constitutional documents;
• premises and deposit;
• establishment/immigration file;
• each visa component;
• external approvals;
• refundable capital or guarantee;
• tax/accounting/audit;
• professional fees;
• year-one total, renewal total and exclusions;
• source and checked date.

Two quotes are comparable only when these columns match.

For route selection and implementation, see company registration in the UAE. Also use the mainland versus free-zone decision guide before relying on a calculator.