Licences start at 3,500 AED. But the cheapest zone on paper is often not the cheapest outcome. Here is how the low-cost options actually compare.
It is the most-asked question in UAE business setup, and the honest answer starts with a caveat: the cheapest licence and the cheapest business are not the same thing. The genuinely low-cost options RAKEZ — Ras Al Khaimah Currently the strongest value in the UAE. Zero-visa licences from 3,500 AED, one-visa packages from 13,000 AED, scaling to eight visas at 45,000 AED. Instant Licence issues eligible activities the same day. No physical office required. Ajman Free Zone Consistently among the most affordable, with solid options for small trading and industrial operations. Good warehouse access if you need it. SHAMS — Sharjah Media City Low entry cost for media, creative and freelance activities. Popular with content creators and small agencies. Activity list is narrower than general-purpose zones. SPC Free Zone — Sharjah Competitive pricing with a broad activity list and instant issuance on many activities. IFZA — Dubai Not the cheapest, but the cheapest way to get a genuine Dubai licence address. Worth the premium if your clients care where your licence says you are. Why "cheapest" misleads Four things routinely make a cheap licence expensive: Renewal pricing — year one is often promotional; year two is not. Ask for both numbers.. Activity mismatch — picking the wrong activity means amendments at 1,000–2,500 AED each. Banking — some zones carry more weight with banks than others. A cheap licence that cannot open an account has cost you everything.. Visa ceiling — if you outgrow your allocation you are buying a new package, not topping up The cheapest licence you have to replace in eighteen months was not cheap. The banking factor This is the one we would weight most heavily and the one most cost comparisons ignore entirely. Banks have preferences. A DMCC licence opens doors that a budget zone does not, and if your business depends on a corporate account with a particular tier of bank, the licence saving is false economy. For most straightforward consultancy, e-commerce and trading businesses, RAKEZ banks perfectly well. For crypto, commodities or anything a compliance officer will look twice at, pay for the address. Our honest recommendation For the large majority of founders, RAKEZ delivers the best cost-per-outcome in the UAE right now — and as a licensed RAKEZ agent we file it directly, so there is no reseller margin on top. If your situation calls for Dubai on the licence, or a premium banking profile, we will point you at IFZA or DMCC instead. We are partnered across all of them, so we have no reason to steer you. Compare real costs across zones with our calculator — itemised, no headline pricing.