Business Setup in Dubai

Business setup in Dubai comes down to one decision made early and correctly: which jurisdiction you register in. Get that right and the licence, the visas and the bank account fall into place. Get it wrong and you spend the next year paying for a structure that will not let you invoice the clients you actually have.

Shamael Government Services has handled company setup in Dubai and across the Emirates since 2014. We are not a lead-generation site that hands you to somebody else. We prepare the documents, file with the authority, chase the approvals and see your Emirates ID through to collection.

The three ways to set up a business in Dubai

Dubai gives you three routes, and they are not interchangeable. A free zone licence gives you 100% foreign ownership, no customs duty inside the zone and a straightforward visa quota, but selling directly into the UAE mainland market needs a distributor or a mainland branch. A mainland licence from the Department of Economic Development lets you trade anywhere in the country and bid for government work, with no restriction on where your clients are. An offshore company holds assets and trades internationally, carries no visa entitlement and needs no office.

Most first-time founders are pushed toward whichever option pays the consultant best. We ask what you sell, who pays you and whether you need staff visas, then recommend from that. Sometimes the honest answer is that Ajman or Sharjah suits you better than Dubai, and we will say so.

What business setup in Dubai actually costs

A Dubai free zone licence with no visa allocation typically starts around AED 12,000 to 15,000 for the first year. Add a residence visa and you are usually looking at AED 20,000 to 30,000 once the establishment card, e-channel registration, medical, Emirates ID and stamping are counted.

A mainland DED licence generally lands between AED 15,000 and 25,000, and moves with your activity: some professional activities are cheap, while anything needing external approval from a ministry or authority costs more and takes longer. Office rent is a real cost on mainland, because your visa quota is tied to the space you lease.

We quote government fees and our service fee as separate lines, so you can see exactly what is going to the authority and what is going to us. Our Ajman free zone packages start at AED 4,888 a year if budget is the deciding factor.

How long it takes

A free zone trade licence can be issued in as little as two hours once your documents are in order and the name is approved. Mainland licensing through the DED usually runs three to five working days, longer if your activity needs external approval.

Residence visas add roughly seven to ten working days on top: entry permit, status change, medical fitness test, Emirates ID biometrics and stamping. You need to be in the country for the medical and the biometrics, but everything before that can be done remotely with attested documents and a power of attorney.

Can a foreigner own 100% of a Dubai company?

Yes, in the large majority of cases. Free zone companies have always allowed full foreign ownership. Since the 2021 amendments to the Commercial Companies Law, most mainland commercial and industrial activities also permit 100% foreign ownership without an Emirati partner.

A limited list of strategic-impact activities still requires a local partner or agent. We check your specific activity code against the current list before you pay anything, because discovering it late is expensive.

What we handle for you

Trade name reservation and initial approval, memorandum drafting and notarisation, licence issuance, establishment card and e-channel registration, investor and employee visas, Emirates ID, corporate bank account introductions, and the VAT or corporate tax registrations that follow once you are trading.

After that we stay on: licence renewals, activity amendments, visa renewals and the routine government transactions that otherwise eat a working week every year.