Set up in Dubai: free zone or mainland
Five questions that settle the licence choice, and why the licence fee is rarely the number that matters. It costs the whole first three years rather than the year-one headline price.
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Look inside
Eight of the thirteen pages. Turn them the way you would a printed guide.
What the guide covers
Thirteen pages, laid out the same way as every other guide in the series.
Five questions that settle the choice
Who you invoice, where they are, and what each answer rules out.
Eight actions
Numbered and in order, from listing your first twenty invoices to taking a costed shortlist to an adviser.
A worked example
A two-person engineering consultancy moving from the UK to Dubai.
A one-page structure decision
Five answers and two or three options costed across three years.
Related
Where to go next.
Enter the UAE market
Six stages with two stop points, and what entry costs before the first sale.
Read the guide
Small business relief and your growth plan
Three positions on the AED 3 million threshold, and what each one costs.
Read the guideWhere this fits. The licence decision is the fourth step in UAE market entry. The first is knowing who you are selling to and what you say to them, which is brand positioning.
The article behind this guide. How to set up a business in Dubai in 2026.
Sources. UAE Government portal, u.ae, for business setup routes. Federal Tax Authority, tax.gov.ae, for corporate tax, registration and the free zone conditions. Ministry of Finance, mof.gov.ae, for tax policy and small business relief. Each free zone publishes its own schedule of charges, which is the only reliable source for its fees. Listed in full on page 10 of the guide.
Next step
Talk the decision through before you commit to it
A 30 minute discovery call at no charge, on whichever part of this sits closest to the decision in front of you.
Book a discovery callOr read how uae market entry works, what it covers and how it is scoped.