Key Takeaways
- IFZA's head office and business park are in Dubai Silicon Oasis, and its companies are usually registered as FZCOs (free zone companies).
- There's no public price list or visa table, so your visa count has to come from the quote (IFZA, as of October 2026).
- According to IFZA, you don't have to pay in share capital, and the owners needn't be there in person while the company is registered.
- Basic licence packages need no office space, IFZA says. Find out which package counts as basic before you apply.
- A quote is only worth signing if it names the licence category, the activities, the visa count, the desk product, the renewal fee and the exit terms.
Most founders who look at IFZA never see a price from the zone itself. IFZA sells through professional partners and keeps no public price list, so the first figure you get for an IFZA FZCO company usually arrives on a partner's quote. The zone's own terms and guides do answer quite a lot, though. They cover the company form, the licence types, the capital rule and how visas are counted. Prices and visa numbers are left to the quote, and that's where comparing offers starts.
What IFZA is and what it is not
IFZA is short for the International Free Zone Authority. Its head office and IFZA Business Park are in Dubai Silicon Oasis (ifza.com, as of October 2026). It calls itself a business-to-business setup community that works through professional partners, which in practice means setup firms that sell its licences to founders.
The Government of Dubai keeps its own list of free zones. The version last modified on 3 April 2026 names 21 of them. Dubai Silicon Oasis is on it. IFZA isn't.
Given where IFZA is based, the rules that govern Dubai Silicon Oasis may well apply to it, but IFZA's public pages don't confirm this. It's worth knowing, because that regime decides who regulates your company and which rules apply when you need a visa or want to change your licence.
Legal basis and the FZCO label
A company called IFZA FZCO runs IFZA's website, and IFZA companies usually carry the FZCO label too. FZCO stands for free zone company. You won't find a definition of the label anywhere on IFZA's public pages.
That gap matters more than it seems. Dubai Law 16 of 2021 repealed the earlier Dubai Silicon Oasis law, Law 16 of 2005. Find out from IFZA which regulation now defines the FZCO label on your licence.
The public pages don't name the authority that issues the licence either. Dubai Silicon Oasis belongs to the group of zones run by the Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority (DIEZ). Ask IFZA in writing to name your licensing authority and the regulation currently in force.
Some quotes use a different form, such as an FZE (free zone establishment) or an FZ LLC (free zone limited liability company). If yours does, the partner should be able to show you where IFZA itself uses that label. In the end, the label printed on your licence is the one that counts. For other zones, see the overview of free zones in the UAE.
IFZA's site lists commercial and professional licences and says you can combine several activities under one licence. An activity is the exact business you're allowed to carry out, picked from an official list. You don't have to pay in share capital, the money the owners commit to the company. The owners don't have to be there in person during incorporation either (IFZA article updated September 2025; IFZA business-setup page).
IFZA Flexi Desk and Flexi Desk Plus defined
The Flexi Desk is a shared workstation. IFZA says it comes with 10 hours of access per week and one hour of meeting room use a month. The Flexi Desk Plus is a dedicated desk with unlimited access, its own individual address and five hours of meeting room use a month (IFZA office article, 11 January 2023).
Neither of IFZA's office pages says how many visas you get with each desk type.
IFZA licence cost and why no price is published
IFZA's business-setup page sends you to a consultation, after which the zone prepares a proposal for your business. No AED figure appears on its home, setup or guide pages. Any price you see online is a partner's offer on a particular date. You can't check it against an IFZA tariff, because there isn't one.
Use the table below to see what IFZA does commit to in its own documents, and what a quote still has to fill in.
| Item | What IFZA states | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Company form | FZCO is the usual label; no definition published | IFZA website terms (operator IFZA FZCO) |
| Licence types | Commercial and professional | IFZA site menu |
| Activities per licence | Several can be combined; the pages we read give no limit | IFZA business-setup page |
| Paid-up capital | None required | IFZA article, updated September 2025 |
| Owner presence at registration | Not required | IFZA business-setup page |
| Visa count | No number published; you can apply for a flexible number | IFZA article, updated September 2025 |
| Price | No figure; a proposal follows a consultation | IFZA business-setup page |
Every row is backed by an IFZA document. If something isn't in the table, the quotation has to supply it.
Visas, mainland access and the office line
IFZA doesn't publish a visa count per licence. Its article on reasons to set up with IFZA (updated September 2025) says businesses can apply for a flexible number of residence visas for shareholders and employees.
The same article says IFZA eliminated mandatory office space for basic licence packages. It doesn't say what makes a package basic, so confirm the rule as it stands today before you rely on it.
Buy a visa package without the cap and the desk terms on paper and you won't know your real visa count until you apply. Get the count for your licence category, and the office condition that goes with it, set out in one document.
Mainland Dubai, meaning anywhere in the emirate outside a free zone, is a separate matter. IFZA publishes no rule on mainland access for its own companies, and a free zone licence doesn't by itself let you trade there. Executive Council Resolution 11 of 2025 gives companies licensed by a Dubai free zone authority three options, and the zone has to approve each one first.
You can open a mainland branch, run a branch operating out of the free zone, or take a permit lasting up to six months. Article 12 sets the branch operating out of the free zone at AED 10,000 a year and the permit at AED 5,000, as of October 2026. None of these options reaches beyond Dubai.
IFZA's general guide to mainland companies mentions a minimum physical office. That describes mainland licences. It isn't an IFZA rule. The office requirement for your activity comes from the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), Dubai's mainland licensing office, formerly DED.
How partners sell IFZA and what to ask them
You can only compare partner quotes when they list the same items. IFZA's own business-setup page offers a consultation and a proposal. Request one from the zone as well and put it next to every partner's offer. Each quote should spell out:
- the licence category and how many activities it includes;
- the visa count for that category and any office condition that comes with it;
- the desk product, Flexi Desk or Flexi Desk Plus, and its hours;
- the renewal fee for the same package, and the terms for cancelling and leaving;
- the licensing authority and the regulation behind the licence;
- which charges go to IFZA and which are the partner's own service fee.
Hold a partner's price up against a tariff that doesn't exist and any saving you think you see is false. Two written quotes with the same items, each dated, give you a fair comparison.
One cost won't appear on any quote. A new company has to register for Corporate Tax with the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) within three months of incorporation (FTA Decision 3 of 2024). Miss that and the penalty is AED 10,000 (Cabinet Decision 75 of 2023 as amended), as of October 2026.
Not sure what a quote leaves out? A licensed adviser who deals with the zone regularly can go through it with you item by item.
Zones that publish package prices instead
Some zones do put package prices online, which makes comparing them much easier than comparing IFZA offers. The Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone (RAKEZ) advertises its Biz Starter package at AED 6,000 without a visa. Its instant-licence Lite package is AED 12,000 with one residence visa, and its all-inclusive package is AED 14,000 a year with one residence visa (RAKEZ package pages, as of October 2026). Our guide to RAKEZ company setup lists the licence types.
In Sharjah, the SHAMS free zone at Sharjah Media City advertises its Media licence from AED 5,760 as a package price and offers a calculator for the total (SHAMS, as of October 2026). The SHAMS profile explains what that covers. Meydan advertises a standard licence from AED 12,500 a year as a package price, not counting visas (Meydan, as of October 2026).
The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) goes further and publishes a schedule of charges with every fee listed. That's covered in our guide to DMCC company setup. For the visa side of any comparison, read the guide to free zone visas.
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