Key Takeaways
- Licences start at AED 5,000, Jafza says, and the price rises with the activities you add (Jafza, as of October 2026).
- There's no minimum share capital for an FZE or an FZCO. An FZE has one shareholder, while an FZCO has two to fifty.
- Jafza has no public fee table for FZE, FZCO or branch licences. The AED 10,000 and AED 2,500 figures you'll come across are Registrar fees for offshore companies only.
- None of the formation, licence or calculator pages gives a visa quota rule, so Jafza has to tell you what allowance comes with your lease.
- A Jafza offshore company may do lawful business as the Registrar permits. It still needs a licence or permit, and breaking the rules can mean an AED 50,000 fine.
A Jafza trade license is valid for one year and needs a lease agreement behind it. Jafza expects to issue it in 3 to 14 business days once you've handed in all your documents (Jafza company-formation page, as of October 2026). The price is where quotes tend to go wrong. A single quote can mix up a starting licence price, fee tables from older guides and a pair of offshore Registrar fees. Only the first of these is on Jafza's current licence page. The offshore fees belong to a different product altogether.
What Jafza is and who it suits
Jafza is the Jebel Ali Free Zone. It licenses trading, service, industrial and logistics companies (Jafza business licence page, as of October 2026). Its licence types are built around those activities, which is why traders, logistics operators and industrial firms make up its natural users.
There's an oddity on that page. It talks about five licence types but only names four. Check with Jafza which category your activity falls under before you rely on any quote.
Company forms from FZE and FZCo to branch and offshore
Jafza's company-formation page lists five formation types (Jafza, as of October 2026). The FZE (free zone establishment) and the FZCo (free zone company) differ mainly in how many shareholders they have. Use the table to match a form to the way your business is owned.
| Form | Shareholders | What Jafza states |
|---|---|---|
| FZE | One | No minimum share capital prescribed |
| FZCo | Two to fifty | No minimum share capital prescribed |
| Public Listed Company | Not stated on the page | Listed as a formation type; the page gives no conditions |
| Branch | Parent company | Must be 100% owned by the parent company |
| Offshore | At least one, no maximum | Its own regulations and a registered agent; needs licences or permits to do business in the zone or elsewhere (Regulation 14.3) |
You may still find guides quoting AED 1,000,000 for an FZE or AED 500,000 per shareholder for an FZCo. Those figures describe the rules before 2017. Jafza's page now says it doesn't prescribe a minimum share capital.
That leaves you to set the share capital, the money the owners commit to the company, yourself. Jafza does require it to be sufficient for the licensed activities. Banks have their own expectations, so find out what yours wants to see for your activity before you settle on a figure.
Jebel Ali Free Zone licence cost and the lease requirement
Jafza says licences "start at AED 5,000", and the cost goes up with the number of business activities you add (Jafza business licence page, as of October 2026). Activities are sold in groups. One group gives you up to seven activities, two groups up to twelve, and three or more groups an unlimited number.
For FZE, FZCo and branch prices, Jafza only points you to its cost calculator. The calculator asks for the licence type, the activity groups and the number of owners. Until you've filled those in, it shows AED 0. Older Jafza guides contain licence tables that the current formation page doesn't repeat, and Jafza is the only one who can tell you whether they still apply.
Then there's the lease. Jafza's company-formation page says a lease agreement must be in place when the company is set up, and that every licence is valid for one year. Renewal depends first of all on an active lease contract. The same page estimates 3 to 14 business days from the time all documents are submitted.
Go through the lease terms carefully. They fix your address, the space you have for stock and the facility your visa allowance depends on.
Visas and the facility tie
You won't find a visa quota rule on Jafza's formation, licence, FZE guide or calculator pages. The quota, meaning how many residence visas your company may apply for, is something free zones set themselves, and it usually follows the office or facility you hold.
Ask Jafza how many visas come with the lease you plan to sign, what it would cost to raise that number later and which approval you'd need. Get the answer in writing, on the same document as the lease quote.
The Jafza offshore company regulations of 2023
An offshore company is a separate product with its own rulebook, the Jafza Offshore Companies Regulations 2023. These replaced the 2018 regulations. Regulation 14.1 lets an offshore company "conduct lawful business activities as permitted by the Registrar from time to time". The Registrar is the office at Jafza that keeps the register of these companies.
Regulation 14.2 lists what the company is allowed to do. It may use advisers in the UAE, keep its books in the UAE and hold its meetings there. It may lease a registered office in an approved freehold area and own property in designated freehold areas. It may also own shares in a UAE operating company and hold a UAE bank account.
Regulation 14.3 adds a condition. The company must get the appropriate licences or permits to carry on business in the zone or in any other jurisdiction. Doing business in breach of Regulation 14 carries a fine of AED 50,000 (Schedule 3, as of October 2026).
You need a registered agent unless the company keeps an office in the zone. Nominee directors, people who sit on the board on someone else's behalf, are allowed (Regulations 32 and 33.3). JAFZA requires audited accounts every year, and you should confirm the current filing deadline with it. Under Regulation 62 the Registrar can modify that requirement, so find out whether any relief applies to your company.
The two fees that so often get quoted without context come from Schedule 2. The Registrar charges AED 10,000 to file the application for incorporation and AED 2,500 to renew after 12 months. Both apply to offshore companies only, and agents add their own charges on top. Neither is an FZE, FZCo or branch cost.
Our guide to an offshore company in the UAE compares this option with RAK ICC (the Ras Al Khaimah International Corporate Centre) and Ajman.
Customs, goods and mainland sales
To sell to customers on the Dubai mainland, meaning anywhere in the emirate outside a free zone, a Jafza company has to use one of the options Dubai allows. Executive Council Resolution 11 of 2025 sets out three. You can open a mainland branch. You can run a branch operating out of the free zone at AED 10,000 a year. Or you can take a permit of up to six months at AED 5,000. Jafza has to approve each of them first (Articles 5 to 7 on approval and Article 12 on fees, as of October 2026).
Since 8 October 2025 you've been able to apply for the permit online through Invest in Dubai, starting with non-regulated activities. You'll need a Dubai Unified Licence for it. Jafza's guide of 31 May 2026 describes that as an identifier that works across the mainland and the free zones. If none of these fits, a mainland licence is the alternative, explained in the Dubai trade licence overview.
VAT has its own test. A Designated Zone is an area the VAT rules treat in a special way for goods. The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) keeps the current list (Cabinet Decision 59 of 2017 as amended), and it names Jebel Ali Free Zone (North-South). Being on the list isn't enough by itself. The area must be fenced, with security and customs controls, and meet the conditions in Article 51 of the VAT Executive Regulation.
Corporate Tax works differently again. A VAT Designated Zone isn't automatically a Designated Zone for Corporate Tax (Cabinet Decision 100 of 2023, Article 1). Treat the two as the same and you could end up claiming a tax treatment you aren't entitled to.
Jafza's company-formation page says nothing about customs registration, and only Jafza's own answer settles it. Before you sign the lease, put three questions to Jafza: what the lease terms are, which customs registration your activity needs and which activity group goes on the licence. An adviser who sets up logistics businesses will know the wording. If you sell online and ship from a Jafza warehouse, read the guide to the e-commerce licence in the UAE as well.
Setup advisers say a licence that only says "general trading" gets more questions from banks than one naming a product group. The bank can't match that wording to your goods, suppliers and customers. And by the time the questions come, you've already paid the licence fee.
Renewal, audit and Corporate Tax status
A Jafza licence lasts one year. An active lease contract is the first thing Jafza asks for at renewal, and it publishes no onshore renewal fee. The AED 2,500 offshore renewal fee mentioned above belongs to a different product.
For Corporate Tax, a Jafza company is a taxable person. It has to register within three months of incorporation (FTA Decision 3 of 2024), and late registration brings an AED 10,000 penalty (Cabinet Decision 75 of 2023 as amended), as of October 2026.
The 0% rate only applies to a Qualifying Free Zone Person (QFZP), a free zone company that meets the conditions for that rate, and only on qualifying income (Ministerial Decision 229 of 2025). Distributing goods in or from a Designated Zone is a qualifying activity. It only counts where the zone is a Corporate Tax Designated Zone and the goods go to resellers or to businesses that process them.
For tax periods starting on or after 1 January 2026, FTA Decision 6 of 2026 asks a QFZP that distributes goods in or from a Designated Zone for an agreed-upon-procedures report from its auditor. In that report the auditor checks set points and says what it found. The report is due within 30 days after the Corporate Tax return deadline. Without it, the condition is treated as not met.
For a free zone company in Dubai, the audit, the renewal and the lease all run on the same calendar. Before your first tax return, have a corporate tax consultant test the qualifying income rules against your actual sales. The full list of zones is in the overview of free zones in the UAE.
AdvisoryHub may receive a fee when you request an introduction; it does not affect the information on this page.
More Company Setup Guides
Related Company Setup Guides
- UAE free zone list by emirate, with authorities and websites
- Free zone company Dubai, choosing a zone, visas and tax
- Offshore company in Dubai, what it can and cannot do
- IFZA FZCO company setup and what the zone publishes
- DMCC company registration, costs, visas and who it suits
- DIFC registration, fees by structure and where DFSA decides
- Trade license Dubai and the UAE, types and how to apply
- E commerce license Dubai, three routes for an online seller
