Key Takeaways
- Every authority decides for itself where general trading begins. KEZAD in Abu Dhabi uses the label once a trading licence covers more than 17 products or more than three groups (KEZAD licence types page).
- The Central Bank's customer due diligence guidance, listed as in force from 7 November 2025, says a bank shouldn't open or keep a relationship if it can't complete its checks.
- Settle the activity wording before the licence is issued. Changing it later is an amendment, and the bank has to be told about it.
- Money from sanctioned or high-risk countries is one of the red flags in the Central Bank's guidance. For a trader, the people you buy from and sell to matter as much as the owners.
- KEZAD charges AED 5,000 to renew an industrial, trading or service licence after two years, and AED 15,000 for general trading (tariff as of October 2026; check the current version).
A general trading licence in Dubai is attractive for one simple reason: a single activity lets the company buy and sell many kinds of goods. The trouble tends to start at the bank. Setup advisers say banks ask more questions about this licence than about one that names the goods you sell. The broad wording is the cause, because it tells the bank very little about what the company will actually trade.
What general trading means on a licence
Every trade licence (the document that lets your company do business) lists one or more activities. An activity is the exact business you may carry out, picked from an official list. General trading is an activity that covers many product lines at once, where other licences name specific goods. Each licensing authority decides where general trading starts. KEZAD (Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi), for example, treats a trading licence as general trading once it covers more than 17 products or more than three groups, according to its page on company licence types.
Zones file it under different headings. RAKEZ lists general trading as a licence type of its own, beside commercial, industrial, service and e-commerce. Dubai CommerCity puts it next to its trade, service, industrial and e-commerce licences (zone websites, October 2026).
On the Dubai mainland, meaning anywhere in Dubai outside a free zone, the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) decides. DET is Dubai's mainland licensing office and was formerly called DED. Its 2011 fee schedule, Executive Council Resolution 13 of 2011, gave general trading a fee of its own, separate from the standard licence fee. Since the fee depends on the activity, get DET's current fee sheet for your activity code.
Limits on products and groups
Each zone caps how much one licence may cover. Meydan's standard licence allows up to three activity groups (Meydan price page, October 2026). SHAMS packages allow up to five activities, and KEZAD's tariff allows the same number on a new trading licence. SAIF Zone's business set-up page says a trade licence may hold a maximum of three similar product lines. That page has a 2020 footer, and the zone can tell you whether the limit still applies.
For the bank, though, the limit that matters most is in your wording, whatever the zone allows. An authority may ask how the activities on one licence fit together. Imagine a licence that lists phone cases, frozen fish and car parts. The authority and the bank will both want an explanation.
Why banks read it as higher risk
Before a bank looks at your licence, it looks at the business, the owners and where the money comes from. These checks are called due diligence. The Central Bank has guidance on customer due diligence, listed as in force from 7 November 2025. It requires banks to verify each customer and each beneficial owner, meaning the real person who owns or controls a company, and to scale their checks to the risk. Banks have to keep the records for at least five years. Where they can't complete due diligence, the guidance says they shouldn't open or keep the relationship.
The guidance also lists warning signs. Ownership that's hard to trace is one. Others are nominee shareholders (people who hold shares on someone else's behalf), the features of a shell company and money whose origin isn't clear. A newly formed company funded with large sums is on the list too, as is money from sanctioned or high-risk countries. The Central Bank has separate guidance on trade-based money laundering, which is hiding illegal money inside trade deals (Central Bank rulebook).
When you open the account, the bank may ask for your contracts with suppliers and customers. It may also want documents showing where the goods come from and where they end up. Mashreq's key facts statement for its NEO BIZ account says the bank can turn down an application if its due diligence isn't satisfactory (Mashreq, 2026).
Specific trading activities as an alternative
Narrow wording gives the bank something concrete to check your documents against. Take a company that imports bathroom fittings and sells them to contractors. It can name exactly those activities. Its contracts, invoices and website then all match the licence.
The activity wording follows the company everywhere. It's printed on the licence and written into the memorandum of association, the founding contract between the owners. Banks ask for both (Mashreq NEO BIZ common documents, 2026). Changing the activity once the licence is out counts as an amendment with its own fee, and you'll have to tell the bank.
That's why the wording is best decided before the licence exists. A lawyer licensed in the UAE can check your draft against the authority's activity list and against what a bank is likely to ask. For the company side of the same decision, see the guide to a trading company in Dubai.
Goods, customs and the import-export code
Trading goods brings three things a service business doesn't have to deal with: customs registration, VAT treatment and product permits. Your licensing authority or free zone can tell you which customs office registers importers for your premises, and what that office needs from you.
How Value Added Tax (VAT) applies depends on where the goods are kept. The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) keeps a list of Designated Zones, set by Cabinet decision. Only a zone on that list can be treated as outside the UAE for VAT on goods. Being listed isn't enough by itself. The zone also has to meet the fencing and customs-control conditions in Article 51 of the VAT Executive Regulation (FTA VAT guide, July 2018). Check that your zone is on the list.
Corporate Tax adds a second test. A free zone company pays 0% only on qualifying income, and only if it's a Qualifying Free Zone Person (QFZP), a free zone company that meets the conditions for the 0% rate. The rules come from Cabinet Decision 100 of 2023 and Ministerial Decision 229 of 2025. Trading in Qualifying Commodities is on the qualifying list. So is distributing goods or materials in or from a Designated Zone (Ministerial Decision 229 of 2025). Selling ordinary goods to mainland customers isn't. A corporate tax consultant can tell you how that income would be taxed.
Some goods also need a product permit, which isn't part of the licence. In Dubai, Executive Council Resolution 5 of 2024 lets you get the licence first, but the permits have to be in place before the activity starts. If you sell a regulated product before its permit arrives, you break the undertaking you signed as the investor.
Sanctions screening and documents banks request
For a trader, the counterparties (the people you buy from and sell to) matter as much as the shareholders. The Central Bank's guidance names money from sanctioned or high-risk countries as a red flag. Suppose the bank finds that a customer or supplier has sanctions exposure after you've already signed contracts with them. That alone can end your application.
Before you settle the wording, write down your counterparties, your shipping routes and your goods. Then ask the bank early on how it screens them.
Mashreq's NEO BIZ document list gives a sense of the basic papers a bank wants (Mashreq, October 2026):
- the trade licence and the memorandum of association;
- a board resolution, if your company has one;
- proof of the company's address;
- identity documents for the partners;
- bank statements, where they apply.
If you trade goods, bring supplier and customer contracts, invoices and origin documents to your first bank meeting as well.
General trading licence cost and zone differences
There's no set price for a general trading licence. It depends on the activity, the jurisdiction, the premises and the year. A figure that leaves out any of those four can't fairly be compared with another.
Some zones do publish their tariffs. KEZAD lists AED 0 for a new trading licence with up to five activities. Renewing it after two years costs AED 5,000, or AED 15,000 if it's general trading (KEZAD tariff, as of October 2026; check the current version). Meydan advertises a standard licence package from AED 12,500 a year, without visas (Meydan price page, October 2026).
For the Dubai mainland, start with DET's fee sheet and add the other fees on top. Chamber membership and the knowledge and innovation fees are charged outside the licence fee. Registering a company lease with Ejari, Dubai's official register of tenancy contracts, costs AED 220 through a trustee centre. The AED 177.75 rate in the app only applies when the tenant and the landlord are both individuals (Dubai Land Department, as of October 2026). The guides to the trade licence in Dubai and the DED licence show how the fees add up.
Your choice of zone also decides where you can sell. A Dubai free zone company that wants mainland customers needs a branch or a six-month permit under Executive Council Resolution 11 of 2025. A branch run from the free zone costs AED 10,000 a year, and the permit costs AED 5,000 (as of October 2026). KEZAD's free zone page says sales to the local market go through distributors, agents or a dual licence, which is a mainland branch that a free zone company runs from its free zone office. Other emirates have their own options.
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