The UAE & GCC free zone decision,
made clear.
The same 2026 fee schedules every UAE setup consultant works from, checked against 73 UAE free zones, 14 GCC zones, and 7 mainland structures. Ranked shortlist in under two minutes.
Browse by budget
Real Year-1 cost · no form
02 The formation crossing
The advertised price
is only the entrance fee.
Watch a licence package become an operating company. Every visa, banking and compliance gate—sequenced, costed and compared.
Interactive route mapCompare profiles, cash gates, and timingExplore the route›
licence3 checkpointsReady
- Activity approval
- Registration
- Licence ready+ AED 12,900
people2 checkpointsReady
- Establishment card+ AED 2,000
- Visa · medical · EID+ AED 3,750
money2 checkpointsHigh friction
- Bank due diligence
- Account live
compliance1 checkpointsReady
- CT · VAT decision
Shortest expected route with the lowest visible operational burden in the current scenario.
Real costs · no form · 2026 fee schedules
Compare free zone costs
Licence costs only · see each zone profile for visa & office add-ons
Renewals, bank minimum balances, visa renewals, and audits rarely make it into the headline price. Zone Compare prices the full multi-year total.
Open 5-year cost planner →Eight starting points, one that fits yours.
Zone map · 73 zones across 7 emirates
See what investors are worried about in 2026.
Setup leads. Operations isn't far behind.
10,297 questions from UAE, KSA & Qatar founders, ranked by volume.
Read the full report →03Independence
Independent research. No paid rankings.
I'm Yaschin Mohabir. I built Zone Compare because the rankings founders find online are paid placements, and the prices they're quoted are usually broker numbers rather than the published fee schedules. Every comparison here starts from the schedule and the scoring rules. Not from whoever's paying.
Nobody pays to be ranked here. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements: the scoring runs on the published fee schedules and the rules, nothing else.
Same scoring rules for every zone, on the 2026 fee schedules. If a zone ranks high, the data put it there.
04Cost gap · DMCC vs IFZA
DMCC vs IFZA: 5 years, AED 45,865 apart.
The two most-searched UAE free zones, on the same five-year fee model. Year-one license plus every annual renewal. Every other pair is one click away.
05The toolkit
The toolkit.
Six questions. A shortlist.
Branching questions narrow 87 zones to the ones that fit. Each step applies an explicit rule, so you can see exactly why you landed where you did.
06Popular comparisons
07Free zone vs Mainland / Offshore
Pick the structure first; the zone follows.
A free zone is one of three options, alongside mainland LLC and offshore vehicle. Get the structure wrong and no zone will fix it.
08Reading · articles + guides
Long-form on the decisions behind the numbers.
Talk to a human.
20-minute orientation call with a UAE setup specialist. Free. We don’t take a commission from whoever you end up using.