Company Formation التأسيس
Mainland, free zone or offshore — structured around where you actually intend to trade, not where the brochure is cheapest.
We arrange the licence, the visas, the bank, the compliance — the whole file.
A Dubai desk for company formation, trade licensing and compliance across the United Arab Emirates. You bring the business. We handle everything the government asks for.
Setting up in the UAE is not difficult.
It is merely specific.
Forty-six free zones, each with its own rulebook.
Two thousand activity codes — pick the wrong one and the bank declines you.
Six portals. Three ministries. One immigration file.
A single missed field sends the whole thing back to the beginning.
We know the fields. That is the entire job.
Everything the file needs.
Eight desks under one licence number. You deal with one person; behind them the whole thing moves at once.
خدماتنا
Trade Licence & Activities الرخصة التجارية
Name reservation, initial approval, activity selection and issuance — then the renewal you will forget about and we won't.
Visas & Immigration الإقامة
Investor, partner and employee residency — plus the ten-year Golden Visa where the numbers support it.
Corporate Banking الحسابات البنكية
Introduction, file preparation and the compliance narrative that decides whether the account opens in two weeks or never.
Tax & Compliance الضرائب والامتثال
Corporate tax registration, VAT, ESR, UBO and AML — filed on the date they are due, not the week after.
Accounting & Audit المحاسبة والتدقيق
Bookkeeping, IFRS statements and audit coordination — because in most zones the renewal now depends on them.
PRO & Government Liaison خدمات العلاقات الحكومية
Somebody who stands at the counter, in person, so that you never have to learn which counter it is.
Office, Ejari & Presence المقر والتأسيس
Flexi-desk to full floor — plus the tenancy registration your licence and your visa quota quietly depend on.
Where should this company live?
Five questions. They are the same five we ask on a first call, in the same order, and they narrow forty-odd jurisdictions down to a shortlist you can actually argue about.
Question 1 of 5
Dubai
Twenty-plus free zones and the mainland authority everyone has heard of. It is the default, it is rarely the cheapest, and for a great many businesses it is still the right answer.
- DMCC
- DIFC
- JAFZA
- IFZA
- Meydan
- DAFZA
- Dubai South
- DET mainland
Abu Dhabi
The capital, and where the serious money is administered. ADGM runs on English common law with its own courts; KEZAD has the industrial land Dubai ran out of.
- ADGM
- KEZAD
- Masdar City
- twofour54
- ADAFZ
- ADDED mainland
Sharjah
Twenty minutes from Dubai and materially cheaper. Hamriyah handles heavy industry with its own port; SHAMS issues media licences for less than most zones charge for a desk.
- SAIF Zone
- Hamriyah
- SHAMS
- SPC
- SEDD mainland
Ras Al Khaimah
The industrial answer. RAKEZ leases warehousing and land at a fraction of Dubai rates, and RAK ICC is one of the cleanest offshore registries in the region.
- RAKEZ
- RAK DAO
- RAK ICC
- RAK DED
Fujairah
The only emirate on the Gulf of Oman, which means ships reach it without passing through the Strait of Hormuz. That single fact explains its bunkering and storage trade.
- Fujairah Free Zone
- Creative City
- Fujairah mainland
Ajman &
Umm Al Quwain
The two smallest emirates, and the two cheapest places in the country to hold a licence. Ajman Media City and the UAQ Free Trade Zone exist for businesses whose margin will not carry a Dubai address — freelancers, small traders, holding shells. Nobody will be impressed. The licence is just as valid.
- Ajman Free Zone
- Ajman Media City
- UAQ FTZ
Scroll to travel the Emirates · indicative timelines, confirmed per file
None of it was built without a file.
Licences, permits, approvals, no-objection certificates — behind every one of these is paperwork somebody kept in order.
Five moves. One file.
The five bars of our mark are the five stages of a setup. It was never only a letter.
الطريقة
Brief
A call, then a written recommendation — structure, jurisdiction and total cost, in writing, before anything is signed.
24 hours
Structure
Shareholding, activity codes and licence class chosen and locked — the decisions that are expensive to reverse later.
2 days
Reservation
Trade name reserved, initial approval secured, memorandum drafted and notarised in the correct sequence.
3–5 days
Issuance
Licence issued, establishment card opened, immigration file registered. You are, formally, a company.
5–10 days
Operating
Visas stamped, Emirates IDs issued, bank account live, first tax and VAT filings already in the calendar.
2–4 weeks
The record, plainly stated.
0
Companies established across the seven Emirates شركة تم تأسيسها
SINCE 2016
0
Free zones on the desk, with current fee schedules for every one منطقة حرة
U.A.E. WIDE
0
Days, median, from signature to trade licence in hand أيام حتى إصدار الرخصة
MEDIAN
0
Of applications approved on first submission — no resubmission, no re-fee نسبة القبول من أول مرة
FIRST PASS
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Languages spoken at the desk, Arabic and English among them لغة
THE DESKWe arrange, you succeed.
Four commitments, and the plain-English version of what each one costs us to keep.
Efficiency الكفاءة
Fast, unobstructed business setup. No queue you stand in, no form you decode.
Innovation الابتكار
Technology folded into setup — filings tracked, documents signed and status visible without a phone call.
Growth النمو
Helping businesses scale strategically, through partnership, networking and investment — not just paperwork.
Trust الثقة
Legal compliance and transparency by default. Everything filed by the book — and the book kept open to you.
Said afterwards.
“We had three quotes and two of them were wrong about the visa quota. WeArrange was the only one that asked how many people we were actually hiring.”
“The licence took nine days. The bank account took four weeks, which they told us up front it would, which is the part I appreciated.”
“Our corporate tax registration was handled before we knew it was due. That is the whole reason we still use them three years on.”
“I have set up in four countries. This was the only one where I never once had to ask what was happening.”
Asked before every signature.
The seven that come up on nearly every first call, answered the way we answer them on the phone.
الأسئلة الشائعة
No — not for most businesses. Since the 2021 amendment to the Commercial Companies Law, the majority of mainland activities permit 100% foreign ownership, and free zones always have. A short list of strategic-impact activities still requires an Emirati partner or a local service agent. We check yours against the current list before you commit to anything.
It depends entirely on who you invoice. Free zone is cheaper, faster and more tax-efficient, but selling directly into the UAE domestic market from a free zone normally requires a distributor or a mainland branch. If your customers sit outside the UAE, free zone almost always wins. If they are inside it, we do the arithmetic properly before choosing.
Not for most of it. Formation, name reservation and licensing can be completed remotely under a power of attorney. You will need to be physically present once — for the medical, biometrics and Emirates ID — which is usually a three to five day trip. We schedule it so that one visit covers everything.
9% on taxable profit above AED 375,000, applying to financial years beginning on or after 1 June 2023. Qualifying free zone income can still be taxed at 0%, but only where the substance and qualifying-activity conditions are genuinely met — the exemption is not automatic. Registration with the Federal Tax Authority is mandatory regardless of whether you make a profit.
Quota follows floor space, not ambition. A flexi-desk typically supports one to six visas depending on the zone; a physical office is calculated per square metre. This is the single most common mistake we correct — people take the cheapest package, then discover it caps them at two employees. We size the premises to the headcount you actually plan to hire.
Rarely. Nearly every UAE bank requires the authorised signatory in person. What we do handle before you arrive is the part that actually causes rejections: the KYC file, the source-of-funds narrative, and making sure your licensed activity matches what you tell the bank you do. Mismatch there is the usual reason an application dies.
A free zone licence with one visa generally starts in the region of AED 12,500–25,000 per year depending on the zone and activity; mainland runs higher once tenancy is included. We quote a single all-in figure with every government fee itemised beside our own, before you sign. If a number changes because a ministry changed it, you hear about it the same week.