Dubai · Free zone
JAFZA
Jebel Ali Free Zone
The honest read
What it is actually good at.
The oldest free zone in the UAE and still the one that matters if goods physically move. It sits inside the largest container port between Singapore and Rotterdam, connects to Al Maktoum airport, and can house your workforce on site. Nothing else in Dubai does all three.
Who is actually based here
Shipping lines, freight forwarders, distributors, manufacturers, oil and gas supply chain and the regional distribution arms of multinationals. Roughly 10,000 companies.
What it costs
Priced for cargo. Warehousing, plots and offices are at the premium end of UAE industrial space, and the value is in the port adjacency rather than the rate.
How banks receive it
Straightforward. JAFZA is long established and banks understand the trade flows of its tenants.
Commonly licensed here
- Emirate
- Dubai
- Type
- Free zone
- Location
- Jebel Ali Port
- Established
- 1985
- Licence issuance
- 2–4 weeks
- Residence visas
- Scales with leased space — the highest ceilings in Dubai
- Ownership
- 100% foreign
- Premises
- Warehouses, plots, offices, on-site staff accommodation
Timelines, quotas and package contents are indicative and change without notice. We confirm every one against the current schedule before you commit to anything.
Premises
Where the office actually goes.
JAFZA is industrial estate rather than office district. What decides the site is throughput: distance to the port or the airport, the load the floor takes, power to the plot, and where the workforce sleeps. Jebel Ali is where those questions get answered.
The port and the free zone around it — the largest container terminal between Singapore and Rotterdam, with warehousing, plots and labour accommodation on site. What JAFZA itself offers by way of premises: Warehouses, plots, offices, on-site staff accommodation.
- District
- Jebel Ali, Dubai
- Typical rent
- Industrial and warehouse rates, with plot leasing for larger operations
- Licence type there
- Free zone
Questions
Only if goods physically move through your business. A services company there is paying port-adjacent rates for infrastructure it does not use, forty minutes from the city.
Yes — JAFZA Offshore is a separate registry for holding structures, and it is the UAE offshore vehicle that can hold Dubai freehold directly in designated developments.
Yes, on site. For labour-intensive operations it is a genuine advantage over zones that do not.