JAFZA Licence Cost: the Authority's Own Fee Summary

JAFZA does what most UAE zones do not: it publishes its fees itself. The Jafza Guidebook, version 1.0 dated November 2023, sits on the authority's own site, and its appendix carries a Fee Structure Summary covering registration, licence fees and the immigration card. Every JAFZA amount on this page comes from that summary, quoted as published.

That source also sets the limit of this page. A guidebook edition is a snapshot, not a live tariff, and JAFZA can revise its charges after publishing it. Treat the figures below as the published baseline, then confirm the current list before you commit funds. A seller whose quote contradicts the guidebook owes you a line-by-line explanation.

One thing does not change between zones. Federal Tax Authority registration is free and identical across the UAE. What changes at JAFZA is the authority, its port and its facility scale.

Your first JAFZA decision is legal form, and the guidebook makes a useful point about it: the summary lists registration at the same one-time AED 5,000 for a branch of an existing company, a Free Zone Establishment with one shareholder and a Free Zone Company with multiple shareholders. Formation type changes your paperwork, your governance and your shareholder structure. On the published summary, it does not change the registration fee.

A Public Limited Company is the larger formation route, aimed at bigger capital structures, and it belongs in a different planning conversation from a founder-led FZE. Choose your form for liability, ownership and future fundraising reasons, not to save on registration, because the published fee gives you nothing to save.

What formation type does change is everything around the fee: the resolutions, attestations and approvals your structure needs, and how complex your later amendments become.

After registration, JAFZA prices the licence by activity scope. A trading licence covering seven activities from one product group costs AED 5,000 a year. Widen the scope to twelve activities from two product groups and the same licence costs AED 8,500 a year. Industrial licences follow the same two tiers at the same published amounts, and a service licence starts at AED 5,000 a year for seven activities from one group, rising to AED 8,500 a year on the larger tier as listed.

Broad licences cost more. General trading costs AED 15,000 a year, a logistics licence costs AED 15,000 a year, and a holding licence costs AED 30,000 a year, all as listed in the summary.

So a standard FZE or FZCO with a first-tier trading licence pays AED 10,000 in published registration and licence charges in year one, before facility, card and visas. Keep that baseline beside every quote.

The published licence baseline is the small part of a JAFZA budget. The large part is your facility. JAFZA is a working port zone beside Jebel Ali Port, operated within the DP World ecosystem, and its companies take real space: a workstation or office for services and trading, a warehouse or light industrial unit for storage and processing, or a plot for a built facility.

Your facility does more than set the rent. Its size and type shape how many people the company can sponsor and how your operation presents to banks, customers and the authority.

The guidebook summary does not give your lease as a single price, because no single price exists. Facility rent is quoted for the unit you take, so obtain that quote in writing and budget it as its own annual line.

Two published lines sit between the licence and the lease. The first is the Computer Immigration Card, JAFZA's establishment card. The guidebook lists it at AED 2,000 a year for all types of companies, and notes it applies only if the company wants the service of the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs. A company that sponsors people through that route should budget the card annually.

The second is scope growth. The guidebook's commercial services list prices each additional activity at AED 500, so widening a licence later is cheap in itself, but it can move you into a higher licence tier at renewal. Price the tier you will need in year two when you choose the tier you buy in year one.

Visa processing then adds its own steps per person, from entry permit to medical test and Emirates ID. Keep your ownership records current through it all, as our JAFZA ultimate beneficial owner compliance page explains.

Setup ends, but federal duties start at once. Corporate tax registration with the Federal Tax Authority is free through EmaraTax, and every JAFZA company must register within three months of its licence date, whether it expects profit or not. Late registration carries an AED 10,000 penalty. Our JAFZA corporate tax and free zone status page covers the free zone position in full.

Free zone companies can access the 0% corporate tax rate on qualifying income only when they meet the Qualifying Free Zone Person conditions, including adequate substance and audited financial statements where required. Other income follows the standard structure: 0% up to AED 375,000 of taxable income and 9% above it. VAT registration is also free, mandatory past AED 375,000 of taxable supplies and voluntary from AED 187,500.

Ongoing compliance is a running cost, not a government fee. Our corporate tax filing starts from AED 299/year, bookkeeping starts from AED 499/month, and VAT return filing starts from AED 599/quarter, and our bookkeeping for JAFZA companies page covers the local record-keeping load. Those are starting prices, they exclude VAT, and they never include government fees.

Build a JAFZA budget in three layers. Start with the published baseline you can verify yourself: registration at AED 5,000 once, your licence tier as listed, and the immigration card at AED 2,000 a year where it applies. That layer is fixed by the authority's summary, and every founder can check it.

Add your facility next, from a written leasing quote for the exact unit you will take, because that line decides both your rent and your practical visa capacity. Then add people: visa processing per person, and the compliance layer of books, filings and audited statements where your status requires them. Use our setup cost estimator to model the whole structure in one place.

Finally, price the end of the story before you start it. Our JAFZA licence cancellation and tax page sets out what closing the company involves, and a port-zone lease makes exit terms worth reading at entry.

Next step: JAFZA Licence Cost: the Authority's Own Fee Summary. Send your trade licence and your last return, and we will confirm the fixed fee on the call. Book a free 15-minute fit check