Business Setup in Dubai Mainland (2026)

A Dubai mainland licence lets you sell directly to customers anywhere in the UAE, with no free zone boundary on where you trade. You keep 100% of the company across more than 1,000 activities, there is no minimum share capital, and one person can own it outright.

The hard part is the cost. Almost every figure quoted for business setup in Dubai mainland is an agent package rather than a government fee, and nobody publishes a total. DET charges AED 600 for the licence, AED 200 for the trade name and AED 100 for initial approval, and then the premises, the Ejari and the approvals stack on top.

This is where we come in. We form the company ourselves, so your whole business setup in Dubai mainland runs through one team: trade name, initial approval, the memorandum, the Ejari and the DET licence itself. We quote the government fees as DET publishes them and our own fee separately. You tell us the activity, we get it done.

Setting up outside Dubai? Read our guide on mainland company formation in the UAE.

What Business Setup in Dubai Mainland Actually Means

A mainland company is licensed by the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, not by a free zone authority. That single fact decides where you can sell, who can own the company and which rules you answer to. Everything else follows from it.

Where a Mainland Company Can Sell, and a Free Zone One Cannot

The Commercial Companies Law puts it plainly. Article 336 of Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 says a foreign company may not conduct an activity inside the country or open an office or branch without a licence from the competent authority. A free zone company is licensed to operate inside its zone. The moment it is permitted to trade outside that zone, Article 5(1) brings it inside the Commercial Companies Law with everything that follows.

So a mainland licence is not a status symbol, it is permission to invoice a customer in Deira, rent a shop in Jumeirah or take a contract from a Dubai company that will not deal with a free zone entity. If your customers are outside the UAE, you may not need it at all.

One Claim to Stop Believing: Government Contracts

Almost every competitor guide says only a mainland company can bid for UAE government work. The Ministry of Finance Federal Supplier Register says otherwise. Its published list of eligible supplier categories includes local companies, SMEs, free zone companies, productive families, freelancers, foreign companies based outside the UAE, and government entities. Free zone companies are named explicitly.

Federal Law No. 11 of 2023 on procurement in the federal government creates preferences for local suppliers, SMEs, national products and in-country value. Preferences are not a bar. If government contracting is your only reason for choosing mainland, check the specific tender rather than the folklore.

The Five Company Forms the Law Actually Allows

Article 9 of the Commercial Companies Law permits exactly five forms: joint liability company, limited partnership, limited liability company, public joint stock company and private joint stock company. Article 9(2) is unusually blunt about the consequence of getting it wrong, providing that any company not taking one of those forms is null and void and that the people who signed contracts in its name are jointly and severally liable.

For almost every founder the answer is the LLC. Article 71 sets it at not less than 2 and not more than 50 partners, and Articles 71(2) and 72 then allow a single natural or juristic person to own the whole thing as a limited liability sole proprietorship. Sole establishments and civil companies sit outside the Commercial Companies Law entirely, licensed at emirate level, which is why they are treated differently at every step below.

100% Foreign Ownership and What Is Still Restricted

Since 1 June 2021 Dubai has offered full foreign ownership across more than 1,000 commercial and industrial activities, with no extra fee, no guarantee and no capital requirement attached to it. Existing licences did not change automatically, they change when the partners decide to change them.

The restricted list is federal, not Dubai. Cabinet Resolution No. 55 of 2021 names seven categories of strategic impact: security and defence and military activities, banks and exchange houses and finance companies, insurance, currency printing, telecommunications, Hajj and Umrah services, and Quran memorisation centres, with fisheries-related services requiring 100% national participation. If your activity is not in one of those, the restriction discussion is over before it starts.

Read more: our full guide to business setup in Dubai, which sets the mainland, free zone and offshore routes side by side.

Dubai Mainland Business Setup Cost in 2026

Here is the honest position on what business setup in Dubai mainland costs. Dubai publishes a statutory fee schedule and it is short. Nobody publishes a total, because the total depends on your activity, your trade name and your premises. Every all-in figure you have read is an agent package with a margin inside it that you cannot see.

The DET Fees That Are Actually Published

Executive Council Resolution No. 13 of 2011 approved the Department of Economic Development fee schedule and the Dubai Legislation Portal still marks it in force. These are the real government numbers.

Read the activity surcharge line twice. A standard commercial licence sits on the AED 600 base. A general trading licence, the one most people assume is the default, adds AED 15,000 in year one. That single choice moves the government cost by a factor of twenty five, and it is the line agents are least likely to separate out for you.

Executive Council Resolution No. 19 of 2021 then cut several of the heavier items, taking the business centre licence and the licence for processing government applications from AED 25,000 down to AED 10,000 each, and an establishment inside another licensed premises from AED 2,000 to AED 500.

Notarisation, Ejari and the Cards

The MOA is notarised under Executive Council Resolution No. 4 of 2014. Where the instrument states a value above AED 100,000 the fee is 0.5% of that value capped at AED 15,000. At or below AED 100,000 it is AED 300 per party, and where no value is stated it is AED 200 per party. A power of attorney is AED 100 per party.

Ejari registration is published by the Dubai Land Department at AED 177.75 through the Dubai REST app or the DLD website, or AED 220 at a Real Estate Services Trustee Centre. Any guide quoting you AED 500 or more for Ejari itself is quoting a service fee on top.

The GDRFA establishment card is AED 200 plus 5% VAT, with a AED 10 knowledge dirham, a AED 10 innovation dirham and a AED 50 service fee. Urgent processing adds AED 100 and an Amer centre adds AED 100. Renewal is AED 100 a year and GDRFA states 48 hours for processing.

Dubai Chambers membership runs in published tiers from AED 300 for handicraft, e-trader and Intelaq licences, through AED 500 for simple trade and AED 700 for national establishments, up to AED 2,200 for banks, insurers, contractors and free zone companies. It is not one flat number.

Mainland Business Setup, Dubai Recurring Costs

With business setup in Dubai mainland the setup figure is the one everyone compares, and the renewal figure is the one that decides whether the structure is affordable. Budget for the licence renewal at AED 600 plus the activity surcharge, the Ejari renewal, the establishment card at AED 100, the Chamber tier, the tenancy itself, and the corporate tax filing once you are registered.

Two lines have no published figure at all and you should be suspicious of anyone who gives you one. The local service agent fee for a sole establishment is a privately negotiated contract between you and an Emirati agent, so there is no official range. And the Dubai business premises fee, which Decree No. 27 of 2019 confirms exists and cut by 50%, has no base percentage that we can find published in a primary Dubai instrument.

What the Agent Packages Add

Anyone pricing business setup in mainland Dubai should take a quoted package and ask for four lines separately: the DET government fees from the table above, the notarisation at cost, the Ejari at AED 177.75 or AED 220, and the agent's own professional fee. A quote that will not separate those is not a quote, it is a number.

This matters more on dubai mainland business setup cost than on any other UAE topic, because the government side is genuinely cheap and the spread between quotes is almost entirely professional fees and activity surcharges.

Read more: the cost of business setup in Dubai compared across every lane, not just this one.

How Mainland Business Setup in Dubai Works, Step by Step

The sequence below for business setup in Dubai mainland is the official one published on the UAE federal portal, with the Dubai specifics filled in. The Ministry of Economy states that formation through the economic department takes 4 days, and Dubai now runs instant licence issuance as a policy commitment, so the licence is rarely what holds you up.

1. Settle the activity first, because it drives the licence type, the surcharge, whether you need external approvals and whether 100% ownership applies
2. Choose the legal form, in almost every case an LLC or a limited liability sole proprietorship
3. Reserve the trade name and pay the tier that matches it, AED 200 for a plain Arabic name and up to AED 2,000 for a foreign or numeric one
4. Obtain initial approval at AED 100, which confirms Dubai has no objection in principle
5. Prepare the memorandum of association, or a local service agent agreement for a sole establishment, and notarise it
6. Secure premises and register the tenancy on Ejari
7. Obtain any external approvals your activity requires, which is the real timeline risk
8. Pay the licence fee and collect the trade licence
9. Apply for the immigration establishment card at GDRFA
10. Open the MOHRE file and obtain the work permit quota
11. Apply for residence visas, Emirates ID and medicals for each person

The Step That Actually Delays You

Not the licence. Executive Council Resolution No. 5 of 2024 approved a set of principles for the investor journey that include instant licence issuance, instant renewal and one-step fee payment, and the only hard deadline it sets is that an on-site inspection must happen within a maximum of three working days of a complete application.

What gates a file is third-party approval. Resolution 11 of 2025 requires the approval of the government entities supervising the activity where required, and the federal portal lists additional approvals for legal, security and financial sector activities as a discrete step before the licence issues. There is no published end-to-end service level for that, which is exactly why no honest guide should quote you a total number of days.

The Instant Licence and What It Defers

Dubai issues an Instant Licence in one step in about five minutes through the Invest in Dubai platform, covering the LLC, the one person LLC, the sole proprietorship and the civil company, and including an electronic memorandum of association and a virtual site.

Read the virtual site condition carefully, because it is for the first year only. Holders can start trading immediately and then complete the remaining requirements, including approvals from other government entities. The Instant Licence moves the premises obligation and the external approvals later, it does not remove them. Decree No. 13 of 2024 put the Invest in Dubai platform on a statutory footing as the unified digital window, with DET operating it and every licensing entity required to integrate.

Resolution 11 of 2025: Free Zone Companies on the Dubai Mainland

This is the biggest change to the mainland question in years and it is described wrongly almost everywhere. Executive Council Resolution No. 11 of 2025 was issued on 3 March 2025 and came into force on publication. It lets a free zone company operate outside its zone and inside Dubai, on conditions.

The Three Instruments, Not One

Article 4(a) creates three separate things, and conflating them is where every wrong article starts.

• A licence to establish a branch within the Emirate. Valid one year, renewable. Article 5(a)(5) requires the branch to be located within the Emirate, so this route needs mainland premises.
• A licence to establish a branch operating out of the Free Zone. Valid one year, renewable. This route does not carry the mainland premises condition.
• A permit to conduct specific activities within the Emirate. Article 7 caps it at six months.

The AED 10,000 Everyone Attaches to the Wrong Licence

Article 12 sets two fees. AED 10,000 per year for issuing or renewing a licence to establish a branch operating out of the free zone, and AED 5,000 for issuing or renewing a temporary permit.

Article 12 sets no fee at all for the branch within the Emirate. Article 5(a)(6) instead says the prescribed fees must be paid to DET in accordance with applicable legislation, meaning the ordinary DET schedule. So the headline AED 10,000 that you will read described as the cost of a mainland branch belongs to the other licence entirely. Two more details that get lost: the AED 5,000 permit is priced for issuing or renewing, so it is renewable rather than a single six-month window, and the six-month cap is on the permit's validity, not on the arrangement.

What Resolution 11 Does Not Cover

Three limits worth knowing before you plan around it. Article 3(c) says activities outside Dubai require licences from the competent entities of that jurisdiction, so this is a Dubai instrument and gives you nothing in Abu Dhabi or Sharjah. Article 3(b)(2) requires separate financial records for the activities conducted outside the free zone, distinct from the ones kept inside it. And Article 2 excludes financial establishments licensed to operate in the DIFC, which is a narrower carve-out than the blanket DIFC exclusion usually reported.

Article 8 is the genuinely good news and it is rarely mentioned. A company taking this route may keep its existing workforce registered on the free zone portal and continue to benefit from the free zone employment privileges applicable to that workforce.

The Compliance Clock and the Missing List

Article 13 gave entities already operating outside their free zone one year from the effective date to comply, with the Director General able to extend once for the same period. If you have been quietly selling on the mainland from a free zone licence, that window is the one to check.

Article 9 required DET and the licensing authorities to publish, within six months of the effective date, a list of economic activities specifying which instrument each one needs. Article 7(6) makes the permit route conditional on the activity appearing on that list. We could not confirm from any primary source that the list has been published. Any guide describing the permit route as fully operational is claiming more than the public record supports.

Does Resolution 11 Replace Mainland Business Setup in Dubai?

For a free zone company with occasional mainland customers, it is cheaper and simpler than a second company. For a business whose customers are mostly in the UAE, the branch route adds a second annual fee, separate books and a second set of approvals on top of the free zone licence you already pay for, and the corporate tax position gets harder rather than easier. Mainland income is not qualifying income for the free zone 0% rate, and Resolution 11's separate-books requirement is precisely what makes that visible to the tax authority.

Ejari and the Office Requirement for a Dubai Mainland Licence

The federal portal states it flatly: all businesses in the UAE must have a physical address to operate, and premises must comply with local department and municipal planning regulations. In Dubai the tenancy agreement must be registered on Ejari.

The Statutory Basis

Dubai Law No. 13 of 2011 regulating the conduct of economic activities is the instrument. Article 17 requires an applicant to specify the premises in the Emirate through which its economic activities will be conducted, and requires those premises to be suitable for the activities being licensed. Suitable is doing real work in that sentence, since a warehouse activity and a consultancy will not pass on the same unit.

What Ejari Costs and How Long It Takes

AED 177.75 through the Dubai REST app or the DLD website, made up of AED 100 registration, AED 10 knowledge, AED 10 innovation, AED 55 service partner and AED 2.75 VAT. At a Real Estate Services Trustee Centre it is AED 220, and the DLD states the counter process takes about 25 minutes excluding waiting time.

The Exemptions That Exist, and the One That Does Not

Article 18 of Law 13 of 2011 permits certain activities to be conducted from home or through business incubators, and the DET schedule prices a home-based Intilaq licence at AED 1,000. The Instant Licence includes a virtual site for the first year only.

What we could not confirm from any DET or Dubai Government source is a generally available flexi-desk or shared-desk product that satisfies the mainland premises requirement the way it does in a free zone. Resolution 19 of 2021 prices a business centre licence at AED 10,000, but that is the licence to operate a business centre, not a tenant's desk. Treat any agent offering you a mainland licence on a flexi-desk as something to verify in writing before you pay.

Visas and Quota for Business Setup in Dubai Mainland

Business setup in Dubai mainland gives you access to visas. It does not give you a number, and the number is not calculated the way almost every guide says it is.

How MOHRE Actually Sets Your Quota

MOHRE's own service page says a proactive quota is awarded without an application, based on work volume and the establishment's activities, evidenced by the trade licence, a list of vehicles where the activity requires them, and a Taq'eem report for electronic quotas. The conditions are a valid trade licence, an establishment in private status without restrictions, and a profession that aligns with the business activity.

The published allocation rules turn on registration date and compliance, not floor area. Compliant businesses registered before 15 April 2022 receive quota for 5 to 10% of total workforce capped at 100 new employees, high-priority activities get up to 50%, and a compliant business registered after 15 April 2022 receives quota for up to three employees. If you are forming now, three is your starting point and you grow it by trading and staying compliant.

The 9 Square Metres Rule Does Not Exist

You will read that a Dubai mainland company gets one visa per 9 square metres of office space. We could find no MOHRE, GDRFA, DET or federal portal source that publishes any square-metre-to-visa formula. It appears only in agency blogs, repeated from each other. Plan your hiring on the MOHRE rules above, not on your floor plan.

Establishment Card and Costs Per Person

The GDRFA establishment card is AED 200 plus VAT with the small statutory dirhams on top and a 48-hour processing time. The MOHRE Taq'eem report is AED 406, and a business centre may charge a commission capped at AED 72, though the service is free through the MOHRE website or app. If the residence visa is the point of the company, read about the Dubai investor visa before you choose a lane.

Work permits themselves run from AED 250 to AED 3,450 per employee depending on whether MOHRE classifies your company in category A, B or C, a system in force since 1 June 2022. That spread is larger than most founders expect and it rewards keeping the company compliant.

Opening a Business Bank Account for a Dubai Mainland Company

Business setup in Dubai mainland is the strongest banking position in the country. You have a trade licence, a physical address on Ejari and a resident signatory once the first visa lands, which is exactly the three-part file every UAE bank asks for. It is also the only structure that can open the fast digital accounts, and our guide to opening a business bank account in Dubai covers those accounts one by one.

Why Mainland Opens Doors a Free Zone or Offshore Company Cannot

Wio Business, Mashreq NeoBiz and the other accounts that open in days require a UAE trade licence and an Emirates ID. An offshore company has neither by design and never qualifies. A mainland company with a resident signatory qualifies on the published criteria, which puts a AED 99 a month account with no minimum balance genuinely within reach.

Central Bank Circular C 2/2026, in force since 13 September 2026, requires banks to open an SME account within three business days where the applicant is low risk and the documentation is complete. Low risk and complete are both inside your control.

What the File Needs

• Valid trade licence, not within 30 days of expiry
• Attested memorandum and articles of association plus every amendment
• Board resolution authorising the account and naming the signatories
• Tenancy contract and Ejari as proof of the company address
• Emirates ID and passport for every shareholder and signatory
• Ultimate beneficial owner details traced to natural persons
• Source of funds evidenced with contracts and invoices, not asserted

Foreign shareholder documents are the timeline risk. The UAE is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so corporate documents issued abroad need notarisation, legalisation through the UAE embassy in the issuing country and attestation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That chain runs on its own schedule and should start during formation, never after a bank asks. The full list sits in our guide to the documents required to open a business bank account in the UAE.

Where a Payment Partner Still Makes Sense

If your shareholders are all abroad and the first resident visa is still months away, our regulated payment partners open a multi-currency account remotely in days with no resident signatory, so the company can transact while the visa side progresses. Full detail is in our guide to opening a business bank account in the UAE, and the offshore version is covered in the best offshore business bank accounts in the UAE.

Corporate Tax and VAT for a Dubai Mainland Company

Business setup in Dubai mainland puts you inside two federal regimes with two thresholds and the same number in both, which is why they get confused constantly.

Corporate Tax at 0% Then 9%

Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 applies corporate tax at 0% on taxable income up to AED 375,000 and 9% above it, for financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023. Worth knowing that the AED 375,000 is not in the law itself. Article 3 delegates the amount to a Cabinet decision, and it is fixed by Cabinet Decision No. 116 of 2022.

Registration and filing apply whether or not you owe anything. A company sitting under the threshold still registers, still assesses and still files.

Small Business Relief Now Runs to 2029

Ministerial Decision No. 73 of 2023 gave Small Business Relief to resident persons with revenue at or below AED 3,000,000 in the tax period, originally for periods ending on or before 31 December 2026. Ministerial Decision No. 131 extended it to periods ending 31 December 2029 with the threshold unchanged, announced on 7 August 2026. Any guide still telling you it expires in 2026 was written before that.

One catch in Article 4(1): tax losses arising in a period where you elected Small Business Relief cannot be carried forward. For a company expecting early losses and later profits, taking the relief can cost more than it saves.

A Mainland Company Can Never Be a Qualifying Free Zone Person

This one is definitional rather than arguable. Article 1 of the Corporate Tax Law defines a Free Zone Person as a juridical person incorporated, established or otherwise registered in a free zone, and defines a Qualifying Free Zone Person as a free zone person meeting the Article 18 conditions. A DET-licensed mainland company is none of those things, so Article 18 is never reached and the 0% qualifying rate is not available at any revenue.

There is one route across: the Ministry of Finance confirms that a mainland company transferring its place of incorporation into a free zone is then considered a free zone person. That is re-domiciliation, not a dual status. Note also that Small Business Relief and Qualifying Free Zone Person status are mutually exclusive by design, since Article 3 of Ministerial Decision 73 of 2023 bars a QFZP from electing the relief.

VAT

VAT has been 5% since 1 January 2018. Registration is mandatory once taxable supplies and imports exceed AED 375,000 over the previous 12 months, or where you expect to exceed it in the next 30 days. Voluntary registration opens at AED 187,500, and for the voluntary threshold taxable expenses count as well as supplies, which is why a pre-revenue company with real costs can still register.

The coincidence is worth stating plainly for your own planning: AED 375,000 is both the corporate tax 0% ceiling and the VAT mandatory threshold. They measure different things. Corporate tax measures taxable income, VAT measures supplies. A company can be well over one and nowhere near the other.

Who Dubai Mainland Business Setup Is Wrong For

Stated plainly, because the sales material for business setup in Dubai mainland never does. If any of the following describes you, a mainland licence costs you money and time you did not need to spend.

Your Customers Are All Outside the UAE

The whole value of a mainland licence is permission to sell inside the country. If you invoice clients in Europe, the US or Asia and never touch a UAE customer, a free zone licence does the same job with a simpler premises requirement and, subject to the conditions, a route to the 0% qualifying rate a mainland company can never have.

You Want the 0% Corporate Tax Rate

Not available on the mainland at any revenue, for the definitional reason set out above. If the qualifying free zone regime is genuinely central to your plan, start with our guide to business setup in a Dubai free zone and read the conditions before you choose, because they are stricter than the marketing suggests.

You Need a Holding Vehicle, Not a Trading One

If the company will hold shares or property and never invoice anyone, you are paying for permissions you will not use. Where the assets are UAE based, a holding company in Dubai is the usual answer. Where the assets sit outside the UAE, an offshore structure is, and offshore company formation in Dubai covers what it can and cannot do.

You Are Testing an Idea and Cannot Commit to Premises

The Ejari requirement is real and the Instant Licence only defers it twelve months. If you cannot see yourself signing a tenancy inside a year, budget for the Ejari from the start rather than at renewal.

You Chose Mainland Only for Government Contracts

Check the tender first. The Federal Supplier Register names free zone companies as an eligible supplier category, so the assumption that drove your structure may not survive five minutes of reading.

Bottom Line

Business setup in Dubai mainland buys one thing that nothing else buys: the right to sell directly to customers inside the UAE without a free zone boundary. Since June 2021 you can own 100% of it across more than 1,000 activities, there is no minimum share capital in the Commercial Companies Law, and one person can own the company outright.

The government side of business setup in Dubai mainland is cheaper than the market implies. AED 600 for the licence, AED 200 for the trade name, AED 100 for initial approval, AED 177.75 for Ejari and AED 200 plus VAT for the establishment card are all published. What moves the number is your activity surcharge, where a general trading licence adds AED 15,000 in year one, and the professional fee that agents bundle into a single figure. Ask for the four lines separately.

Two things almost everyone gets wrong. Resolution 11 of 2025's AED 10,000 belongs to the licence for a branch operating out of the free zone, not to the mainland branch, which has no fee set in the resolution at all. And the visa quota is set by MOHRE on work volume, activity and compliance history, not on square metres, with a newly registered compliant company starting at three.

If your customers are outside the UAE, if you want the qualifying free zone rate, or if the company is a holding vehicle, mainland is the wrong instrument and the honest move is to say so before anything is filed. For the national picture across all seven emirates, see mainland company formation in the UAE, and for the decision itself, types of companies in the UAE sets the three lanes side by side.

FAQs: Business Setup in Dubai Mainland