Dubai Business Licence Cost by Type: Commercial, Professional, Industrial and Tourism
Ali JasimThe licence type matters less to your cost than the activity inside it. Across the mainland packages in our current price book, totals run from roughly AED 17,772 for a sole establishment to about AED 28,287 for a two-partner LLC with an investor visa, with a median near AED 24,122.
A professional licence is generally the cheapest route, commercial sits in the middle, and industrial and tourism cost most because they carry external approvals that the others do not.
People choose a licence type the way they choose a phone plan, by comparing headline prices. That is backwards.
In Dubai the licence type is largely decided for you by what you actually do, and the price differences within a type are wider than the differences between types. This guide shows where the money really goes.
The Four Types, Quickly
| Type | Covers | Cost position |
|---|---|---|
| Professional | Services, consultancy, expertise-based work | Usually lowest |
| Commercial | Buying and selling goods, trading | Middle |
| Industrial | Manufacturing, processing, assembly | Higher, extra approvals |
| Tourism | Travel, tour operation, hospitality | Higher, regulator approval |
Our guide to Dubai trade licence types explains what each one permits in detail. The short version is that the activity you intend to carry out determines the type, so this is a classification exercise rather than a shopping decision.
The Real Spread, From the Price Book
Rather than quoting a single figure per type, here is what the full set of mainland packages actually looks like.
Across every priced mainland package, the total runs from about AED 17,772 to about AED 28,287, with the middle of the distribution near AED 24,122, before 5% VAT.
That is a threefold spread, and the licence type is only one of the inputs producing it. The others are the activity itself, the number of partners, whether external approvals are needed, and whether visas are included.
That is why a professional licence for one activity can cost more than a commercial licence for another.
The calculator asks for your activity and partners and returns the real itemised total, in under a minute.
What Actually Drives the Number
The Activity
The largest single driver, and the least understood. Different activities carry different fees, different approval requirements and different conditions.
Two businesses that both describe themselves as "consulting" can sit on entirely different activity codes with different costs. Our guide to adding and changing business activities covers how the list works.
The Number of Partners
This genuinely moves the price and it surprises founders setting up together. More partners means more documentation, more legal typing and in some structures a higher licence fee.
If you are three co-founders, price it as three rather than assuming it matches a solo quote.
External Approvals
The expensive variable. Some activities need sign-off from a body beyond the licensing authority, for example a health regulator, a transport authority or a tourism regulator.
Each approval adds fee and, more importantly, adds weeks. Our guide to initial approval covers where these fall in the sequence.
The Professional Licence, and the Cheapest Honest Route
For service businesses a professional licence is generally the lowest-cost mainland route, and it is the correct classification for consultancies, agencies, IT services and similar expertise-led work. Our guide to the professional licence covers the specifics, including the local service agent question.
The honest caveat: a professional licence does not let you trade goods. Founders sometimes take one because it is cheaper and then find themselves unable to invoice for products.
Fixing that later is an activity amendment, which costs more than getting it right at the start.
The Commercial Licence, and General Trading
A commercial licence covers buying and selling goods, and it is the default for most trading businesses. Within it, a general trading licence is a broader and more expensive variant that lets you deal in almost any category rather than a defined list.
The trade-off is straightforward: general trading costs more and saves you from returning to amend your activities every time you add a product line. If your range is genuinely narrow and stable, a standard commercial licence is cheaper.
If you expect to add categories, general trading is often cheaper over three years. See the general trading licence and the commercial licence.
Industrial and Tourism, and Why They Cost More
Both carry a regulator beyond the economic department, and that is the whole reason for the difference. An industrial licence needs approvals connected to premises, safety and environmental standards, and it presupposes actual industrial space, which is a cost in itself.
Tourism activities need sign-off from the tourism regulator, and depending on the activity there can be bonds, insurance requirements and qualified-personnel conditions. Neither of these is a licence you drift into.
If your activity falls here, budget both the fee and the timeline generously.
Free Zone Licences Price Differently
Everything above describes the mainland. A free zone prices as a package rather than by licence type: you buy a bundle that includes the licence, a workspace product and a visa allocation.
From the current price book, a Sharjah free zone package starts near AED 6,500 with no visas and a Dubai free zone package near AED 11,920.
That makes free zone pricing easier to compare and harder to tailor, because you are choosing between packages rather than assembling one. Our comparison of free zone against mainland on cost works through which is genuinely cheaper for a given shape of business.
The Renewal Angle, Which Decides It Over Three Years
A licence is an annual cost, not a one-off, so the type you choose is a recurring decision rather than a single payment.
A licence that costs AED 4,000 more at setup costs AED 4,000 more every year, and over three years that dwarfs most of the differences discussed above.
So the right comparison is three-year cost including renewals, not day-one cost. Our guide to trade licence renewal cost covers the recurring side, and the current fee schedules for Dubai mainland licensing are published by the emirate authorities indexed at u.ae.
The Costs That Sit Outside the Licence Fee
A licence quote is not the cost of being licensed. Four things sit alongside it and they are the same whichever type you pick, which is another reason the type matters less than people think.
- Premises. Mainland licensing is tied to real space, and the rent is usually larger than the licence. See office space costs in Dubai.
- Visas. Almost always the biggest line once you pass one person, and on the mainland your capacity is bounded by quota against premises.
- The establishment card, at AED 640 from the price book, plus its own annual renewal. Separate from the licence and easy to forget.
- Attestation and legal typing, which scale with partner count and with any foreign documents in the file.
Add those and the licence fee is often a minority of year-one cost. Our breakdown of the hidden costs of business setup covers the rest, and the official service catalogue for UAE government licensing is indexed at u.ae.
Changing Licence Type Later, and What It Costs
People assume this is a rebuild. Usually it is not.
Most businesses that outgrow their licence do not need a new type at all, they need an activity amendment, which adds or changes what you are permitted to do within the existing licence.
An amendment is materially cheaper and faster than forming a new company, and it keeps your trade name, your bank account, your visas and your trading history intact, which are worth far more than the fee difference. Our guide to adding or changing business activities covers the process.
Where it does become a genuine restructure is when the new activity requires a different licence type with its own regulator, for example moving from trading into a regulated healthcare or tourism activity.
That is a real project rather than a form, and it is worth anticipating at setup if you can see it coming within two years.
The cheapest version of that decision is made once, at the beginning.
How to Choose in the Right Order
- Describe honestly what you will actually do, including what you might add within a year.
- Let that map to activities, and let the activities determine the licence type.
- Check whether any activity triggers an external approval, because that changes both cost and timeline.
- Count your partners and your visas, which move the number more than the type does.
- Compare over three years, not one.
One more thing worth knowing before you commit. The number of business activities you put on a licence is not free, and it is not unlimited either.
Adding activities you might use one day inflates the fee today, while adding too few means an amendment later.
The sensible middle is to cover what you will genuinely do in the next twelve months, and accept that an amendment in year two is a normal cost of a growing business rather than a planning failure.
The Honest Summary
The licence type is mostly decided for you by what you do, so treat this as a classification exercise rather than a shopping decision.
Within any type, the activity, the partner count and any external approvals move your total far more than the type itself, which is why the mainland range runs from about AED 17,772 to AED 28,287.
Two rules protect you. Classify honestly, because a cheaper licence that does not cover what you actually do is a compliance exposure rather than a saving.
And compare over three years including renewals, because a licence is an annual cost and a difference at setup repeats every year.
Describe your real activity, including what you might add within a year, and price that rather than a category. The cost calculator does exactly that.
Frequently asked questions
A professional licence is generally the lowest-cost mainland route and is the correct classification for consultancies, agencies and other expertise-led services. But the licence type matters less than the activity inside it: across every priced mainland package the total ranges from roughly AED 17,772 to about AED 28,287, and activity, partner count and external approvals drive that spread more than the type does.
Because the activity, the number of partners and any external approvals differ. Different activities carry different fees and conditions, more partners means more documentation and in some structures a higher fee, and activities that need sign-off from a regulator beyond the economic department add both cost and weeks. Two businesses that both call themselves consulting can sit on different activity codes entirely.
It depends on how stable your product range is. General trading costs more than a standard commercial licence but lets you deal in almost any category rather than a defined list, which saves you amending your activities each time you add a product line. If your range is narrow and stable, a standard commercial licence is cheaper. If you expect to expand categories, general trading is often cheaper over three years.
Both require approval from a regulator beyond the economic department. An industrial licence involves approvals tied to premises, safety and environmental standards and presupposes real industrial space, which is a cost in itself. Tourism activities need tourism regulator sign-off and can carry bonds, insurance requirements and qualified-personnel conditions. Budget generously for the timeline as well as the fee.
Several. A trade licence is an annual cost rather than a one-off, so a licence that costs AED 4,000 more at setup costs AED 4,000 more every year. Over three years that recurring difference dwarfs most of the day-one variations between types, which makes three-year cost including renewals the comparison that actually reflects the decision you are making.
See the number for your setup
The cost calculator runs on Dubai Business Corporation’s real price book. Answer a few questions and get your total, fully itemised, in under a minute.
