FREE ZONE FILE
Expo City Dubai
In short
Publishes a complete official fee schedule, licence by licence, visa by visa, penalty by penalty, which almost no zone in the country does. The catch is on the other side: a leased space is compulsory before you may even file, and no office price is published anywhere, so the largest cost of your first year is the one you cannot calculate.
Publishes its prices, including renewalPackages
- Annual licence fee
- Initial approval AED 500 and registration AED 5,000 payable once on top
- Company card AED 2,500 per year on top
- Figure shown on the comparison table
- Annual licence fee
- Same one-off entry fees as the commercial licence
- Figure shown on the comparison table
- Annual licence fee
- Two activity groups on a single licence
- Annual licence fee
- No warehouse or industrial unit is offered on the workspace pages
- Annual licence fee
- No warehouse or industrial unit is offered on the workspace pages
- Annual licence fee
- Any product on one licence
- Annual licence fee
- Annual licence fee
- Passive holding of shares and assets
- Licence and a shared desk
- The official fee schedule states AED 12,500, the commercial page AED 12,520
- Number of visas and activities not published
- Licence, shared desk, company card
- 4 visas
- 6 activities
- The official fee schedule states AED 17,550
- Initial approval, registration, licence and company card
- Reserved for companies leasing 250 square metres or more
- More than 2,000 eligible activities
- Freelance permit for one individual
- More than 100 professions, and you may propose your own
- Renewable annually up to five years
- The official fee schedule states AED 7,000
- Freelance permit and a one year residence visa
- Entry permit through to Emirates ID covered
- Freelance permit and a two year residence visa
✓ Verified by Free Zone Radar means the line was read on the zone's own product page or in an official document it publishes, on the date shown at the foot of this page. It covers what the line states, including a size, a visa quota or the fact that the zone publishes no price there. Blog only means an article on the zone's site, editorial and not contractual. Not published means the zone says nothing at all on the subject.
Visas
Offices and desks
Year two, and closing down
The two figures that decide the real cost over time, and that a first-year price cannot tell you on its own.
Renewal, per year
Identical to the issue fee, billed annually, AED 10,000 for a commercial or service licence and up to AED 30,000 for holding or e-commerce. Add AED 2,500 a year for the company card. Late renewal is penalised at AED 1,500 after 31 days, AED 3,000 after 60 and AED 6,000 after 90.
Closing the company
Cancellation of the licence, plus AED 300 for the company card and AED 250 for a freelance permit. No formal liquidation procedure with an appointed liquidator is described or priced.
Other fees and penalties
Binding terms
- A leased space inside Expo City must be confirmed before the incorporation file may be submitted, and a lease deposit is required. There is no address-only option.
- The visa allowance is indexed on the leased area, one employee per nine square metres.
- Expo Multi, the only three year package, is reserved for companies leasing 250 square metres or more.
- A bare commercial licence at AED 10,000 costs at least AED 18,100 in year one once initial approval, registration and the company card are added, before rent and visas.
- The freelance permit is valid one year and renewable annually up to five years.
- Virtual asset activity is limited to proprietary trading and requires approval from the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.
- Film and audio media trading requires approval from the Ministry of Culture and Youth.
Points to confirm with the zone
- Two versions of the same official fee schedule are online, one dated 28 April 2025 and one linked from the free zone page, and they price the company card at AED 2,100 and AED 2,500 respectively.
- Every commercial page prices six products exactly AED 20 above the official fee schedule, and neither the nature nor the legal basis of that surcharge is published.
- The Expo Grow package is presented as active on the free zone page but its own page returns a not found error and no such line exists in the fee schedule.
What to ask them directly
- Every office, coworking and retail price, although a lease is compulsory before filing.
- The Expo Green Licence price. The site says from AED 10,000, its own page shows an empty price table, and the fee schedule has no such line.
- Minimum share capital.
- Whether audited financial statements are compulsory.
- The maximum number of shareholders in a free zone company.
- How many activities a single freelance permit may carry, a question its own frequently asked questions raises without answering.
- Whether a freelance permit holder may take on employees, also raised and unanswered.
- Warehouse or industrial unit availability, although industrial and logistics licences are sold.
- Any liquidation cost beyond the AED 1,000 cancellation fee.
Where every figure above comes from
- expocitydubai.com/en/free-zone/
- expocitydubai.com/en/business-at-expo-city-dubai/business-setup/
- expocitydubai.com/en/business-at-expo-city-dubai/business-setup/expo-freelance/
- Expo City Dubai Authority, Fees and Service Charges List, Resolution 1 of 2025
- How to set up your business in Expo City Dubai, version 3, August 2024
- Permitted Activity List, 17 May 2024
AED 1,000 back on this zone
This zone pays us an introduction fee, and we hand AED 1,000 of it back to you once your trade licence has actually been issued. You pay the zone exactly what you would pay going direct, we never take a dirham from you, and the cashback is only due if you filled in the Free Zone Radar form first.
Figures quoted from the zone are left in the language the zone published them in, so you can check them word for word. This file is available in English and French. The comparator itself is in Arabic too.