IFZA Business Setup Services: One Written Quote, Every Step

IFZA will license your company without us. You can file the application yourself, and the authority will process it.

What IFZA will not do is open your immigration file, run your visa, book your medical, register you for corporate tax, or get your bank file ready. That work sits outside the licence, and it is most of the job. IFZA business setup services exist for that part, and ours run on one written quote agreed before anything starts.

Key takeaways

What IFZA does, and what we do

The International Free Zone Authority is a licensing authority. It registers your company, issues the trade licence and amends it later. It does that well, and at one of the lowest prices in Dubai.

Everything that turns that licence into a working business sits outside it. The establishment card that opens your immigration file. The entry permit, medical, biometrics and stamping behind a UAE residence visa. The Emirates ID. Health insurance. The bank file. Corporate tax registration with a deadline that starts at incorporation. Then the renewal, which needs a financial statement.

That is why two IFZA business setup quotes for the same company can differ by thousands of dirhams and both be honest. One is pricing a licence. The other is pricing the journey. We price the journey, in writing, before you pay anything.

What our IFZA business setup service includes

Here is the split, item by item. Nothing on this list is a surprise at invoice.

Two things stay with you, and always will. You provide the documents, and you attend the medical and the Emirates ID biometrics in person. Neither can be delegated.

The three tiers

• Licence. Activity mapping, trade name, documents, portal filing, UBO and corporate tax registration. The right tier for a holding structure or a founder who is not taking residency yet.
• Visa. The Licence tier plus the establishment card, one visa run end to end, Emirates ID and insurance sourcing. This is the common shape for a solo founder.
• Setup to Bank File. The Licence and Visa tier plus a prepared bank file and an introduction to one bank.

Our fee is fixed per tier, agreed in writing before work starts, with 5 percent VAT on top and government fees shown separately.

What an IFZA setup costs, and where our fee sits

Three numbers make up your total, and only one of them is ours.

Across our own IFZA files, a solo founder taking one visa lands between AED 21,000 and AED 28,000 in year one, with a median of AED 23,500. The full breakdown of the IFZA licence cost, from the zero-visa price to the all-in total, sits on its own page.

Every figure here is indicative, reflects our current quoting rather than published authority rates, and changes without notice. Your quotation is the number that counts.

How your IFZA company formation runs, stage by stage

IFZA company formation runs in nine stages on our desk, and you do very little of the work.

1. Activity mapping. We pick the activity codes first, because the trade name and the visa package both depend on them. If an activity needs an outside approval, we flag it here.
2. Trade name and activity pre-check. Three ranked name options go in with the activities and are cleared at the start of processing.
3. Document pack. Passports, photos, proof of address for non-residents, and the application form with UBO details.
4. Portal processing. Every shareholder is registered on the IFZA portal and screened.
5. Approval and invoice. IFZA approves the file and issues two e-legal forms, the licence agreement and the UBO and shareholder declaration, for every shareholder to sign.
6. Payment. The licence cannot issue until IFZA confirms payment.
7. Digital MOA and AOA. Sent to every shareholder for e-signature.
8. Licence issue. The licence, certificate of incorporation, MOA and AOA and share certificate arrive by email. Originals can be collected.
9. After the licence. Establishment card, then the visa, then the Emirates ID.

The filing detail behind each stage, including the document pack that clears first time and the trade name rules, is covered in How to Set Up an IFZA Company: Partner-Led Steps.

How long an IFZA setup takes

The licence is fast. The rest is where the weeks go.

A licence is usually issued within two working days of a complete document pack, on a clean solo file, and IFZA’s screening sets the final timing. A fully operational company takes about four to six weeks from inside the UAE, and five to seven weeks from abroad. An international wire can add a day or two.

The stage that sets the pace is the visa, because it waits on your travel, your medical booking and a biometrics slot. Plan one trip of seven to ten working days once the entry permit issues. Founders who fly in before the establishment card is ready wait in a hotel.

When your money moves, and what happens if IFZA says no

Most vendor pages skip this. It is the part clients worry about.

You pay IFZA after approval, not when you apply. IFZA invoices only once it has cleared your name, your activities and your shareholders, so nobody pays the authority for a file that failed screening. A refused name or activity is not a refused application either. We put in the next name or a compliant code and the file keeps moving.

Our fee is fixed and agreed in writing before we start. Money we collect for IFZA goes to IFZA only against its approval invoice. If IFZA declines at screening, we look at other options with you, and if none of them works we refund the balance of what we hold for IFZA.

The point of no return is paying IFZA’s invoice. After that the fee is spent, even if you change your mind, and government fees for the establishment card and visas are non-refundable once each application is submitted.

Getting the package right before you pay

Three decisions are made before the invoice, and each one costs money to change later.

Visa slots. IFZA prices its packages by visa quota. A slot is the right to issue a visa, and the visa itself is charged separately every time. Buy the quota against your next 18 months of hiring, not against your best month. Adding a slot mid-term means paying for it while the licence runs down to its existing expiry. The sizing tables are in IFZA Visa Quota: Match Your Package to Your Hiring Plan.

Workspace. A standard flexi desk covers up to three visa allocations. Above that, IFZA expects a larger workspace, and moving up mid-term means an amendment, a new lease and a fee.

Activities. The package carries three activities, three shareholders and the facility lease agreement. Codes should match what you will actually invoice for, because banks compare the licence against the transaction narrative at onboarding and again at annual review. The full catalogue sits on our IFZA activity list page, and the general logic of choosing a business activity in Dubai applies here too. If two or more of you are taking shares, the IFZA shareholding rules decide what changes.

Want your IFZA setup quoted in writing?

Tell us what you will invoice for, where your customers are, and how many people need visas in the next 18 months. You get a written quotation with every line visible, including the ones that land after the licence.

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Bank account support, and what nobody can promise

Approval rests with each bank, under its own compliance policy. No consultant can guarantee an account, and anyone who does is promising something they do not control.

What we do control is the file. We match your profile to a bank category whose appetite fits before any application. We clean the licence first, so unused activities do not invite questions. We prepare the business summary, the source of funds narrative and the ownership pack, pre-screen against that bank’s checklist, arrange the introduction, and prepare you for the compliance interview. When a query comes back, we handle it. Across more than 4,500 corporate bank account applications, that preparation is what separates a first-attempt approval from a long one.

The documents and the process behind opening a business bank account in Dubai are broadly the same whatever your zone. What differs is how well the file is put together. The IFZA-specific version, IFZA Bank Account: What Banks Ask a Flexi Desk Company, is a separate page.

After the licence: the deadlines that start on day one

A licence is a start date, not a finish line. Four things follow it, and we run them in this order.

Establishment card, two to five working days after the licence. No visa work starts without it. The rules and renewal cycle behind the establishment card in Dubai are the same for IFZA as anywhere else.

Corporate tax registration, in the first weeks. Under FTA Decision No. 3 of 2024, a resident company incorporated on or after 1 March 2024 must apply to register within three months of incorporation. The late registration penalty is AED 10,000 under Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023, as amended by Cabinet Decision No. 10 of 2024. We register at formation on every file. Whether you then qualify for the 0 percent Qualifying Free Zone Person rate depends on your income and your substance in the zone, and that is a conversation with a tax adviser.

VAT, checked monthly. Registration is mandatory once taxable supplies pass AED 375,000 over the past 12 months, or are expected to within the next 30 days, and you then have 30 days to apply.

Books and the first renewal. IFZA asks for a financial statement before it renews, so bookkeeping starts on day one rather than in the fortnight before expiry. We prepare the financial statements in house. Renewal reminders come with every engagement, and the renewal itself is quoted when it falls due. The year-two picture is set out in IFZA Licence Renewal.

Moving an existing IFZA company to us

You are not locked in. Two situations come to us most often.

A setup stuck part way. The licence is issued but nobody applied for the establishment card, so the visa cannot start. We move the file to our partner account, apply for the card and run the visa. Where a bank application has stalled, we find out why, rebuild the file with the business plan, contracts and source of funds, and reapply.

A partner who went quiet. The mechanics are the same either way. Your outgoing partner controls the portal record, so IFZA needs a signed request from the company and a no-objection letter from that partner, then reassigns the file. It can be done at any point before your first renewal, and again at each renewal after that. If the letter is slow, we raise it with IFZA on your signed request. We charge no takeover fee, only the normal service fee for the work that follows.

Start a renewal-time move 60 days before expiry rather than two weeks before. A stalled transfer and a lapsing licence is an expensive pairing.

What you get in writing before you pay

Whoever you hire, ask for these four things. We hand them over as a matter of course.

• Our IFZA Professional Partner certificate, with the validity date visible. We have been an authorised IFZA Professional Partner since 2020.
• A quotation that separates authority fees, government charges and our professional fee, so you can see which part is ours.
• A written list of exclusions, item by item, so nothing appears at signing that was not in the first number.
• The name of the person running your file. One named coordinator, and the same in-house team on your renewals.

Best Solution has formed more than 5,000 companies since 2014. If you are still weighing firms rather than zones, our guide to choosing a business setup consultant in Dubai sets out what to ask anyone you shortlist.

The setup we rescued

A solo founder in Dubai came to us with a data analysis and innovation consultancy FZCO he had filed himself. He had picked his activities by their titles, but his business plan described work across two different categories. IFZA queried the file twice, and three weeks passed with no licence. His budget had the same gap we see every week: a licence-only price, with nothing in it for the establishment card, visa, medical, Emirates ID or insurance.

We remapped the file to two activities that matched what he would actually invoice for, rebuilt the document pack, and sent a written year-one quote before refiling. The licence was issued two working days after the complete pack reached IFZA. The establishment card, investor visa and Emirates ID biometrics were done within three weeks of our first meeting. Year one came in within the written quote, and he filed his first renewal through us.

The fix was not filing faster. It was fixing the activities.

Getting your IFZA setup right

IFZA is the cheapest credible route to a Dubai licence, and for a consultant, an agency or an online seller it is often the right one. The licence is the easy part. What decides whether year one goes smoothly is the work either side of it: the activities you declare, the quota you buy, the deadlines that start the day the licence issues, and whether anyone is still answering the phone in month four.

Our free zone licence team has handled IFZA files since the zone moved to Dubai, and the zone itself is covered in our guide to the IFZA free zone in Dubai Silicon Oasis. Send us your activity, your customer base and your headcount plan, and you get a written quotation with every line in it. Call or WhatsApp +971 52 233 0011, or email connect@best-solution.ae.