DAFZA

Overview

Dubai Airport Free Zone sits beside Dubai International Airport and is oriented to trading, technology and logistics businesses that benefit from the location.

What the licence does, and does not do

A free-zone licence does three things: it incorporates the company, it permits the activities printed on it, and it supports residence visas against the office arrangement.

It does not authorise a regulated virtual-asset activity. That is the single most expensive misunderstanding in this market, and it is usually discovered after the office has been leased and the visas issued.

DAFZA is in Dubai, so a regulated virtual-asset activity carried on from a DAFZA company needs a VARA licence in addition to the free-zone licence.

Activities

Trading, technology services, consultancy and regional headquarters activities, with digital-asset activity codes available.

DAFZA suits a group whose physical operations and people matter — regional headquarters, staff who travel constantly, hardware that arrives by air. For a purely digital business the location premium buys little.

Substance and cost

Licence and renewal, company registration, establishment card, an office arrangement ranging from a flexi-desk to dedicated premises, and a visa quota tied to that office. Indicative amounts are listed below and are not yet verified.

Note that a flexi-desk sufficient for the zone may be insufficient for the regulator. Where a virtual-asset licence is in contemplation, the substance required by the regulator should drive the office decision, not the other way round.

How we help

We choose the zone on the activity the business actually needs, not on the headline package price. We incorporate, run the attestation chain for foreign shareholder documents, and sequence the zone licence against the regulatory application so the company is not paying rent on a licence it cannot yet use.