Meydan Free Zone Licence Cost: Fees, Visas and Renewal Explained

How much does a Meydan Free Zone licence cost?

Across 27 verified Meydan Free Zone packages listed on Business Setup AE, published prices run AED 9,750 to AED 48,136. The spread is almost entirely explained by one variable: how many residence visas the package carries. A zero-visa licence sits at the bottom of the band; six-visa packages sit at the top.

The critical thing to understand before comparing quotes is what the headline number is. In this zone the advertised figure is a licence-only price. It does not include the residence visa cost per person, the Establishment Card, medical testing or Emirates ID, and in most listings it does not state a renewal figure at all.

Every AED figure in the tables below is either a provider-published package price read from that provider's own source and re-verified on 2026-09-13, or an indicative Business Setup AE cost model clearly labelled as such. Where an authority or provider does not publish a figure, this page says "Not stated" instead of estimating one.

• verified Meydan Free Zone packages — Every listed Meydan package with its provider, price basis and source
• free zone company formation in the UAE — The parent guide to free zone licensing, ownership and quotas

Meydan licence types and what each one permits

Meydan issues several licence categories under one authority. The category decides what you may invoice for, not how much administration you face — the process is broadly identical across them.

• Commercial / trading licence — buying, selling, importing and re-exporting goods within the permitted activity list.
• Service (professional) licence — consultancy and professional services delivered by the licence holder.
• E-commerce licence — selling goods or services online, usually with the same activity discipline as a trading licence.
• Fawri instant licence — an accelerated issuance route where the licence is produced immediately once the file is clean, rather than a different legal status.
• Non-resident (zero-visa) licence — a licensed company with no residence visa allocation, used by founders who do not need UAE residency.

Meydan visa costs: what a visa quota actually adds

A visa quota is permission to apply for residence visas; it is not the visa itself. Each person you sponsor then triggers a separate government sequence — entry permit, status change, medical, Emirates ID, stamping and insurance.

Meydan does not publish a per-visa cost on the verified packages listed here, and most listings record the visa cost as "Not stated". The table below is therefore the Business Setup AE indicative build-up used across the site's Cost Calculator, not a Meydan rate card. Ask your provider to confirm each line in writing before you commit.

• UAE investor visa — The visa class most shareholders apply for after licensing

Meydan Free Zone renewal cost

This is the largest genuine information gap in the zone, and it is worth being blunt about it: no verified Meydan package listed on this marketplace states a renewal price. Every renewal figure you find quoted online is therefore a third-party estimate unless it comes from your own written quotation.

What is reliable is the shape of a renewal rather than its size. At renewal you pay the annual licence fee and the annual facility or flexi-desk element again, but not the one-off incorporation lines — registration, name reservation and document work are year-one costs.

• What repeats every year: licence fee, flexi-desk or facility charge, Establishment Card renewal, visa renewals as each visa expires.
• What does not repeat: incorporation and registration fees, name reservation, initial document attestation.
• Late renewal: the authority applies penalties for trading on an expired licence. Meydan does not publish the penalty scale on the sources verified here, so treat any specific figure as unverified.
• Cancellation: the cost of cancelling a Meydan licence is not stated on any verified package or public schedule reviewed for this article. Request it in writing at the point of quotation, not at the point of exit.
• Practical rule used across this site: budget renewal as a substantial share of year one, then replace that assumption with the written figure from your provider.

• trade licence renewal in the UAE — What renewal requires across free zone and mainland licences

What business activities can you run under a Meydan licence?

Your activity — not your licence category — decides what you are legally permitted to invoice for. Free zones group activities and usually cap how many groups a single licence may combine, which is why adding an unrelated activity later can force a licence amendment rather than a simple update.

Meydan's activity list is not reproduced here because the site does not hold a verified copy of it. Request the current list from the authority or your provider, and confirm in writing that every activity you intend to invoice for appears on your licence.

• how UAE business activities and DED activity lists work — Activity codes, activity groups and how many activities one licence can hold

Step by step: setting up in Meydan Free Zone

Timelines above are the working ranges published across this site for free zone formation. They assume complete documents; an incomplete or unattested file is the usual cause of delay.

• 1. Choose your activity and licence category, and confirm the activity is permitted before paying anything (1 day).
• 2. Reserve the trade name with the authority (about 1 day).
• 3. Submit the incorporation file — passports, proof of address, shareholder documents (1–2 days).
• 4. Receive initial approval and settle the licence fee.
• 5. Licence issuance — 1–3 working days on a clean file; the Fawri route compresses this to same-day issuance.
• 6. Apply for the Establishment Card, which must exist before any visa application (2–3 days).
• 7. Process residence visas: entry permit, status change, medical, Emirates ID, stamping (7–14 days per person).
• 8. Open the corporate bank account — the slowest and least predictable step, commonly 2–6 weeks and outside your provider's control.

• opening a corporate bank account — Why applications stall and what compliance teams ask for

Meydan compared with other Dubai and UAE zones on cost

The only honest comparison is between prices that are actually published. The table below uses the lowest published price on this marketplace for each zone, verified on the same date, so the numbers are comparable rather than collected from marketing pages of different vintages.

• how Meydan compares to other UAE free zones — Zone-by-zone comparison on price, quota and premises
• IFZA licence cost explained — The same fee breakdown for IFZA
• compare free zone packages side by side — Put verified packages next to each other on the same cost lines

Who Meydan suits — and who it does not

• Suits founders who want a Dubai address with a low entry licence fee and no immediate visa requirement.
• Suits consultants and e-commerce operators whose activity is straightforward and unregulated.
• Suits applicants who need speed, where the instant-licence route removes days from issuance.
• Does not suit businesses that must trade directly inside the UAE mainland market without a distributor or branch.
• Does not suit regulated activities that require a specific authority's approval — confirm eligibility before paying.
• Does not suit anyone budgeting only the headline licence fee: with visas, the realistic first-year figure is materially higher.

Key takeaways

• Published Meydan packages on this marketplace run AED 9,750 to AED 48,136, verified 2026-09-13.
• The advertised price is licence-only; visas, Establishment Card, medical and Emirates ID are additional.
• The indicative site-wide build-up for one residence visa is AED 5,690, plus an Establishment Card of about AED 1,850.
• No verified Meydan package states a renewal or cancellation price — get both in writing before you sign.
• Zero-visa (non-resident) licences are the cheapest legitimate Meydan route, and they grant no UAE residency.