SHAMS — Sharjah Media City

RIGHT FOR

Solo founders, consultants, and small media, software or e-commerce businesses billing customers outside the UAE mainland, who want a low-cost licence with full ownership and do not need a large visa allocation.

WRONG FOR

Anyone whose customers are UAE mainland businesses. A free-zone licence does not by itself permit direct mainland trade — you would need a distributor, a mainland branch, or a dual-licence route, and that cost rarely appears in the comparison that made SHAMS look cheapest. It is also a weak fit if you expect to hire quickly, because the visa ceiling follows the facility tier.

Year-one cost moves with your activity, how many visas you take and which facility tier you sit on — the advertised “from” price usually covers the licence alone, not the establishment card, visa allocation or desk you cannot trade without. Ranges also shift with whatever promotion is running.

Visa quota is tied to the facility you take rather than the licence itself, so the ceiling moves with the package — and the tier you start on is usually the cheapest one, not the one that survives your first hire.

Time to open an account varies by bank, by your declared activity and by your shareholder profile. Two companies in the same free zone can be weeks apart, which is why no fee table mentions this step at all.

What actually catches founders out is specific to the zone and to the year they did it — which is exactly why it is worth collecting rather than generalising.

A free-zone licence does not by itself let you invoice mainland clients

Selling to customers on the UAE mainland normally needs a distributor, a mainland branch, or a dual-licence arrangement where the emirate offers one. This is the constraint that catches most free-zone founders, and it is rarely mentioned at the point of sale.

0% corporate tax applies to qualifying income, not all income

The free-zone rate applies to qualifying income of a Qualifying Free Zone Person. Revenue from mainland UAE customers generally does not qualify and is taxed at 9%. Separately, the first AED 375,000 of taxable income is taxed at 0% for everyone.

Your visa ceiling follows the facility, not the licence

The quota is tied to the desk or office you take. The cheapest tier is sized for a founder alone, and the first hires are what break it — upgrading mid-year costs more than starting one tier up.

The advertised licence price is one line of several

Establishment card, visa allocation, medical and Emirates ID, and the workspace the licence is tied to are usually priced separately. Compare first-year totals, and check what recurs annually against what is genuinely one-off.

Why can I not find what SHAMS actually costs?

Because SHAMS does not publish licence pricing on its own website — checked 7 September 2026, across the main site and the business-setup section. Every figure you find in a search result is therefore an agency quoting its own package, which is why the numbers vary so widely between sources. Ask the zone directly, or ask a founder already there.