Three importers walked into our office last month with nearly identical businesses — auto parts, electronics, and frozen food — and every one of them assumed Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) was the only serious option for a logistics company. By the end of each conversation, only one of them actually set up in JAFZA. The other two saved a combined six figures in first-year costs by going somewhere else entirely.
That’s the thing about logistics free zones in Dubai. The “obvious” answer is rarely the cheapest, and the cheapest is rarely the right one. If you’re moving goods — importing, re-exporting, warehousing, or running an e-commerce fulfilment operation — the free zone you pick decides your rent, your customs flow, your visa headroom, and whether you’re sitting next to a seaport, an airport, or both.
This article settles the question for the three zones built specifically for cargo: Dubai South (officially Dubai World Central, DWC), Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA), and Dubai Airport Free Zone (DAFZA). Real AED numbers, real trade-offs, and the one scenario where the “premium” zone is genuinely the cheapest. Here’s how they actually stack up.
Quick comparison: the numbers at a glance
Here’s where the three land before we unpack the detail. These are 2026 indicative figures — packages shift through the year and depend heavily on facility type, so treat them as a working baseline, not a quote.
| Factor | Dubai South (DWC) | JAFZA | DAFZA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry licence (from) | AED 10,000/year (AED 20,000 General Trading) | From ~AED 5,500 basic; trading AED 15,000–25,000 | From AED 15,020 (incl. address, 3 activities) |
| Cheapest realistic 1st year | ~AED 8,500–20,000 (Business Park, flexi-desk) | ~AED 40,000–55,000 with 1 visa | ~AED 19,500–42,500 |
| General Trading licence | AED 20,000/year | Varies by package | AED 50,000/year |
| Visa (all-in, per person) | ~AED 4,000–5,000 | ~AED 5,000 | ~AED 3,950–5,000 |
| Warehouse (entry) | Logistics District unit, fit-out extra | From ~AED 48,000/year (200–300 sqm) | Limited; premium air-cargo focus |
| Adjacent to | Al Maktoum Airport (DWC) + Jebel Ali corridor | Jebel Ali Port (sea) | Dubai International Airport (DXB, air) |
| Best for | SME logistics, e-commerce, cost-sensitive setups | Heavy freight, containers, re-export at volume | High-value, time-sensitive air cargo |
Already you can see the spread. Dubai South opens at roughly a fifth of JAFZA’s realistic entry cost. DAFZA charges a premium that only makes sense for a specific kind of cargo. Now the why.
Detailed cost breakdown with real AED figures
Dubai South (DWC). The licence fee is refreshingly flat: AED 10,000 per year for every licence type except General Trading, which is AED 20,000 per year, payable in advance. A Business Park package with one visa and a flexi-desk runs roughly AED 20,000 to AED 35,000 all-in for the first year, and the cheapest entry point sits around AED 8,500 if you strip it back to the bone. The moment you need actual warehousing, you move into the Logistics District, where a small unit around 500 sqm with one visa lands in the AED 45,000 to AED 85,000 range for year one — and that’s before fit-out, which you budget separately.
JAFZA. The headline “from AED 5,000” you’ll see quoted is real but misleading. A basic trading licence can start near AED 5,500, but once you add registration, a facility lease, and a single visa, a realistic first-year figure is AED 40,000 to AED 55,000. Warehousing is where JAFZA’s numbers climb fast: standard units in the 200 to 300 sqm bracket start around AED 48,000 per year, larger facilities with loading docks and high ceilings run AED 80,000 to AED 200,000-plus, and temperature-controlled or cold storage sits at AED 85,000 to AED 150,000-plus annually. The most affordable complete registration package is often quoted near AED 52,636. All JAFZA fees carry 5% VAT — factor it in.
DAFZA. Licences start from AED 15,020, which includes a registration address and up to three business activities under one category. Trading, service, and industrial licences are each AED 15,000 per year; General Trading jumps to AED 50,000 per year. FZCO registration is a one-time AED 7,000, and the establishment card is AED 2,020 in year one (AED 1,870 on renewal). A visa is around AED 3,950. Office space is billed by area at AED 1,850 to AED 1,950 per sqm plus a 12.5% service charge, which is why DAFZA’s all-in setup commonly starts near AED 42,500 even though a trimmed package can begin at AED 19,500.
If your whole decision is price, the ranking is clear: Dubai South, then DAFZA’s lean package, then JAFZA. But logistics is never just price, which is exactly the trap the three importers nearly fell into. For a wider cost lens across Dubai zones, our 2026 checklist on the real cost of registering a company in Dubai free zones breaks down every line item.
Visa and immigration considerations per free zone
Visa cost per person is broadly similar across all three — budget AED 4,000 to AED 5,000 for the full chain of entry permit, medical, Emirates ID, and residency stamping, with DAFZA’s visa fee quoted slightly lower at around AED 3,950. The real difference isn’t the per-visa price. It’s the quota, and quota is everything for a logistics operation that scales headcount with order volume.
JAFZA is built for scale. A flexi-desk supports one to four visas, an executive office supports five to twelve-plus depending on size, and warehouse or industrial units allocate visas by floor area — typically one visa per 9 sqm of office space inside the facility. Lease an actual plot from JAFZA and you start with an initial quota of 20 visas, expandable on approval. If you’re going to employ forklift drivers, pickers, supervisors, and a customs team, JAFZA’s headroom is genuinely hard to match.
Dubai South is more modest at the entry tier — a flexi-desk package is usually a one to two visa affair — but the Logistics District scales with the warehouse you lease, so growth is available, just at a different price point. DAFZA’s allocations follow office area too, and because DAFZA leans toward smaller, high-value operations, its quotas tend to suit lean teams rather than large blue-collar workforces. If your model is twelve warehouse staff on day one, DAFZA fights you; if it’s four specialists handling high-margin air freight, it fits perfectly.
One practical note: visa quota isn’t something you can easily renegotiate after you’ve signed a facility lease. Get the headcount math right before you commit, because upgrading your facility purely to unlock more visas is one of the most common and most avoidable cost mistakes we see. Our RAKEZ vs DMCC vs JAFZA visa comparison goes deeper on how quota structures differ across zones.
What types of businesses actually thrive in each
This is where the three stop being interchangeable. Each zone has a centre of gravity, and businesses that sit in that centre pay less and operate smoother than businesses fighting the zone’s design.
JAFZA thrives on weight and volume. It’s wired into Jebel Ali Port, the busiest container port between Singapore and Rotterdam, with bonded logistics, on-site customs, and supply-chain infrastructure that no purely inland zone can replicate. If you’re importing containers, running an industrial line, distributing FMCG across the GCC, or re-exporting at serious tonnage, JAFZA’s premium buys you something concrete: you’re not trucking goods 40 kilometres from the port before you even start. For container-scale trading specifically, our JAFZA vs DMCC trading comparison is worth reading alongside this one.
DAFZA thrives on speed and value density. Sitting on the doorstep of Dubai International Airport, it’s purpose-built for cargo where the freight cost per kilo is high and time matters more than space — pharmaceuticals, electronics, luxury goods, aviation parts, perishable high-value produce. If a day of delay costs you more than a month of premium rent, DAFZA’s pricing suddenly looks rational. It’s the worst possible choice for low-margin bulk goods and the best possible choice for a courier-speed, high-ticket import business.
Dubai South thrives on the in-between. It’s the corridor zone — positioned around Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) and within the broader Jebel Ali logistics belt, with the legacy infrastructure of the Expo site behind it. For SME importers, e-commerce fulfilment operators, last-mile and 3PL businesses, and anyone who wants real warehousing without JAFZA’s price tag, Dubai South hits a sweet spot that didn’t really exist a decade ago. If your operation is e-commerce-led, cross-reference with our IFZA vs RAKEZ e-commerce comparison before deciding — sometimes a non-logistics zone plus a 3PL partner beats leasing your own warehouse.
The hidden costs most comparison guides skip
The licence fee is the number everyone quotes. It’s almost never the number that decides your first year. Here’s what actually moves the total.
Fit-out. Warehouse packages are quoted as bare shells. Racking, climate control, office partitioning, loading-bay equipment, and signage can add AED 50,000 to several hundred thousand depending on scale. Dubai South’s Logistics District numbers explicitly exclude fit-out — read that line twice before you celebrate a low rent.
VAT. JAFZA fees carry 5% VAT, and you should assume the same on most chargeable services across all three zones. On a AED 100,000 setup, that’s AED 5,000 people routinely forget.
Service charges. DAFZA adds a 12.5% service charge on office space. That turns AED 1,950 per sqm into roughly AED 2,194 per sqm before you’ve moved a single pallet.
Establishment and immigration cards. Small individually — DAFZA’s establishment card is AED 2,020 — but they renew annually and stack across entities.
Customs and bonded movement. Goods moving between a free zone and the mainland trigger duty (typically 5% on the customs value) and customs paperwork. If a chunk of your sales is into the UAE domestic market rather than re-export, that duty is a recurring line that a port-distance saving won’t offset. This is genuinely where the free-zone-versus-mainland question reopens — our guide on when it actually makes sense to go mainland covers the duty math in detail.
General Trading premium. If you need a General Trading licence to deal in unrelated product categories, the gap is brutal: AED 20,000 at Dubai South versus AED 50,000 at DAFZA. For multi-category importers, that single line can flip the entire ranking. Our General Trading licence cost transparency report lays out the gaps zone by zone.
Location and connectivity: the 40-kilometre question
A free zone’s address isn’t a branding detail when you move physical goods — it’s a daily cost line. Every kilometre between your unit and the port or airport you actually use shows up as trucking fees, driver hours, and lead time, and over a year those numbers are bigger than most licence-fee differences people agonise over.
JAFZA’s entire value proposition is that there’s no gap. You’re inside the Jebel Ali Port ecosystem, so a container can clear and move into your bonded warehouse without a long inland haul. For a business landing dozens of containers a month, eliminating that drayage leg is worth real money and real time — it’s the single clearest case where paying more upfront returns more later.
DAFZA plays the same game with air freight. Sitting against Dubai International Airport means time-sensitive cargo clears and ships with minimal ground movement, which is exactly why pharma and electronics tolerate the premium per-sqm pricing. The catch is that DAFZA is poorly placed for anything arriving by sea — you’d be trucking sea cargo across the city, defeating the point.
Dubai South sits in the middle of the map and the middle of the argument. It’s anchored on Al Maktoum International Airport and sits within the wider Jebel Ali logistics corridor, so it’s reasonably placed for both sea and air without being perfectly placed for either. For most SME importers whose volume doesn’t justify port-side rent, “reasonably placed at a fifth of the cost” beats “perfectly placed at full price” comfortably. Where it gets interesting is free-zone-to-free-zone movement: goods can often transit between zones under bond without triggering import duty, which means a Dubai South base paired with occasional JAFZA port handling can capture much of JAFZA’s access without JAFZA’s standing rent.
Setup timeline and approvals: how fast can you actually start trading?
Cost gets the headlines, but for an importer with stock already on the water, speed to a working customs code can matter more than a few thousand dirhams. The three zones differ here in ways that track their personalities.
Dubai South and DAFZA both tend to move quickly for straightforward licence types — a clean trading or service licence with a flexi-desk or small office can be issued in a matter of days once your documents and activity approvals are in order. The friction is rarely the zone; it’s external approvals tied to specific regulated activities, and the time it takes you to assemble shareholder documents, attestations, and your customs registration with Dubai Customs once the licence is live.
JAFZA is more deliberate, and that’s by design. Plot leases, warehouse allocations, and larger visa quotas involve more documentation and more review, so a full industrial or warehouse setup takes longer to stand up than a flexi-desk trading licence anywhere. If your model is a simple trading licence, JAFZA isn’t dramatically slower; if it’s a leased warehouse with a 20-visa quota, you plan in weeks, not days.
Across all three, the step that catches first-time importers is the customs piece. A free zone licence lets you exist; a customs client code and the right import/export documentation let you actually clear goods. Build that into your timeline from day one rather than discovering it when your first shipment is sitting at the port. If you’re still deciding between a free zone and a mainland structure for import activity, our guide to the cheapest free zone licence in the UAE is a useful companion to this comparison.
Real verdict — and when the “obvious choice” is wrong
Here’s the counter-intuitive finding, and it’s the one that saved two of our three importers real money: for most small and mid-sized logistics businesses, JAFZA — the name everyone reaches for first — is the wrong default. Its port-adjacency premium only pays for itself when you’re genuinely moving container volume through Jebel Ali. Below that threshold, you’re paying JAFZA prices for proximity you don’t fully use, and Dubai South gives you real warehousing in the same logistics corridor at a fraction of the entry cost.
So the verdict splits cleanly. If you’re a container-scale importer, industrial operator, or high-volume GCC re-exporter, pay for JAFZA — the infrastructure is the product, and it’s worth it. If you’re a high-value, time-critical air-cargo business — pharma, electronics, luxury, aviation parts — DAFZA’s premium is rational because speed is your margin. For everyone else moving goods — SME importers, e-commerce fulfilment, 3PL, last-mile, cost-sensitive distribution — Dubai South is the smart default, and it’s not close.
The frozen-food importer from the opening? He needed cold storage and container access, so JAFZA earned its fee. The auto-parts trader and the electronics importer both went to Dubai South and DAFZA respectively, and both spent less in year one than the JAFZA package they walked in expecting to sign.
Still weighing it up against zones outside this three? Browse every UAE free zone side by side on our free zones directory, or run a direct head-to-head in our comparison tool.
Frequently asked questions
Is JAFZA always more expensive than Dubai South and DAFZA?
For entry-level setups, yes — a realistic first-year JAFZA cost of AED 40,000 to AED 55,000 sits well above Dubai South’s AED 8,500 to AED 35,000 range and DAFZA’s lean packages from AED 19,500. But “expensive” is relative to what you use. If you need bonded warehousing beside a container port, JAFZA’s cost per unit of actual logistics capability can be lower than cobbling the same setup together elsewhere. The premium is only wasted money if you’re not using the port-side infrastructure you’re paying for.
Which zone is best for an e-commerce fulfilment business?
Dubai South, in most cases. It offers real warehousing in the Logistics District at far lower entry cost than JAFZA, sits in the airport-and-port corridor for fast inbound and outbound flow, and scales visas with the facility you lease. The exception is high-value, fast-moving stock where DAFZA’s airport proximity justifies the premium. For many small e-commerce sellers, the cheapest answer is actually a low-cost licence in a non-logistics zone plus a third-party fulfilment partner — worth modelling before you lease your own unit.
How much does a warehouse really cost in these zones?
At JAFZA, standard 200 to 300 sqm units start around AED 48,000 per year, larger docked facilities run AED 80,000 to AED 200,000-plus, and cold storage sits at AED 85,000 to AED 150,000-plus. Dubai South’s Logistics District small units fall in the AED 45,000 to AED 85,000 first-year range excluding fit-out. DAFZA is the least warehouse-oriented of the three, leaning toward office and high-value cargo handling rather than bulk storage. Always confirm whether fit-out, racking, and climate control are included — they usually aren’t.
Can I sell to the UAE mainland from these free zones?
Yes, but goods crossing from a free zone into the mainland trigger customs duty — typically 5% on the customs value — plus the relevant paperwork, and you’ll often work through a mainland distributor or pay duty as the importer of record. If a large share of your sales is domestic rather than re-export, that recurring duty can outweigh any savings from a cheaper licence. This is the point where the free-zone-versus-mainland decision genuinely reopens, and it deserves its own cost model.
What’s the cheapest way to start a logistics company in Dubai in 2026?
The leanest legitimate route is a Dubai South Business Park licence at AED 10,000 per year with a flexi-desk and one visa, keeping your all-in first-year cost in the AED 20,000 to AED 35,000 band, then partnering with a third-party logistics provider for actual storage and handling rather than leasing your own warehouse from day one. You upgrade to your own Logistics District unit once volume justifies it. That staged approach avoids over-committing to rent and visa quota before your order flow proves itself.
The bottom line
JAFZA wins on heavy freight and container volume, DAFZA wins on high-value time-critical air cargo, and Dubai South wins on almost everything in between — which, for most businesses reading this, is exactly where you sit. Don’t pay for port-side infrastructure you won’t use, and don’t under-build into a zone that can’t scale your visas. Match the zone to your cargo, not to its reputation.
Still not sure which one fits your goods and your volume? Send us a quick message by email at info@uaefreezonecompare.com and we’ll tell you in 5 minutes which zone actually suits your operation — and roughly what your first-year number looks like.
Written by: UAE Freezone Compare Editorial Team
Reviewed by: UAE Business Setup Research Team
Last reviewed: June 2026
Our guides are reviewed using public authority information, official package pages, available fee schedules, partner quotations and manual research. Prices and requirements can change depending on activity, visa count, office requirement, shareholder structure and authority approval.
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