Free Zone PRO Service Fees Compared 2026: Typing, Submission and Document Courier Charges by Zone

Across six UAE free zones there is a sharp divide in how administrative handling and government-relations desk charges are published. Only two — Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) — publish itemised rate cards for routine Public Relations Officer (PRO) work. The other four — Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone (RAKEZ) for document work, Sharjah Media City (Shams), Meydan Free Zone and Ajman Free Zone — are quotation-only or process-only, with no dirham figures attached at all. Even the two published schedules are not directly comparable: ADGM states its figures inclusive of VAT, while DMCC’s charges carry an added AED 20 Knowledge and Innovation Dirham fee. These small, unbundled request fees accumulate across a licence year and sit outside the incorporation quote entirely.

Why Do Free Zone PRO Service Fees Vary So Significantly Across the UAE?

Transactional pricing sits outside the licence fee

When setting up in a UAE free zone, owners tend to focus on the primary costs: annual trade licence issuance, visa allocation and office space. Ongoing compliance, however, runs on secondary administrative services — typing visa applications, issuing No Objection Certificates (NOCs) and bank letters, requesting registry extracts, and processing attestations. Where official free zone government fees buy the right to operate in a jurisdiction, these secondary charges cover the operational cost of processing paperwork. Understanding what a UAE PRO actually does clarifies why they are billed separately from baseline licensing.

Because these services are transaction-priced rather than folded into the annual licence, a company making frequent shareholder amendments, bespoke bank letters or employee status requests incurs costs that never appear in an incorporation quote. The variation between zones lies not in whether such charges exist, but in whether the rates are publicly codified or supplied on request.

Disclosure models differ more than the amounts do

The six zones examined take contrasting approaches to disclosure. DMCC publishes a comprehensive itemised rate card, the DMCC Schedule of Charges. ADGM publishes the ACCESSADGM Government Services Fee Schedule, dated 19 November 2024, detailing prices for document issuance, portal registration and establishment card maintenance. Both allow a prospective licensee to build a multi-year operating budget before committing.

The other four restrict published information to procedure or packages. The fifth edition of the Ajman Free Zone Services Manual runs to 179 pages of workflows and document checklists and contains no AED figure anywhere — it documents process, not price. RAKEZ operates a Value Added Services portal listing more than 20 administrative categories, including NOCs, notary services, document and admin services and goAML registration, yet prices only two bundles: bookkeeping and tax filing at AED 7,999 (from AED 8,999), and corporate tax registration plus banking at AED 3,599 (from AED 3,999). Every individual document, NOC, notary and admin line is quote-only, despite marketing language describing the offering as clear, upfront pricing with a listed rate for each service. Shams describes 13 concierge services without a single AED price, and Meydan routes mAssist enquiries to a phone or messaging channel rather than a schedule.

How Do the Published DMCC and ADGM Schedules Compare?

Letters and NOCs are the highest-frequency line

For the two zones that publish rates, letter and NOC issuance is the most frequently incurred charge. In the DMCC Schedule of Charges, employment letters and salary certificates — in English or Arabic, addressed to banks, consulates or embassies, including the approval letter used for a Schengen application — are priced at AED 165 per document. Standard DMCC No Objection Certificates — to DEWA, du, Etisalat, to open a bank account or a branch, to be a shareholder at DED, to Emirates Post, to the Land Department, for Concordia fit-out, the general NOC and the NOC to operate onshore — are each billed at AED 265.

Two DMCC NOCs sit outside that band. An NOC for Family Hold costs AED 60, and an NOC for a 10-year visa costs AED 2,000 — roughly eight times the standard rate. Registration Arabic letters to third parties — new registration, renewal, additional activity, change of address, share transfer, company termination, Dubai Customs code and similar — are AED 215 each, as are bank letters to release capital or close a company, a new 90-day bank letter, and an extension of provisional approval.

The ACCESSADGM schedule prices its core letters lower. An NOC for a Government Organization is AED 100, and an Employment Certificate is also AED 100. Employee reporting is charged separately and higher: an Employee List is AED 354.77, and an Employee Entry and Exit Report is AED 354.77.

The two schedules are not quoted on the same basis

A direct comparison requires accounting for how each schedule treats tax and surcharges. ADGM states that the figures in its Government Services Fee Schedule are inclusive of VAT, so an ADGM Employment Certificate listed at AED 100 is the total outlay for that transaction.

DMCC’s schedule carries a different general condition: all charges are stated in dirhams and are subject to an AED 20 Knowledge and Innovation Dirham fee. DMCC also notes that charges for services not listed are available on request, and that fees may change without prior notice. Individual DMCC lines annotate VAT treatment separately rather than globally. The practical consequence is that reading AED 100 at ADGM against AED 265 at DMCC is not a like-for-like comparison: the DMCC figure is a listed rate before the AED 20 surcharge, while the ADGM figure is already a final, tax-inclusive number.

Registry extracts and certified copies carry a wide internal spread

Corporate maintenance regularly requires extracts, certified copies and attestation for banking and legal compliance. In the DMCC schedule a Registry Extract is AED 515, while narrower extracts — shareholders active or historic, company officers such as director, manager and secretary, and authorised signatories — are AED 215 each. Attestation of a Resolution is AED 215, as is a True Copy of the licence, MOA, share certificate, certificate of registration, certificate of name change, or a resolution held in original with DMCC.

Two lines break sharply from that pattern. A Certificate of Good Standing is AED 3,015, and replacing a lost document — a Lost Certificate of Registration, Lost Share Certificate, or Lost Memorandum and Articles of Association — is AED 2,835 each. A single lost original therefore costs more than thirteen certified true copies.

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Which Administrative Costs Are Hardest to See Before Committing?

Cancellation is the least visible charge on either schedule

Withdrawing or abandoning a lodged request is where costs surface unexpectedly. In the DMCC Schedule of Charges a service request cancellation fee of AED 515 recurs across the licensing, registration, visa and amendment service lines, and many entries are annotated as non-refundable if the service is cancelled after submission. A company that submits, then discovers a document defect, pays twice.

ADGM prices cancellation explicitly rather than by annotation. Cancelling an Establishment Card is AED 462.27, cancelling an E-Channels account is AED 357.27, and cancelling a P.O. Box service is AED 0.

Courier and physical document handling is priced almost nowhere

Physical logistics — delivering stamped documents, retrieving originals, dispatching cards — is the least transparently priced category across the whole set. DMCC is the only one of the six that attaches a figure to it: borrowing original documents costs AED 100 on a normal timeline and AED 250 urgent, both against a refundable AED 1,000 deposit.

Everyone else handles it through a concierge desk without a rate. Shams lists document delivery via courier or driver among its 13 concierge services and says only that costs vary depending on the distance between the pick-up and delivery points — the single cost statement anywhere in that menu. Meydan lists mail management and P.O. Box services under mAssist with no dirham figure. For businesses weighing facility-side costs, free zone business centre and PO Box fees covers the adjacent mail and meeting room charges.

Portal and establishment card work is the largest published PRO line

Immigration portal access and establishment cards absorb much of a PRO desk’s routine activity, and at ADGM they are the largest published administrative figures. A new Establishment Card is AED 1,127.27 and renewal is also AED 1,127.27; amending one is AED 354.77 and an Establishment Data Modification is AED 264.91.

E-channel services carry the highest single figure on the ACCESSADGM schedule: a new E-Channels account is AED 4,197.27, renewal is AED 1,622.27, and cancellation is AED 357.27. Companies comparing that against federal portal pricing can read our breakdown of free zone e-channel registration fees. ADGM also prices P.O. Box administration — labelled service charge only, excluding package price — at AED 250 for a new application and AED 250 for renewal, and enforces a late filing charge on expired annual commercial permits: AED 0 if filed within 30 calendar days of expiry, then AED 500 monthly for up to three months.

How Does Fee Disclosure Change an Operating Budget?

Workforce changes are individually small and cumulatively material

Staff changes carry their own line items on the DMCC schedule. A request to increase a company’s visa quota carries a service fee of AED 500. Amending an employment contract is priced by the change: a salary change is AED 205, a profession change is AED 528, and a combined profession and salary change is also AED 528, while a template amendment is AED 1,005. Manual data amendment applications are AED 410, and appointing or renewing a company coordinator is AED 20.

None is large alone. A company processing a dozen contract amendments, several bank letters, a handful of NOCs and two or three certified copies in a year is nonetheless spending several thousand dirhams on paperwork handling that never appeared in its setup quote — and that is in the jurisdiction that publishes its rates in advance.

Four of six zones make the charge a post-commitment variable

Operating in a zone with no published schedule introduces a different problem, and it is not that the fees are necessarily higher. At RAKEZ, Shams, Meydan and Ajman Free Zone, charges for typing, NOC issuance and attestation are established on request, after the licence decision has already been made. Shams describes services from Emirates ID registration and VIP medical testing through to MOFA attestation, translation and movement reports with no base rate for any of them; Meydan’s mAssist works the same way.

The asymmetry, rather than the individual dirham amounts, is the finding. In two of six zones, administrative service cost is an input a founder can price before choosing a jurisdiction. In the other four it is a variable discovered afterwards, when switching zones is expensive and the negotiating position has already been surrendered.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which UAE free zones publish itemised PRO service fee cards?

Of the six zones examined, only DMCC and ADGM publish comprehensive itemised rate cards online for administrative and PRO services. DMCC sets its rates out in the DMCC Schedule of Charges; ADGM does so in the ACCESSADGM Government Services Fee Schedule dated 19 November 2024. RAKEZ prices only two service bundles and leaves document work quote-only, while Shams, Meydan and Ajman Free Zone publish no dirham figures for these services at all.

Why can DMCC and ADGM fees not be compared directly?

The two schedules are quoted on different bases. ADGM states its published figures inclusive of VAT, so the listed number is the final amount. DMCC’s schedule states that all charges are subject to an AED 20 Knowledge and Innovation Dirham fee, and annotates VAT treatment line by line rather than globally. Comparing an ADGM NOC at AED 100 with a DMCC NOC at AED 265 therefore compares a final figure against a pre-surcharge one.

What do NOCs and employment letters cost where rates are published?

ADGM charges AED 100 for an Employment Certificate and AED 100 for an NOC to a government organisation. DMCC charges AED 165 for employment letters and salary certificates, and AED 265 for its standard NOCs, including those to open a bank account, to DEWA, du and Etisalat, and to operate onshore. Two DMCC NOCs sit outside that band: Family Hold at AED 60, and an NOC for a 10-year visa at AED 2,000.

What happens to the fee if a submitted service request is cancelled?

Cancellation is charged, and sometimes the original fee is not returned. DMCC applies a service request cancellation fee of AED 515 across its licensing, registration, visa and amendment lines, and marks many services non-refundable once the request has been submitted. ADGM prices cancellation per service: AED 462.27 to cancel an Establishment Card, AED 357.27 to cancel an E-Channels account, and AED 0 to cancel a P.O. Box service.

How are courier and physical document charges handled across free zones?

Barely any zone publishes them. DMCC is the only one of the six examined that attaches a figure to physical document handling, charging AED 100 to borrow original documents on a normal timeline and AED 250 urgently, both against a refundable AED 1,000 deposit. Shams offers document delivery by courier or driver but states only that the cost varies with the distance between pick-up and delivery. Meydan, RAKEZ and Ajman Free Zone publish nothing for this category.

All figures above were read directly from the operators’ own published schedules on 29 August 2026. Published fees and administrative schedules are subject to change without prior notice by the respective authorities, and DMCC states that charges for services not listed in its schedule are available on request.