Quick answer: RAKEZ is usually the stronger shortlist for scalable light-to-heavy manufacturing, warehouses and industrial land. Hamriyah is usually stronger when port access, heavy industry, maritime activity, petrochemicals or bulk cargo matter. Ajman Free Zone can suit smaller light-industrial, packaging, assembly and SME production setups that value proximity to Dubai and Sharjah. Do not choose this category by headline licence price alone; compare facility size, power, fit-out, approvals, visas, customs route, banking readiness and three-year occupancy exposure.
Source and confidence note: Manufacturing and industrial figures in this article are planning ranges, not final invoices. Licence, warehouse, land, utilities, visas, establishment card, Civil Defence, municipality, environmental approvals, fit-out and renewal costs can change by project. Treat quote-based and indicative ranges as current-quote items until the authority or partner quote confirms the exact facility and activity.
Manufacturing setup decisions are different from simple service-company decisions. A consultant may be comparing a licence and a desk; a factory is comparing premises, power, approvals, port or road access, labour capacity and recurring occupancy cost. For that reason, the lowest advertised licence can be the wrong benchmark if the zone does not fit the operating footprint.
This comparison looks at RAKEZ, Hamriyah and Ajman Free Zone as practical manufacturing shortlists in 2026. Use it to decide which zone deserves a current quote for your product, warehouse size, power requirement, employee count and customer market.
Quick comparison: RAKEZ vs Hamriyah vs Ajman at a glance
| Factor | RAKEZ (Ras Al Khaimah) | Hamriyah (Sharjah) | Ajman Free Zone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial licence (year 1) | AED 8,000–15,000 | From ~AED 11,000 | AED 12,000–18,000 |
| Cheapest entry package | ~AED 6,800 (no warehouse) | ~AED 8,000 office-based | AED 6,000–8,500 (zero-visa) |
| Warehouse rent (indicative) | ~AED 400/sqm/year (Al Ghail) | ~AED 70,000 for a unit | Compact units, higher per-sqm |
| Industrial land plots | Yes — large-scale, Al Ghail | Yes — deep-water port plots | Limited — light industry |
| Own seaport | Saqr Port (bulk/aggregate) | Hamriyah deep-water port | No (uses Sharjah/Ajman Port) |
| Best fit | Heavy & large manufacturing | Oil, gas, petrochem, heavy | Light industry, SMEs, packaging |
| Distance to Dubai | ~45–60 min | ~30–40 min | ~25–35 min |
Figures are indicative planning ranges and exclude VAT unless the quote states otherwise. Actual numbers move with promotions, facility type, plot size, visa count, power load, approvals and renewal terms. Treat the table as a planning shape, not a final invoice. If you want the live side-by-side, our free zone comparison tool lets you stack these three against each other on the metrics that matter to you.
Source and confidence check for the ranges
| Item | How to treat it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Licence and entry package figures | Indicative public or partner planning range unless the current authority quote confirms the same activity and package. | Industrial licence category, activity count and promotions can change the headline amount. |
| Warehouse, land and facility figures | Quote-based facility item requiring current availability, size, lease term, power and fit-out confirmation. | Premises can dominate Year 1 and renewal cost for factories. |
| Visa and labour capacity | Planning guidance only until the facility and authority visa allocation are confirmed. | A desk package and a warehouse lease can support very different headcounts. |
| Three-year cost | Do not calculate from licence alone; model rent, renewal, visas, utilities, approvals and fit-out separately. | The cheapest licence may not be the cheapest operating route. |
The real cost breakdown: licence, facility, power and visas
Start with the licence, because it’s the number everyone fixates on and the one that matters least. An industrial licence at RAKEZ runs roughly AED 8,000 to AED 15,000 depending on activity count and whichever promotion is live. Hamriyah’s industrial licences start around AED 11,000, and a packaged industrial setup with one visa tends to land near AED 13,500. Ajman quotes AED 12,000 to AED 18,000 for an industrial licence, though its headline zero-visa packages start as low as AED 6,000 to AED 8,500 — which is exactly the figure that lures founders in before they realise a zero-visa package and a working factory are very different things.
Now the part that decides your budget: space. A 500 square-metre warehouse in RAKEZ’s Al Ghail industrial zone is quoted around AED 400 per square metre per year — about AED 200,000 annually — and that’s genuinely competitive for purpose-built industrial space. RAKEZ also leases raw industrial land for companies that want to build, which is where its economics pull ahead at scale. Hamriyah quotes warehouse units in the region of AED 70,000 for a smaller footprint, with offices from about AED 8,000, plus serviced industrial land beside a working deep-water port. Ajman’s industrial space tends to come in compact units; the per-square-metre rate isn’t bad, but the inventory skews toward light industry rather than large sheds.
Add it up for a realistic small factory — licence, 600–1,000 sqm of warehouse, power connection, six to eight visas, and the usual establishment cards — and you’re looking at roughly AED 220,000–320,000 in year one at RAKEZ or Hamriyah, with Ajman competitive only at the smaller end. Notice what just happened: the licence, the number the client walked in obsessing over, is AED 12,000 of a AED 250,000 bill. That’s the counter-intuitive heart of this whole comparison. For a manufacturer, the cheapest licence is almost never the cheapest setup, and chasing it can steer you toward a zone with the wrong industrial infrastructure for what you’re building. (Service businesses are a different story — if that’s you, our DMCC vs RAKEZ breakdown is the more relevant read.)
Visas and immigration: capacity is the real question
For industrial businesses, the visa conversation isn’t really about cost per visa — it’s about how many you can get. A factory needs labour, and your visa options is tied to your facility. Rent a flexi-desk and you’ll be capped at a handful of visas; lease a warehouse and your quota scales with the space, because the authorities allocate visas roughly on the assumption of how many people that footprint can house and employ.
RAKEZ handles this well for scale. Because it’s built around large industrial plots and warehouses, companies leasing real space can support sizeable workforces, and RAKEZ has its own setup for labour accommodation nearby — a genuine consideration when you’re hiring 30 machine operators, not three. Hamriyah is similar and arguably stronger for heavy-industry labour, given decades of hosting oil, gas, and petrochemical operations that run large crews around the clock. Ajman is perfectly capable for smaller teams and light-industry headcounts, and its proximity to Sharjah and Dubai makes staff commutes and recruitment easier, but it isn’t where you’d base a 200-person plant.
One practical detail people miss: medical testing, Emirates ID, and labour-card processing all add per-head cost and time on top of the visa itself, and these stack fast when you’re onboarding a crew. Budget realistically — a residence visa is rarely just the visa. If visa options and packages are your deciding factor, we went deep on exactly that across three zones in our RAKEZ vs DMCC vs JAFZA visa comparison.
What actually thrives in each zone
These three zones aren’t interchangeable, and matching your activity to the zone’s real strength matters more than shaving a few thousand dirhams off the licence.
RAKEZ is where serious and large-scale manufacturing belongs. Ras Al Khaimah built its economy on industry — ceramics, building materials, pharmaceuticals, steel, packaging — and RAKEZ reflects that with two distinct industrial areas: Al Ghail for heavy, large-footprint manufacturing, and Al Hamra for lighter industry and logistics. If you need a big plot, reliable industrial power, and room to expand without moving emirates, RAKEZ is hard to beat on cost-per-square-metre. It’s the natural home for anyone outgrowing a small unit.
Hamriyah is the heavy-industry and maritime specialist. Its deep-water port and on-site oil-and-gas ecosystem make it the obvious choice for petrochemicals, steel fabrication, marine services, and anything that ships in raw materials by sea and ships out finished goods the same way. If your supply chain lives on the water, Hamriyah’s port-on-your-doorstep setup quietly saves you more than any licence discount ever could.
Ajman Free Zone owns the light-industrial and SME end. Food processing, textiles, small assembly, packaging, furniture, building-materials trading with a light production element — this is its sweet spot. Its biggest asset is location: minutes from Sharjah and well-connected to Dubai, so for a founder who wants a modest production unit close to the city without Dubai rents, Ajman is genuinely smart. We broke down its numbers in detail in our Ajman Free Zone cost breakdown.
Hidden costs to confirm before signing
This is where industrial budgets can move sharply away from a headline licence number. Confirm these items before signing a lease, paying a deposit or committing to a package.
Power and utilities. A consultant needs a laptop and Wi-Fi. A factory needs three-phase industrial power, and getting a heavy connection installed — plus the security deposits and consumption — can run tens of thousands of dirhams before a single machine turns on. Zones differ in how much of this is bundled versus billed separately, so ask for the all-in power cost, not just the rent.
Fit-out and approvals. Industrial units come as shells. Flooring rated for heavy machinery, mezzanine offices, ventilation, fire systems, and the civil-defence and municipality approvals to operate them all cost real money and weeks of time. Manufacturing activities also trigger extra environmental and safety approvals that a trading licence never sees.
Logistics and the “cheap but far” tax. Ajman’s proximity to Dubai is a genuine saving. RAKEZ’s lower land cost is real — but if your customers and your port clearances are in Dubai, the extra trucking distance is a recurring cost that erodes the land savings. Hamriyah neutralises this with its own port, which is precisely why it punches above its licence price for the right business.
Renewal reality. Year two is rarely cheaper. Licence renewal, warehouse rent (often with annual escalation), and visa renewals roughly mirror year one’s recurring costs, minus the one-off setup fees. Model three years, not one. A zone that’s AED 5,000 cheaper to start but AED 50/sqm more expensive on rent loses that advantage by month four.
Verdict: match the zone to the industrial footprint
If you need a practical shortlist: RAKEZ is often the first option to quote for scalable manufacturing because of its industrial zones, warehouse and land routes, and room to grow. Hamriyah becomes stronger when the supply chain is port-led, especially for maritime, petrochemical, bulk-storage or heavy-industry activity. Ajman can be the better fit for light-industry SMEs that need a smaller footprint close to Dubai and Sharjah.
The right zone is the one that fits your footprint and supply chain, not the one with the smallest number on the licence line. If the activity is light assembly near Dubai, Ajman may beat a larger industrial route. If the business needs sea freight or heavy utilities, Hamriyah or RAKEZ may become more economical over three years even when the entry licence looks higher. If you are still weighing free zone against mainland for an industrial activity, review our free zone vs mainland guide before signing.
Need a current shortlist? Send your activity, approximate facility size, visa count and budget to info@uaefreezonecompare.com. UAE Freezone Compare can help request suitable current market quotes with no service charge from UAE Freezone Compare.
How fast can you actually be operational?
Speed matters more for industrial businesses than people expect, because every week you’re not producing is a week of rent and salaries with no revenue. The licence itself is the quick part — all three zones can issue an industrial licence in a matter of days once your documents and activity approvals are in order. RAKEZ and Ajman are both known for fast, founder-friendly licensing, and Hamriyah moves quickly too for standard activities. If raw licensing speed is your obsession, we ranked the fastest zones in our fastest UAE free zone licence guide.
But here’s the catch for manufacturers: the licence is rarely the bottleneck. The real timeline is set by the physical setup — securing the right warehouse or land, getting the industrial power connection energised, completing fit-out, and passing civil-defence and environmental inspections before you can legally operate machinery. That sequence can run anywhere from six weeks to several months depending on the complexity of your activity and how much fit-out the unit needs. A light-assembly business moving into a ready warehouse in Ajman might be running in a month; a chemical plant building out a plot in RAKEZ or Hamriyah is thinking in quarters, not weeks.
The practical lesson: don’t choose a zone on licensing speed alone. Ask each zone how long power energisation and operating approvals realistically take for your specific activity, because that’s the number that determines when you can actually invoice a customer. A zone that licenses you in three days but takes three months to energise your unit isn’t faster than one that takes a week to license but has power ready to connect.
A worked example: AED 250k, three ways
Abstract ranges only get you so far, so let’s run the same business through all three zones. Picture a mid-sized food-packaging operation: a 700 sqm warehouse, three-phase power, eight staff visas, and a standard industrial licence. Roughly how does year one shake out?
At RAKEZ (Al Hamra light industry): licence around AED 12,000, warehouse at roughly AED 400/sqm puts 700 sqm near AED 280,000 — though smaller units and promotions can pull this down — plus power, fit-out, and eight visas. Call it AED 300,000–340,000 all in, with the trade-off of distance from Dubai but the upside of room to expand on the same plot later.
At Hamriyah: licence near AED 13,500 with a one-visa package, warehouse units from around AED 70,000 for a smaller footprint (larger purpose-built space costs more), offices from AED 8,000, plus the same power and visa stack. For a business that imports packaging film or raw material by sea, the in-zone deep-water port quietly trims recurring logistics, so the operating cost over three years can undercut a cheaper-looking rival. Year one lands broadly in the AED 220,000–300,000 band depending on space.
At Ajman: licence in the AED 12,000–18,000 range, compact warehousing, and the lowest commute cost to Dubai and Sharjah. For this footprint Ajman is competitive and arguably the most convenient if the founder lives in Dubai — but if the business grows past 1,000 sqm or needs heavy power, it can hit the ceiling of what the zone comfortably offers, forcing a costly move later.
Same business, three genuinely different answers — and notice that no single zone “wins” on price across the board. The right pick flips depending on whether this founder values proximity, sea logistics, or room to scale. That’s exactly why a generic “cheapest free zone” list is close to useless for industrial setups, and why it’s worth running your real numbers through our comparison tool before committing.
Customs, exports and operating realities to model
Once your unit is running, a different set of factors starts driving real costs, and they may not be obvious from a licence quote. The first is customs. Goods produced in a UAE free zone and sold into the UAE mainland are treated as imports and attract 5% customs duty at the point they cross into the local market, so if most of your customers are domestic, that duty is a recurring line you need to model from day one. Export it, and you’re typically in a far better position. This is why a manufacturer’s choice between zones often hinges on a question that has nothing to do with the licence: are you selling into the local market or shipping abroad?
Hamriyah’s logic shines here for exporters. With a deep-water port inside the zone, an exporter loads finished goods more or less where they’re made, cutting both handling and inland trucking. RAKEZ has Saqr Port for bulk and aggregate cargo, which suits building-materials and heavy-industry exporters moving large tonnage. Ajman leans on nearby Sharjah and Ajman ports and the road network, which is perfectly fine for road-and-air distribution into the local and regional market but less of an advantage for sea-borne export volumes.
The second reality is corporate tax. The UAE’s 9% corporate tax applies, but qualifying free zone businesses earning “qualifying income” can still access a 0% rate on that income — provided they meet the conditions, including adequate substance and the right kind of activity. Corporate-tax treatment depends on the exact activity, income type, substance, transactions and compliance position, so do not assume a 0% outcome without advice from a UAE tax professional. Factor in proper accounting and tax advice as a real cost, not an optional extra.
Third, there is bank-account preparation: opening a corporate bank account for an industrial company can take longer than for a simple consultancy, because banks scrutinise manufacturing operations, source of funds, and trade flows more closely. Build in time for it, and don’t sign a long warehouse lease assuming the bank account will be ready the same week. None of these operational realities show up in the headline package price, yet collectively they shape your profitability far more than whether your licence cost AED 11,000 or AED 14,000. It’s the same theme running through this entire comparison: for industrial businesses, the licence is the cheap, easy, visible part — and almost everything that actually matters sits just out of frame.
Frequently asked questions
Which free zone is genuinely cheapest for a small manufacturing unit?
For a truly small, light-industrial unit, Ajman Free Zone usually has the lowest entry cost thanks to compact units and packages starting around AED 6,000–8,500 for zero-visa setups, scaling to AED 12,000–18,000 for a full industrial licence. But “cheapest to start” and “cheapest to run” diverge quickly. Once you add a real warehouse, three-phase power, and several labour visas, RAKEZ’s lower per-square-metre rates — around AED 400/sqm/year in Al Ghail — often make it cheaper over a three-year horizon. Always compare the all-in three-year cost, not the year-one licence headline, because for manufacturers the licence is the smallest line on the invoice.
Does Hamriyah’s deep-water port really matter for my business?
Only if your supply chain touches the sea — but if it does, it matters enormously. Hamriyah’s deep-water port sits inside the free zone, so importers of bulk raw materials and exporters of finished goods can move cargo without trucking it across the emirates to Jebel Ali or Khalifa Port. For petrochemicals, steel, building materials, and marine services, that proximity quietly saves recurring logistics costs that dwarf any licence difference. If you’re a light-industry business that ships by road and air, though, the port is a feature you won’t use, and Ajman or RAKEZ may suit you better on other factors.
Can I get enough labour visas for a factory in these zones?
Yes, provided you lease appropriate space. Visa options for industrial businesses are tied to your facility size, not just your licence — a flexi-desk caps you at a handful of visas, while a leased warehouse or land plot unlocks a quota that scales with the footprint. RAKEZ and Hamriyah are both built for sizeable industrial workforces and have nearby labour-accommodation options, making them suitable for crews of dozens. Ajman comfortably handles smaller teams. Remember that each visa carries per-head costs for medical testing, Emirates ID, and labour cards on top of the visa fee, so budget the full per-employee figure when planning headcount.
How much should I budget beyond the licence for an industrial setup?
A lot more than the licence — that’s the whole point. For a realistic small factory with 600–1,000 sqm of warehouse, power, and six to eight visas, expect roughly AED 220,000–320,000 in year one at RAKEZ or Hamriyah, with the licence itself being only AED 8,000–18,000 of that. The big drivers are warehouse rent, three-phase power connection and deposits, fit-out (industrial flooring, ventilation, fire systems), and civil-defence and municipality approvals. Year two strips out one-off setup costs but keeps the recurring rent, renewals, and visa costs, so model at least three years before committing.
RAKEZ or Ajman for a light-assembly or packaging business near Dubai?
If staying close to Dubai and Sharjah is a priority and your footprint is modest, Ajman usually wins — it’s 25–35 minutes from Dubai, its compact units suit light assembly and packaging, and its entry costs are low. RAKEZ makes more sense if you expect to grow into a larger footprint, need bigger industrial power, or want raw land to build on, accepting the trade-off of an extra 20–30 minutes’ trucking distance to Dubai. For many packaging and light-assembly founders, the deciding question is simply growth horizon: Ajman for “small and close,” RAKEZ for “room to scale.” Share the footprint, activity and visa plan before choosing.
Choosing an industrial free zone is one of the few business-setup decisions where the cheapest licence is genuinely a distraction. Match the zone to your footprint, your power needs, and your supply chain — RAKEZ for scale, Hamriyah for sea freight and heavy industry, Ajman for light-industry proximity — and the right answer usually becomes obvious. When it does not, request a current quote comparison before committing: email info@uaefreezonecompare.com with your activity, facility size, visa count and budget.
Written by: UAE Freezone Compare Editorial Team
Reviewed by: UAE Business Setup Research Team
Last reviewed: August 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.
Calculate My Free Zone Cost Compare free zones Browse activities Bank account guide
Current quote and methodology notes
| Are prices final? | No. Request the current written quote before committing. |
|---|---|
| Can requirements change? | Yes. Free zone and bank requirements can change by activity, visas, office, facility and shareholder profile. |