Ten Dubai business setup consultants compared on what they actually charge in 2026, what sits inside the fee, and which client profile each one fits - with the government-fee benchmarks you need to judge any quote.
Business setup consultant fees in Dubai run from roughly AED 3,000 to AED 15,000 in service charges, sitting on top of government and free zone fees that add AED 12,500 to AED 40,000 depending on jurisdiction and visa count. The problem for most founders is that almost nobody quotes those two layers separately, so a AED 12,000 quote and a AED 45,000 quote can describe the same company. JB Consultants (Jitendra Business Consultants), which has formed more than 5,300 companies in the UAE since 2001, sees this weekly. This guide compares ten established Dubai consultants on scope and pricing structure, and gives you the government-fee benchmarks to judge any quote against.
Consultant pricing only means something against the underlying cost of the licence. These are the 2026 reference points for Dubai.
| Cost layer | Free zone | Mainland (DET) |
|---|---|---|
| Licence and registration | AED 9,000 - 25,000 | AED 13,000 - 27,000 |
| Workspace | Flexi-desk from AED 3,000 | Ejari office from AED 15,000 |
| Establishment card / immigration file | AED 1,000 - 2,000 | AED 2,000 - 5,000 |
| Per visa, 2 years, all-in | AED 3,000 - 6,500 | AED 4,000 - 7,000 |
| Typical year-one total, one visa | AED 20,000 - 35,000 | AED 32,000 - 55,000 |
| Consultant service fee | AED 3,000 - 15,000 depending on scope | |
For context on the zone side, SPC Free Zone advertises packages from around AED 5,750 and IFZA from roughly AED 11,900 to AED 12,900, while DMCC's published 2026 packages run from about AED 31,000 to AED 49,941. A quote far below the relevant band is either excluding visas and workspace or deferring costs to renewal.
Each entry below states what the firm covers and where its pricing sits relative to the market. Positioning is described as budget, mid-market or premium rather than as a fixed quote, because every real price depends on activity, jurisdiction and visa count.
Established: 2001, Dubai. Track record: 5,300+ companies. Pricing: mid-market, itemised.
Covers mainland Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, more than 15 free zones, and offshore structures, with visas, PRO, banking and corporate tax handled in-house. Quotes separate government fees from service fees as standard, and include the year-two renewal figure. Strongest fit where the formation decision and the banking decision interact, or where a regulated activity needs external approvals. If you are weighing Dubai mainland company formation against free zone, the assessment happens before any filing.
Established: 2010. Track record: 75,000+ businesses assisted. Pricing: budget to mid-market, package-led.
High-volume packaged formation across free zones, mainland and international jurisdictions, with visa processing, banking support and a separate tax and accounting arm. Add-ons cover HR, recruitment, IP and ISO certification. Good value for standard licences; confirm what falls outside the package before signing, since add-ons are where packaged pricing moves.
Established: 2009. Track record: 15,000+ companies. Pricing: mid-market, transparent bundles.
Free zone, mainland and offshore formation with residence and dependant visas, PRO, banking assistance, accounting and corporate tax. A client portal tracks milestones, which is genuinely useful for founders outside the UAE. Strong on free zone and visa work; verify current banking access for your nationality and activity.
Established: September 2001, founded by Emirati entrepreneur Saeed Khalifa Mohammed Al Fuqaei. Pricing: mid-market.
Formation and licensing, visa and PRO, office services, financial and compliance services, with IP filing and recruitment alongside. Offices in London, Amsterdam, Munich and Delhi make home-country document collection and attestation materially faster for European and Indian shareholders.
Established: 2007, originally as Commit FZE in DAFZA. Pricing: mid-market, tax-weighted.
Formation, visa and PRO, banking, accounting, and a full tax practice covering VAT, corporate tax, tax residency certificates and transfer pricing. Coverage extends to Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Worth the fee where the structure needs transfer pricing or residency work early rather than as an afterthought.
Structure: PRO Partner Group acquired by The Sovereign Group in May 2022. Pricing: premium.
Company formation, PRO, visa and immigration, HR, accounting, corporate compliance and product registration across the GCC, with group coverage in more than 26 jurisdictions. Priced for corporate clients where governance and consolidated reporting matter more than setup cost. Overkill for a single-founder licence.
Established: around 2006, Dubai and Sharjah. Track record: 6,800 companies, clients from 80 countries. Pricing: budget to mid-market.
Free zone, mainland and offshore incorporation with PRO, residence visas, accounting, customs and import-export code registration, tax residency certificates and ISO certification. The customs and trade registration work makes it efficient for businesses moving physical goods, and the Sharjah office helps for cost-sensitive northern emirates structures.
Focus: multi-jurisdiction free zone licensing. Pricing: budget.
Cost-optimised free zone licensing for SMEs and solo operators, with agent relationships across lower-cost zones. Suits founders who already understand UAE incorporation and want a controlled price on a second entity. Less suited to first-timers who need the jurisdiction decision made for them.
Focus: dual free zone and mainland structures. Pricing: mid-market.
Useful where a business needs a free zone entity for international trading plus a mainland licence or branch for local delivery, a common shape for e-commerce that imports through a zone and fulfils to UAE customers. Pricing reflects two structures rather than one, so compare against the combined cost, not a single licence.
Focus: free zone and mainland formation with banking support. Pricing: budget to mid-market.
Formation across Dubai free zones and mainland with visa and bank account opening support. Reasonable for straightforward structures; as with any firm at this price point, ask for named banks and recent openings rather than accepting "banking assistance" as a line item.
Put both quotes into the same four-column shape before judging either:
Then ask for the year-two renewal figure in writing. Ongoing PRO services covering visa renewals, Ejari and licence renewal are where the real multi-year cost sits, and a firm that will not quote year two is telling you something about year two.
Solo consultant or freelancer: a single-activity licence in one of the Dubai free zones with one visa. Budget and volume providers are efficient here; prioritise visa quota clarity over headline price.
Funded startup hiring in year one: quota and workspace scaling matter more than licence price, because a flexi-desk cap forces a mid-year upgrade. Pay for a firm that models headcount into the jurisdiction choice.
Mainland or regulated activity: healthcare, education, financial services and food handling need regulator approvals. Depth beats price; volume processors are the wrong tool.
Corporate group or regional HQ: governance, consolidated reporting and multi-jurisdiction compliance dominate. Premium corporate services pricing is justified here and rarely elsewhere.
AED 3,000 to AED 15,000 depending on scope. Licensing only sits at the lower end. A fee covering licensing, visas, banking preparation and corporate tax registration sits at the upper end and usually costs less in total than buying those steps separately.
Because they cover different things. One may assume a flexi-desk and no visa, another a serviced office and two visas. Some include health insurance and Emirates ID, others stop at visa stamping. Normalise both to the same scope before comparing.
Only if the scope genuinely matches. The common failure pattern is a low licensing-only fee followed by a company that cannot open a bank account, because nobody prepared the file or matched the activity to the business plan. Recovering from that costs more than the saving.
The service fee, yes. Government and authority fees are fixed and publicly checkable, so a firm offering to "discount" those is discounting its own undisclosed markup. Ask for the split instead of a discount.
Most founders do. Visa renewals, Emirates ID, Ejari, licence renewal, corporate tax filing and UBO updates recur for the life of the company. Scope year two at the same time as year one.
A straightforward free zone licence issues within days. Realistically, a working company with establishment card, visa, Emirates ID and a funded bank account takes six to ten weeks. Treat a two-week end-to-end promise as a best case, not a plan.
The right consultant is the one whose quote you can actually audit, line by line, against the benchmarks above. If you want a fixed, itemised proposal that separates government fees from service fees for your specific activity and visa count, explore our business setup in Dubai services or speak to the JB Consultants team.
Contact our experts to discuss your business setup requirements and find the perfect solution.
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