RAKEZ Company Setup Cost: Everything You Need to Budget For
The idea of opening a business in the UAE made me think of RAKEZ, or the Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone. Why? Top reasons include its entrepreneur-friendly setup, its transparent costs and its excellent incentives, including 100 percent foreign ownership, zero corporate and personal income tax and no import/export customs duty.
But like anything good, it comes with a lot of moving parts at a cost. In this post, I’ll walk you through what you’ll need to budget for when planning your RAKEZ company setup cost, based on current data and what I’ve learned.
Main Cost Components
The following are the main cost items that you would want to consider:
- License Type & Activity
It matters a lot what your business is about, like trading, consultancy, industrial, or e-commerce. To illustrate, a license concerning service or consultancy will, in most cases, have a lower cost compared to a general trading or industrial license. The fee may also be increased with the number of business activities you select.
- Visa Packages and Visa Requirements
Do you need full-residency visas? Zero visa? More than one visa? All the visas are associated with prices like medical examinations, Emirates ID, and e-channel registration. Should you wish to employ people, then such visa quotas are important.
- Workspace Cost
RAKEZ provides numerous types of working areas: virtual offices, shared working places (flexi-desks), standard individual workplaces and warehouse/industrial workplaces. Virtual or shared space will save on costs. However, an operation that requires a real industrial space or a dedicated office facility increases the price.
- Government or Administration Processing Fees
Pre-approvals, registration, registration of the immigration/ e-channel file, establishment card, etc, have fees. Some are recurring annually, others are one-time.
- Additional Costs & Post-Setup Services
Consider opening a bank account, PRO/document services, accounting, permissions of the other authorities, based on your business and renewals. These might not just be apparent, but they count towards your budget in the future.
How Consulting.ae Assists in Budgeting
My experience with Consulting.ae was rewarding regarding the RAKEZ company setup cost. The process was not just transparent, but predictable. They offered:
- Individual costing estimates reflecting my business activity, visa requirements and workspace preferences.
- Support from registration and licensing of the company, filing and obtaining the visa, Emirates ID, to medical examinations.
- Banking and constant renewal help so that there will be no surprises.
Things That Sometimes Slide into Your Budget
Such costs are perhaps not exactly calculated, but discovered later:
- Late renewal penalties. RAKEZ imposes the charge of AED 50/day when the license expires.
- Renewal of the visa and related expenses: health examinations, an Emirates ID and processing.
- E-Channel registration and deposit
- Upgrades, in case you begin with zero-visa, and then require visas or a wish to alter the type of license, or to include activities.
Conclusion
When I budgeted for my company, I found that the RAKEZ company setup cost for a modest business falls between AED 12,000 to 20,000 the first year. When you go bigger, though, such as with a private office, multiplication of visas, warehouse, or industrial business, the cost can take a sharp upclimb after that.
The positive aspect is, when you are cautious in your planning and hire a good consulting partner, then you can make your budget realistic, avoid unexpected events and concentrate on developing your business and not on struggling with forms and documents.
