UAE Free Zone Visa Quota by Licence: What Each Zone Actually Publishes

There is no standard UAE free zone visa quota by licence. Allocation is set zone by zone, and where a zone publishes anything at all it ties the number to a package tier or to workspace size, not to the licence type. Of 40 UAE free zones, only 17 publish any visa allocation information, and only seven publish a package-by-package allocation you could plan a hiring budget against.

That is the honest answer, and it is not the answer most pages on this query give.

How many visas does a UAE free zone licence give you?

There is no federal or standard quota. Each free zone sets its own allocation, usually per package tier or per square metre of leased space. Twenty-three of the 40 UAE free zones publish nothing about visa numbers, and among those that do, allowances range from zero to unlimited on a single licence.

Visa allocations that free zones actually publish

These seven zones publish a specific number against a specific package or workspace type. SAIF Zone appears twice because it publishes two tiers.

| Zone | Package or basis | Visas | Workspace required | |---|---|---|---| | SPC Free Zone | Flexi-desk / pay-as-you-go model | Unlimited | Virtual office or flexi-desk | | SAIF Zone | SAIF Office package | 3 | SAIF Office (flexi-style) | | SAIF Zone | SAIF Suite package | 8 | Executive suite, approx. 21 sqm | | ADGM | Tech Startup licence | 3 per dedicated desk | Dedicated desk, valid up to 3 years | | Ajman Media City | Business Club / Visionary / Pioneer / Innovator | 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 | Co-working | | Innovation City | Idea / Seed / Startup / Growth | 0 / 1 / 4 cap / 4 cap | Shared desk or co-working | | SRTIP | Zero Visa / 1 Visa All-Inclusive | 0 / 1 | Office or co-working | | DMCC | Jump Start package | 3 | Co-working |

Every allocation above is taken from the authority's own website. Package prices where published: Ajman Media City Visionary AED 12,999, Pioneer AED 17,999, Innovator AED 22,999; Innovation City Seed AED 13,200, Startup AED 15,400, Growth AED 22,550; SRTIP 1 Visa All-Inclusive AED 13,990; DMCC Jump Start AED 43,780 a year. SAIF Zone publishes the two visa counts but no price for either tier.

Two entries in that table need a caveat. ADGM's general position is that visa allocation is assessed individually per business activity, desk or office space and health-and-safety needs, with no fixed universal ratio — the three-per-desk figure is a published exception for the Tech Startup track, not a general rule. And DMCC has no public quota table at all; the Jump Start number is the only figure it states, with everything else confirmed through its setup wizard.

Zones that mention visas but publish no allocation rule

Nine more zones address visas somewhere on their site without giving an allocation you can plan against. Three of them state a package inclusion of one visa and nothing beyond it.

Masdar City — the Start-Lite package at AED 7,000 includes one visa. No general allocation table beyond package inclusions.
UAQ FTZ — the UAQ Start package at AED 12,500 includes one residence visa. No ratio published.
Meydan Free Zone — no numeric quota per package, but add-on visa costs are published: investor visa from AED 4,000, employee visa from AED 3,500. See the Meydan Free Zone profile.
Ajman Free Zone — freelance-activity licences are limited to virtual office plus one visa, per the zone's own cost calculator. Standard company quotas are not itemised numerically.
RAKEZ — SME and all-inclusive packages state that visas are included, with no visa-per-facility ratio published.
Shams — no numeric quota table. A trading or service licence described as having no quota on visas is referenced at AED 11,000 in Shams' own blog content, but the visa numbers were not confirmed as a specification, so we do not treat them as one.
HFZA — no official quota table. Consultancy sources cite roughly 50 visas depending on facility size; that is a consultancy figure, and we would not budget on it. HFZA's site serves a JavaScript redirect on its setup pages, so we carry no HFZA price either — the AED 11,000 quoted for a one-visa package is unconfirmed.
Dubai Internet City — no official quota table. TECOM does publish the cost of a visa on its GoFreelance permit: Establishment Card AED 2,000, then AED 4,600 for one year or AED 5,042 for two, on top of the AED 7,500 permit. That is a route for one freelancer, not a company allocation.
Fujairah Creative City — no numeric quota published; the site references residence visas for entrepreneurs and teams plus a Golden Visa support pathway.

The zones that publish nothing

Twenty-three of 40 UAE free zones publish no visa allocation information at all. In Dubai: IFZA, JAFZA, DAFZA, DIFC, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai South, Dubai Media City, DHCC, Dubai Design District, Dubai Studio City, Dubai Production City, Dubai Knowledge Park, Dubai CommerCity, Dubai Science Park, DWTC Free Zone, Dubai Maritime City and Gold and Diamond Park. In Abu Dhabi: KEZAD, twofour54, ADAFZ and Khalifa Port FTZ. Elsewhere: RAK Maritime City and Fujairah Free Zone.

Some of those silences are gaps on our side — DIFC and Dubai Maritime City return 403 to automated access. Most are not: the TECOM districts, JAFZA and DAFZA simply route the question to an advisor.

RAK ICC is a different case entirely. It states explicitly that registration confers no UAE residence visa eligibility and that no employee or investor visas are issued — it is an offshore company registry, not a free zone, and appears here only so nobody mistakes it for one.

Why quota is usually tied to office size, not licence type

The pattern across every zone that explains its logic is the same: visas follow space. SAIF Zone moves from three visas to eight when you move from a flexi-style office to a roughly 21 sqm executive suite. ADGM allocates three per dedicated desk. Dubai Internet City ties allocation to office size and type. DMCC confirms allocation against the office or flexi-desk size chosen.

A free zone is a landlord as well as a registrar, and the quota is a proxy for how many people the leased space can plausibly hold. Two consequences follow. A trading licence and a services licence in the same zone, in the same size unit, will usually carry the same allowance — so choosing your licence type to maximise visas is the wrong lever. And the moment your headcount outgrows your desk, your cost jumps by a lease step, not a visa fee.

SPC Free Zone is the exception that proves the rule: unlimited visas on a single licence under a flexi-desk pay-as-you-go model, with zero paid-up share capital required. It decouples headcount from square metres entirely, which is why it is the outlier of the whole dataset. Details on the SPC Free Zone profile.

What happens when you outgrow your quota

You upgrade the facility. In every zone that publishes a ladder, more visas means a larger workspace tier and a higher annual fee — Ajman Media City from AED 4,999 to AED 22,999 across four tiers, Innovation City from AED 6,600 to AED 22,550, SAIF Zone from Office to Suite.

We have no published upgrade pricing for the mid-year case — what it costs to move tier in month seven rather than at renewal. No zone in our dataset publishes it, and we are not going to estimate it. Ask for it in writing before you sign, because it is the number that bites when you hire faster than you planned.

Which zone gives the most visas at the lowest entry price?

On published figures, SPC Free Zone: an official package at AED 6,875 carrying unlimited visas on a flexi-desk model, with up to five activities and up to 100 shareholders. Nothing else in the dataset comes close on visas per dirham.

If you need a handful rather than an open allowance, SAIF Zone's three-visa Office package is the next clearest published allocation — but you cannot price it. The AED 10,800 setup and AED 13,350 renewal figures in circulation trace back to no SAIF source, and we removed both rather than carry them under a label. The visa counts are official; the prices are somebody's invention.

If you need exactly one visa, Masdar City's Start-Lite at AED 7,000 is the cheapest published package in the country that includes one.

And if you need none, four zones publish a specific zero-visa package — the case for that, and what it costs to add the first visa later, is in free zone licences without a visa.

Before you choose on visa count

Get the allocation in writing, tied to the exact workspace product you are buying, with the upgrade path and its cost stated. Roughly half the zones in the UAE will not give you that on a web page, and the ones that will are visible in the table above.

The wider picture on which zones publish anything at all — prices as well as quotas — is in our free zone price transparency audit.