DMCC company setup

DMCC was created by decree in 2002 as Dubai's home for trading commodities: gold, diamonds, precious and other metals, tea and farm goods. The area was built around this trade. Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) is not just a business park. It is a busy part of the city, with towers around three lakes. The companies, vaults, testing offices and exchanges are all within walking distance of each other.

Having all of this in one place is what DMCC offers. The Dubai Diamond Exchange is inside the zone, and so is the commodities exchange that grew up next to it. If you need a trading partner, an inspection company, a refinery or a vault, they probably have a DMCC licence too. No low-cost zone can offer this, at any price.

Today DMCC is much more than commodities. Technology, financial services, professional services and e-commerce companies are licensed here too. The authority has also built special centres for crypto assets and for gaming. Commodities are still its main purpose, but not the only one.

Every DMCC company must have a registered address inside JLT. This is a real rented space with a yearly cost. The cheapest option is a flexi-desk in the authority's business centre, but you still pay for it. The number of visas you get grows with the space you rent.

This is the biggest difference between DMCC and the zones you have probably been quoted for. IFZA, Meydan, SHAMS and the northern emirates zones will give you a licence without an office. DMCC will not. This is not a hidden cost. It is how the zone works, and it is a big reason why banks trust a DMCC licence.

Include the cost of the space before you compare licence fees. A comparison without it is not a fair comparison.

It suits anyone trading real commodities, like metals, stones, farm goods or energy, where being in the area really helps the business. It suits businesses whose partners, lenders or insurers will check the address, because every bank compliance officer knows the name DMCC. And it suits companies that have grown beyond a low-cost licence and want a Dubai address they can be proud of.

It does not suit a consultant working alone and testing an idea. DMCC costs much more than a licence in the northern emirates. Paying that for a business that will never use the area is paying only for an address. It does not suit anything that needs a warehouse, industrial space or a shop for customers. For that, look at Dubai South or DAFZA. And like every free zone, it does not replace the approval of the authority that controls your industry, if there is one.

We will tell you honestly when a cheaper zone does the same job. This matters more here than anywhere else on this site, because many clients ask for DMCC by name before they tell us what their business does.

A DMCC company is set up as a free zone company. With one shareholder it is an establishment. With several it is a company. An existing business can register a branch instead. Each one gets a trade licence, company papers, a share register and an establishment card, which lets the company sponsor residence visas.

Licences are given for business activities in the normal way. But DMCC has special licence types that general zones do not: precious metals and stones, crypto assets and some regulated trading. These need extra approvals, have conditions and must follow rules after the licence too. They are carefully reviewed, not just processed.

If your business is one of these, tell us at the start. An application that shows a special activity from the start is a different and much shorter process than one where it comes out after setup.

We apply to DMCC directly, not through another agent. So the authority's questions come straight to us, and we answer them ourselves instead of passing them along.

For the special licence types, it means much more. Those applications are judged on what you really plan to do, and good preparation makes most of the difference to the result. The same is true at DWTC, for the same reason.

We give a written price for your case. The licence, the space and the visas are priced together. A flexi-desk and a full floor in a tower are very different. A special activity that needs extra approval is priced separately, not as part of the setup fee.

Our listed free zone starting price is based on the lower-cost zones, and we will not use it on this page. If someone compared DMCC with a licence of a few thousand dirhams, they left out the cost of the space.