SHAMS company setup

Sharjah Media City — SHAMS — was established in 2017 to give the emirate a free zone aimed at media and creative businesses. Sharjah has a long-standing cultural and publishing identity, and SHAMS was the licensing arm of that idea.

It did not stay narrow. The activity list now covers services, consultancy, trading, e-commerce and holding structures alongside the media categories it started with, and the licence types include media, service, trading, industrial and a freelance permit for individuals working on their own account.

What it is known for commercially is being a good deal. It sits in Sharjah, within reach of both Sharjah International and Dubai International airports, and it does not carry the address premium a central Dubai zone does. For a large category of business, that premium was never buying anything.

It fits content, media and creative businesses of every size — production, publishing, design, advertising, digital. It fits individual professionals, because the freelance permit is a genuine category here rather than an afterthought. It fits consultancies, e-commerce businesses and small trading operations whose clients are international or who do not care where the licence was issued.

It does not fit a business whose customers will look up the address. That sounds trivial and is not: in some sectors and with some counterparties, a Sharjah licence prompts a question that a Dubai licence does not, and if you are selling to those counterparties then the saving is not a saving. We will tell you when we think that is your situation.

It also does not fit businesses that need Dubai-specific approvals, a Dubai mainland presence, or premises inside a Dubai district. And as everywhere, a free zone licence does not replace the approval of a sector regulator.

SHAMS issues media, service, trading and industrial licences, plus a freelance permit. The freelance route is worth understanding properly because it is genuinely different: it licenses a person rather than a company, which suits consultants, creatives and contractors who want legitimate status and a residence visa without operating a corporate entity.

For companies, the structure is the familiar one — trade licence, constitutional documents, establishment card, and the establishment card is what lets you sponsor residence visas. Activities are chosen at incorporation and more than one can usually sit under a licence.

The freelance permit does have limits. It is a person, not a company, which affects how you contract, how you invoice at scale, how banks look at you and what happens when you want to take on staff. If your plan involves growing a team, incorporate properly from the start rather than converting later.

We file directly with SHAMS, and we will be straight with you about the address question, which is the only real trade-off this zone carries. Firms that only hold Sharjah appointments never raise it. We hold appointments across six emirates, five of the authorities in Dubai, so we have nothing to protect by staying quiet about it.

The other thing that matters here is banking. A Sharjah free zone licence is an ordinary profile, but which banks will onboard which activities is a live question and it is worth resolving before you incorporate, not after.

Almas free zone company setup starts at a figure confirmed in writing by the firm, published on this page with its exclusions attached — visa, Emirates ID and medical are per person, not per company.

We do not publish a SHAMS-specific licence fee. It moves with the licence type, the activity and the visa allocation, and the freelance permit is priced differently again from a company licence. We quote your case in writing.

The question is entirely about whether a Dubai address earns its cost in your business. If your clients are overseas, if you sell online, if you are a creative or technical professional judged on your work — it usually does not, and the difference is money you keep.

If you sell to UAE corporates, if you are in a category where counterparties check, or if you need to be physically present in Dubai most days, then it usually does, and we will point you at IFZA or Meydan instead.

That is the whole comparison. Anyone who makes it more complicated than that is generally selling the zone they are appointed to.