Insights Business Setup
General Trading Licence in Dubai and the Cheapest Ways to Get One
General trading licence in Dubai explained for 2026 — what it covers, mainland vs free zone routes, the cheapest general trading license in UAE, gold trade.
Key takeaways
- One licence, most goods — general trading wording covers multi-category import, export, re-export and distribution without enumerating products.
- Premium over standard trading — authorities price general trading above single-category activities on every published tariff, mainland and free zone.
- Cheapest routes run north — Ajman, RAKEZ, UAQ and Hamriyah offer the UAE's lowest general trading packages; Dubai zones and DET cost more but buy the postcode.
- Mainland vs free zone logic is unchanged — onshore customers favour DET; import/re-export flows favour zones with customs suspension.
- Gold trading is a separate lane — bullion and jewellery trade clusters at DMCC and Gold & Diamond Park with their own approvals.
- Customs registration is the forgotten step — an importer code linked to the licence is what actually clears goods, not the licence alone.
A general trading licence in Dubai is the broadest commercial wording a trading company can buy: one licence covering import, export, re-export and distribution across most non-regulated goods categories, instead of a list of specific activities that must each match your shipping documents. It costs a visible premium over standard trading wording on every authority’s published tariff — and whether that premium is worth paying, and where it is cheapest to pay it, are the two questions this guide answers. Updated July 2026, it covers what the wording actually permits, the mainland and free zone routes, where the cheapest general trading licence in the UAE really sits, the separate world of gold trading, and the customs and tax layer that decides whether the licence ever earns its keep. For a structured route decision against your own product mix and customer map, that is our business setup advisory desk’s daily work.
What “general trading” actually covers
Activity wording is the legal boundary of a UAE licence. A standard commercial licence lists specific categories — “trading in building materials”, “foodstuff trading” — and trading outside them is a violation. General trading collapses most categories into one authorisation: electronics this quarter, textiles next, auto parts after that, all legal under the same licence.
The boundary still exists, just further out. Regulated goods stay gated whatever your wording: pharmaceuticals and medical devices (MOHAP), food (municipality registration per shipment), alcohol, tobacco, precious metals at scale, telecom equipment (TDRA), and anything dual-use. General trading also covers trade, not making — manufacturing needs industrial wording, and services need their own activities. The full category system is mapped in our Dubai trade licence guide.
Who genuinely needs it: trading houses with shifting multi-category flows, re-export businesses feeding Africa, CIS and South Asia demand from UAE hubs, and wholesalers whose opportunity set changes faster than a licence amendment cycle. Who usually doesn’t: anyone whose next three years of revenue sits in one to three related categories — specific wording is cheaper, and banks and customs like licences that match invoices.
Route one: Dubai mainland through DET
A DET general trading licence gives unrestricted onshore selling — any UAE customer, any emirate, government tenders included — with premises anywhere in Dubai. DET prices general trading above standard commercial wording on its published tariff, and the first-year total assembles from legal form, Ejari premises and visa count, following the same anatomy as any mainland formation. Since the 2021 ownership reforms, general trading on the mainland is available with 100% foreign ownership.
Mainland is the right answer more often than the free zone marketing suggests: if the bulk of your demand is UAE retailers, contractors and distributors, a free zone licence just inserts a customs-and-distributor layer between you and your own customers.
Route two: free zones — and where the cheapest licences live
Free zone general trading buys three different things: customs suspension on goods held in the zone (duty is paid only when goods enter the mainland market), 100% foreign ownership as standard, and packaged pricing. The catch is the mirror image: direct mainland sales are restricted, flowing through distributors, a branch, or dual-licence schemes.
AED 5,499–5,555
Northern-emirates base packages (RAKEZ, Ajman) — the floor before the general-trading uplift
On price, the map is stark. The northern emirates own the budget tier: RAKEZ packages from AED 5,499, Ajman Free Zone from AED 5,555, Hamriyah from AED 5,500 and UAQ in the same bracket — all per published tariffs, all before the general-trading uplift each authority applies to those base figures. Dubai’s zones start higher — IFZA from AED 12,900 and Meydan from AED 12,500 for standard wording — and the operational port zones, JAFZA and Dubai South, quote per configuration but bring the warehousing and port adjacency a physical trader actually uses.
The cheapest-licence question therefore has an honest two-part answer: the cheapest general trading licence in the UAE is a northern-emirates package; the cheapest one in Dubai is the budget-zone tier plus uplift. Which one is cheapest for you depends on where your goods and customers physically move — a Hamriyah warehouse beats a Meydan desk for a container business, and vice versa for a broker who never touches the box. The free zone licence cost breakdown prices the whole ladder, and our setup cost calculator models your configuration across zones.
Traders overweight the licence fee and underweight the flow. The licence is a rounding error against one container’s margin — buy the jurisdiction your goods actually move through, not the one with the prettiest package price.
Gold trading: its own lane
The gold trading license in Dubai conversation is really a DMCC conversation. Dubai is one of the world’s great bullion and jewellery hubs, and the trade clusters where the infrastructure is: DMCC, with dedicated precious-metals activities, vaulting, refinery connections and the trading ecosystem — covered in our DMCC guide — plus Gold & Diamond Park for jewellery manufacturing and retail wording, and mainland DET licences around the Gold Souk trade.
Two regulatory layers arrive with the licence. Dealers in precious metals and stones are DNFBPs under UAE AML law — goAML registration, KYC programmes, transaction reporting — obligations we unpack in our AML compliance service and goAML registration guide. And VAT on gold has its own special schemes and reverse-charge mechanics for investment-grade metal, which makes the accounting setup genuinely unlike ordinary goods trade.
The layer that clears containers: customs, VAT, corporate tax
A general trading licence without customs registration trades nothing. The importer/exporter code — linked to your licence through Dubai Trade for Dubai entities — is what lets goods clear, and the licence activity must plausibly match the HS codes you ship, a linkage we detail in the trade licence to customs code guide. Free zone traders live on customs suspension: duty (commonly 5%) crystallises only when goods leave the zone for the mainland market.
The tax stack for traders:
| Layer | Trigger | Trader-specific wrinkle |
|---|---|---|
| VAT 5% | Mandatory registration past AED 375,000 taxable supplies | Import VAT via reverse charge; zone-to-zone and designated-zone movements have special treatment |
| Customs duty | Goods entering mainland customs territory | Suspended inside free zones; re-exports can exit duty-free |
| Corporate tax 9% | Profit above AED 375,000 | Free zone QFZP treatment can cover qualifying trading flows — mainland sales income doesn’t qualify |
Inventory is where trading companies’ books go to die: landed cost, FX on purchase invoices, stock counts and margin by category all need a system from day one — the discipline our inventory accounting and VAT services teams run for trading clients monthly.
How Velmont Crest helps
Velmont Crest advises trading companies as accountants, not licence brokers. We pressure-test whether general trading wording earns its premium against your real product mix, price the honest three-year total across the mainland and zone routes, wire the customs code, VAT and corporate tax registrations in the right order, and then keep the books that make a trading company bankable — inventory, landed cost, margin by category, clean statements for the trade-finance conversation. The licence takes a week; the discipline is the business. Talk to us before you pay for flexibility you may never ship.
Frequently asked questions
- What does a general trading licence in Dubai allow?
- Trading — import, export, re-export, storage and distribution — across a wide span of goods categories under one licence, without listing each product line as a separate activity. Regulated categories stay excluded or approval-gated regardless: pharmaceuticals, alcohol, tobacco, weapons, crude oil and similar lines need their own permissions from the relevant regulators. It authorises trade, not manufacturing — production activities carry industrial wording.
- What is the cheapest general trading licence in the UAE?
- The northern-emirates free zones publish the lowest rates: base packages start at AED 5,499 (RAKEZ) and AED 5,555 (Ajman) per their tariffs, with general trading wording carrying an uplift over those entry figures at every authority. UAQ and Hamriyah compete in the same bracket. Dubai zones price higher — IFZA and Meydan start at AED 12,900 and AED 12,500 for standard licences before the general trading premium. Get the specific general-trading quote in writing; the uplift varies by zone.
- How much does a general trading licence cost on Dubai mainland?
- DET prices general trading above standard commercial wording on its published tariff, and the all-in first year depends on legal form, premises (Ejari) and visas rather than one sticker figure. Mainland buys unrestricted onshore selling and government-tender eligibility, which matters more for a trader with UAE customers than the fee difference. Verify current DET fees before budgeting — the tariff updates periodically.
- Do I need a general trading licence or is a specific trading activity enough?
- If your goods sit in one to three related categories, specific wording is usually cheaper and cleaner — banks, customs and the FTA all prefer a licence that matches the shipping documents. General trading earns its premium when the model is genuinely multi-category: opportunistic wholesale, mixed re-export, trading houses whose product mix changes quarter to quarter. It is a flexibility purchase; price the flexibility honestly.
- How do I get a gold trading licence in Dubai?
- Gold and precious-metals trade runs through its own lane: DMCC is the centre of gravity, with dedicated precious-metals activities, vaulting infrastructure and the trading ecosystem, while Gold & Diamond Park and mainland DET also license jewellery trade. Expect enhanced due diligence — AML obligations on dealers in precious metals and stones apply in full, including goAML registration and compliance programmes.
- Can a free zone general trading company sell into mainland UAE?
- Not directly, as with any free zone entity. Goods entering the mainland clear customs and duty, and the sale typically routes through a locally licensed distributor, your own mainland branch, or a dual-licence arrangement where the zone offers one. Traders whose demand is mostly onshore usually end up better served by a mainland licence from day one.
- What taxes does a general trading company pay in the UAE?
- The standard stack: 5% VAT on domestic sales once registered (mandatory past AED 375,000 of taxable supplies), customs duty — commonly 5% — on goods entering the mainland customs territory, and 9% corporate tax on profits above AED 375,000. Free zone traders can pursue conditional QFZP treatment on qualifying flows, but mainland-bound sales generate non-qualifying income; the structuring around that split is exactly where trading companies need advice.
Filed under: General Trading, Trade Licence, Dubai, Business Setup, Import Export, Gold Trading
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