One engagement that ends with a working company: licence issued, visas stamped, bank account live, accounting running. Itemised like everything else we do — "turnkey" describes the scope, not an excuse to blur the invoice.
A turnkey UAE setup bundles four deliverables into one project — licence and establishment card, residence visas, bank account, and the first 12 months of accounting — for typically from ~AED 18,000 on a budget-zone route or from ~AED 26,000 through a Dubai zone, over an end-to-end timeline of 3–6 weeks. The honest version keeps every line separate on the invoice: each government fee at cost, our work as its own line, so you can remove anything you'd rather do yourself. We run our own UAE entity under the same licence, visa and tax rules — so the plan we hand you is the one we live with.
Zone selection from our Free Zone Index data with a written rationale; the trade licence and establishment card; residence visas for founders and family where needed; bank account preparation and submission — profile file, substance narrative, meeting scheduling; and the first year of bookkeeping with corporate tax and VAT registrations where thresholds require them.
You see one project plan with an owner and a date per line, not a black-box "package". The typical end-to-end timeline is 3–6 weeks, dominated by banking — everything else usually lands within two. If you only want part of this, the standalone formation routes price each block on its own.
The blocks run in a fixed order because each unlocks the next: the licence creates the legal person, the establishment card lets it sponsor visas, the first visa gives a founder Emirates ID for banking, and audited-ready books make the tax registrations meaningful. Compressing that order is how corners get cut.
| Deliverable | What it produces | Typical window |
|---|---|---|
| Licence + establishment card | The company exists and can sponsor visas | Days to ~2 weeks |
| Residence visas | Entry permit, medical, Emirates ID, visa stamp per person | ~1–3 weeks after the card |
| Bank account | Submitted file, compliance review, live IBAN | 2–6 weeks, bank-led |
| Accounting + registrations | Bookkeeping live, CT and VAT registered where required | Runs across year one |
The zone decision at the top drives everything below it — activity list, visa quota, audit obligation and cost all follow from it. If you're weighing structures, mainland vs free zone is the fork that changes the whole plan.
Bundled "all-inclusive" pricing is where the industry hides margins: the licence is promotional, the visa is "free", and the difference reappears in a renewal or a bank-introduction fee nobody mentioned. Our single invoice lists each government fee at cost and our work as its own line — remove any line you want to handle yourself and the price drops accordingly.
That subtraction test is the honest check of any turnkey offer: if removing a component doesn't reduce the price, you were paying for the bundle's opacity, not the component. Bring your own accountant, handle your own visas, and the quote shrinks by exactly those lines — as it should.
You can see the shape of that arithmetic before you talk to us: our setup-cost calculator builds the same itemised total from zone, visa count and activity, so the turnkey quote is a confirmation, not a reveal.
Three to six weeks end-to-end is a banking number. The licence and visas are process work with known steps; the bank account is a decision made by a compliance team you don't control. Most of the calendar — and nearly all of the uncertainty — sits here.
No one honest guarantees an account. What we control is the file: a clean profile, a substance narrative that answers "why this company, why here", the right bank matched to your activity and residency, and a scheduled meeting where questions are anticipated. Most rejections are born in a thin file and a bank-profile mismatch, not in the applicant. Our bank account service is the same work sold on its own, so you can see exactly what the turnkey line buys.
A licence without books is a liability waiting for its first FTA query. Turnkey includes the first 12 months of bookkeeping precisely so the company is defensible from day one — because in the 9% era the 0% bands and reliefs are won or lost in the accounts, not the incorporation certificate.
We register for corporate tax as required and for VAT once turnover crosses AED 375,000 (voluntary registration is available from AED 187,500). Corporate tax is 0% on taxable profit up to AED 375,000 and 9% above it; a qualifying free zone company can hold 0% on qualifying income under the QFZP regime, and small businesses can elect Small Business Relief for revenue up to AED 3M through financial periods ending 31 December 2026. With UAE e-invoicing phasing in from July 2026, starting on clean, structured books now avoids a retrofit later — model your own numbers in the corporate tax calculator.
Renewals arrive as a calendar, not a surprise: trade licence, establishment card, residence visas and accounting each have their own date. You get the renewal table at signing, so year two is a known number from day one rather than a fresh negotiation.
Founders who plan to stay often look past the annual cycle — a property investment at or above AED 2M can support a 10-year Golden Visa, changing the visa maths entirely. Where that's on the horizon we flag it during setup so the year-one structure doesn't fight the year-three plan; our Golden Visa route picks up from there.
We reply with numbers — a line-by-line setup estimate for your case. Not a call script, not a brochure.