SHAMS Free Zone Requirements and Benefits

Choosing the right Free Zone is a critical part of establishing yourself in the attractive business environment in the UAE. If you’re looking for a cost-effective option, then company formation in the SHAMS, or Sharjah Media City Free Zone, might be the right fit. Read on to discover the benefits and requirements involved in SHAMs. 

What is the SHAMS Free Zone in Sharjah?

The SHAMS Free Zone is a Free Zone in the emirate of Sharjah. Sharjah is the third-largest emirate and is the only one to have a coastline on both the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Gulf. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, dubbed Sharjah the Arab world’s cultural capital. Sharjah is a popular tourism destination for people living in other emirates and has a wealth of athletic, cultural and leisure activities for you to enjoy. 

As for SHAMS, it opened in January 2017, and while it initially aimed to be a world-class hub for creative and media services, the Free Zone’s goal is to foster business growth for creative entrepreneurs and creative, collaborative community. The Free Zone places community as a top priority, along with customers and creativity. 

What types of SHAMS Free Zone companies are there?

SHAMS offers two company formation options. There is a SHAMS LLC, or limited liability company, while you can also open a SHAMS Branch, which would be an entity belonging to an existing parent company. The only difference between these two options is that a SHAMS LLC is an independent entity. Both company formats grant you the ability to sponsor visas for employees, apply for the appropriate licences and open a bank account for your firm. 

What business licences and activities are available in the SHAMS Free Zone?

There are three groups of activity licences available at SHAMS. They are:

• Trading: This licence covers importing goods into SHAMS or selling goods at SHAMS, which includes wholesale and retail sales, rendering sales about them and moving products.

• Industrial: This licence covers manufacturing, transforming and producing or reproducing goods. 

• Service: This licence covers, producing, reproducing, distributing and transforming services. This licence would also cover activities where you render services and use goods to provide those services. 

You can choose from more than 120 activities, and you can add multiple activities onto the same licence. The SHAMS website divides the licences under the media, services and consultancy and wholesale and retail. Some sample activities include computer programming, consultancy and related activities, advertising and market research and retail trade except motorcycles and automobiles.

Why should you opt for SHAMS company formation?

There are a wealth of benefits to registering a firm in the SHAMS Free Zone while adhering to the requirements for company formation. Along with the affordable company formation options that we will detail later, other advantages include: 

• SHAMS is five minutes from the Sharjah airport and 15 minutes from Dubai International Airport (DXB)

• You may have 100% full foreign ownership

• You do not have to be in the UAE to establish a new company

• All companies have limited liability status

• You can appoint corporate managers and corporate directors

• You can have a wealth of business activities on a single business licence

• You can repatriate all your profits and capital

• There are no personal or corporate income taxes

• There are no required deposits

• You may have up to six visas on a company located in a shared desk workspace

How much does the SHAMS Free Zone licence cost?

We recently offered a price comparison of business licences that included the SHAMS Free Zone. The business licence cost in SHAMS starts at 11,500 AED, or approximately £2,455.83. 

Are you ready to join the companies in the SHAMS Free Zone?

If you would like to pursue company formation in SHAMS, don’t hesitate to trust in the Free Zone experts at Europe Emirates Group to guide you through the process seamlessly. We will assist you in decoding the activity licences that best suit your business model and arrive at the optimal pricing outcome to scale your ventures and reap the rewards of this Free Zone. Are you ready to get started? Go ahead and schedule your initial consultation here. 

Written by
Adrian Oton

CEO, Europe Emirates Group