Twenty free zones, and they are not equivalent.

The advertised price is almost always a licence without a visa. On top of the licence come the establishment card and visa processing, charged per person: the real first-year cost is often well above the zone's headline figure. The visa quota decides the office, and the office decides the real cost. A flexi-desk opens one to two visas, six at most at DMCC; beyond that an office is required and the annual budget changes category. A zone that does not publish its fee schedule is an expensive zone. Only a minority of zones publish a public rate: those are the accessible ones. The rest are quoted per file, and rarely downwards. We obtain the chosen zone's official schedule before any signature.