Freelance permit or home business licence?

No authority we could read answers the question a product seller is actually asking. They do not say a freelance permit covers selling goods, and they do not say it forbids it. One issuing zone does publish its activity list in full, though, and that list settles the question in practice, which is why this guide spends more time on the lists than on the law.

Is a freelance permit the same thing as a licence?

Not federally, and the answer changes by emirate.

A freelance permit at federal level is a work permit from the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, one of 13 types the federal portal lists. It is "issued to individuals who wish to engage in freelance work independently (including foreign nationals on self-sponsored residence visas) without being sponsored by an employer in the UAE and without requiring an active employment contract." A permit to work is not a licence to trade. Citing the Ministry of Economy and Tourism, the same portal lists six licence categories: industrial, commercial, professional, tourism, agricultural and crafts. Freelance is not one of them.

Abu Dhabi is the exception. u.ae, citing the Department of Economic Development, lists seven emirate licence types and a freelancer licence is one, so there the same two words name a real economic licence with a fee and a processing time.

Dubai has no mainland equivalent on that portal: eight Dubai types are listed and none is a freelance one, which is why Dubai's route is a free zone product. The best known is GoFreelance, run jointly by Dubai Media City, Dubai Internet City, Dubai Design District and Dubai Knowledge Park. Treat that as what u.ae publishes rather than the last word, because every request we made to the Invest in Dubai freelance permit page in this pass was refused rather than answered, which is a block and not an absence. Dubai's Department of Economy and Tourism can say whether a mainland route exists, though we could not reach its own site in this pass to confirm a current number for it: det.gov.ae did not resolve and Invest in Dubai returned HTTP 403.

SEDD publishes no freelance permit among the licence cards on its homepage, and a word search of that page returns zero occurrences of the word. Sharjah's free zones were not checked in this pass, so read this as SEDD's mainland offering rather than the whole emirate's. What it offers instead is a premises licence, a same-day licence SEDD's own card spells "Instance License", an electronic trading licence, a licence for conducting multiple activities from home, and Birq for young UAE nationals. That home-based card carries two names in the same page's markup: one card is labelled "Accreditation license" and described as "Easily conduct multiple activities from home", which is the one a visitor sees, while a second card in the same HTML is labelled "Home-Based License" and described as "A flexible license to establish your business and practice multiple activities with ease". SEDD's own Arabic homepage names both of those cards رخصة منزلية (اعتماد), one licence with Accreditation in brackets, which reads as two English renderings of a single licence rather than two licences. SEDD on 80080000 can confirm which English label is the formal one. The Arabic homepage returns no occurrence of the word freelance either, in English or in Arabic.

One detour worth closing before you chase it. Among Abu Dhabi's seven types, u.ae lists a "small producers licence", the only name on either list that sounds like making and selling a product at home. It resolves to ADRA's own page, and that page is headed "Farm Licence". Its body says the licence "is available to citizens who own private farms or have estate lease contracts with the Department of Municipalities and Transport to practice animal and plant production activities", pairs its no-office claim with "you must own or lease a farm", and asks for a "deed to farm" as its only document. Its basic cost is a range, AED 790 to 5,500, in a sentence that calls the same thing "the Farmers and Small Producers Licence". So one licence carries four names across two government sites, and it is a farming route. Its Arabic pages carry two names rather than four, رخصة المزارع and رخصة المزارع وصغار المنتجين, both of which name the farm. ADRA's own menu makes the mismatch plainer still: eight licences rather than seven, including a Farm Licence and an Instant Licence that u.ae omits, and nothing labelled small producers. Only ADDED, on 800 555, can say which list is current.

Can a freelance permit be used to sell food, cosmetics or crafts?

Nobody in authority has said. Here is what they have said instead.

Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022, the implementing regulation of the Labour Law, defines the category in Article 8(1) as "an independent and flexible work arrangement, whereby the natural person generates income by providing his services for a specified period of time or performing a task or providing a specific service". Article 6(1)(l) defines the permit itself in the same words. Two caveats before you lean on either: MOHRE's English PDF is stamped "THIS is Not an official translation" on all 20 pages, so this is the ministry's own unofficial rendering, and the Arabic original was not machine-read in this pass. The Arabic we could read is the federal portal's description of the same permit, which earns its money through خدماته, مهمة and خدمة, his services, a task and a service. No Arabic word for goods appears.

Searching the Resolution's full text for goods, sell, sale, trade, trading, merchandise and product returns nothing connected to freelancing. The only hits are "productivity", "means of production" and "products or materials owned by the employer", in unrelated articles. Article 8(2) then leaves the real detail to a future Cabinet resolution, requiring one to set "the procedures, rules and mechanisms for registering freelancers in the Ministry's systems". We found no such resolution issued.

Abu Dhabi answers by what it names rather than by any prohibition. TAMM describes its Freelancer Licence as being for "approved freelance, consultancy, or expertise-based economic activities" and says it "is intended for individuals seeking to practice approved freelancer activities, not for establishing a full commercial company". The Arabic page carries the same clause, so that is not an English-only framing.

The most useful finding is the activity list. GoFreelance prints its complete list on its own page, and an exhaustive word search of it returns zero occurrences of food, chef, culinary, catering, baking, pastry, cosmetic, beauty, craft, handmade, soap or candle. Its four families are tech, media, education and design, and every entry is a profession. The product people on it are designers: an Apparel Designer, a Jewellery Designer, a Textile Designer, and an Object Designer who "designs furniture, products, objects, lighting" and "provides sampling of these goods". Sampling, not selling. The two entries closest to a beauty business are services rather than products: a Hair Stylist, "a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, and style hair", and a Make-up Artist, "a person who provides make up services to models or actors". RAKEZ is narrower again, offering its permit to media and education professionals only, one activity per permit.

So the split is clean, and you can see it rather than infer it. A mobile make-up artist or hair stylist has an activity to select. Someone selling cakes, a skincare product or candles has none, at least on the one list published in full. ADRA advertises "over 100 activities to choose from" for the Abu Dhabi licence and publishes no list of them, and its page links to none, so Abu Dhabi's list may say something different and we could not read it. ADDED on 800 555 is where that question belongs.

What does each freelance route cost?

Route	What it is	Published cost	Where the sources disagree
MOHRE freelance work permit	One of 13 work permit types, not a licence	No freelance-specific figure published	u.ae's AED 250 to AED 3,450 range is keyed to an employer's A, B or C classification, which a freelancer does not have
Abu Dhabi Freelancer Licence	A real economic licence, 10 working days	AED 1,200 basic, 6 activities (ADRA)	TAMM's seven fee lines for the same application sum to AED 1,425
Dubai GoFreelance	A package from four free zone communities	AED 7,500 a year, asterisked	The FAQ on the same page names AED 7,520
RAKEZ Freelancer Permit	A free zone permit, one activity only	From AED 6,100	Media and education professions only, the full list behind a separate download
Sharjah	No freelance permit on SEDD's homepage, free zones not checked	Not applicable	SEDD's home-based card is labelled two ways on one page

Two of those rows need more than a cell. ADRA states that "the basic cost of AED 1,200 for the Freelancer Licence includes 6 investor selected activities", that extras cost "an addition AED 100 fee each", and caveats the lot with "fees depend on the economic activities and legal form selected". Its Arabic page carries identical figures. TAMM, which takes the same application, prints no total and instead itemises seven lines: AED 790 for organisational entities, 10 for registration in the economic register, 315 for the ICP establishment card, 300 for Abu Dhabi Chamber membership, 10 for commercial licence issuance, 0 for sole proprietorship establishment and 0 for activities beyond the first six. They add up to AED 1,425, but that arithmetic is ours and not TAMM's, which labels the whole cost "Varying as Incurred". The Arabic fee list is line for line the same, so this is two Abu Dhabi Government sites AED 225 apart on one application, in both languages, neither citing the other. Ask ADDED or TAMM on 800 555, or contact@tamm.abudhabi, for the total payable before you pay anything. The same five charged lines also make up the Tajer Abu Dhabi licence fee, which totals AED 1,425 too, although TAMM itemises ten lines on the Tajer page rather than seven, the three extra ones all at AED 0.

Anyone who tells you TAMM publishes no fees is reading a plain fetch. That URL returns an empty JavaScript shell, and the lines above came out only by driving a headless browser and clicking the page's own "Show More" control. The Wayback snapshot of 11 July 2026 holds the same empty shell, with no currency figure in it, so no archive citation can carry these numbers either.

GoFreelance contradicts itself twice on one page. The headline offers "Dubai's easiest freelance package for AED 7,500* per year", with "*Conditions apply" and no explanation of what the asterisk covers, while the FAQ below asks "Does the AED 7,520 fee include a visa?" Both strings are live at once and neither supersedes the other. Since "all fees associated with a GoFreelance license application are non-refundable", settle it first: Dubai Media City on +971 4 391 4555, or Dubai Internet City on +971 4 391 1111.

The federal permit is the cheapest to ask about and the hardest to price. The Resolution refers only to "payment of the prescribed fees according to the type of permit and the category of the establishment" and names no figure, and MOHRE's services directory lists no freelance service: none of the 56 services across its seven pages is a freelance one, and none of the eleven entries in its main-service filter is either. We could not use MOHRE's own search to look further, because its results page rendered to just over a kilobyte of page furniture with no results list. MOHRE on 600 590000 is the only route to a number.

What can you not do on a freelance permit?

This is the part competing pages leave out, and for most product businesses it closes the question faster than the goods argument does. These limits are published plainly.

You cannot trade under a brand name. GoFreelance: "the freelance license is only issued in your name as it appears on your passport", renewable annually. RAKEZ: "a Freelancer shall conduct business in his/her own birth name as opposed to a company name." ADRA allows one legal form, a sole proprietorship, so there is no company for a name to belong to. If customers already know your name for your product, it cannot go on the permit.

You cannot hire. GoFreelance says the licence "does not allow you to hire or sponsor staff", and RAKEZ says freelancers "shall not be eligible to appoint any staff or obtain additional visa under the permit".

Banking stays personal. RAKEZ states freelancers "shall not be eligible to open a Corporate Bank Account", and GoFreelance tells holders they may open a personal account where "all the transactions will be carried out under your name only". RAKEZ issues no memorandum of association or certificate of incorporation either, and makes the holder "personally liable for any debts and other obligations". Payouts have to land somewhere, so settle which account before you choose a route; opening a bank account for a home business goes through it bank by bank.

Credentials are the barrier a self-taught maker hits, and the two Abu Dhabi sites do not agree on them. ADRA lists three required documents and includes a No Objection Certificate alongside attested academic qualifications and professional certificates. TAMM lists three for the same service and includes no NOC at all, substituting an "attested certificate / academic qualification / record by issuing entity", experience certificates and professional certificates. Ask on 800 555 before you start gathering paperwork rather than after. RAKEZ is the one route on either list that will take "portfolio/sample of works OR qualification certificate".

And the permit is not residency. GoFreelance prices a one-year visa at AED 4,600 and a two-year at AED 5,042, plus a required establishment card at AED 2,000, with those figures "subject to change".

What does the freelance route offer that a licence does not?

Three things, and they are real.

Freelancers and the self-employed are a named eligible category for the 5-year Green visa, which runs renewably for five years with "the privilege of not needing a sponsor" and lets the holder sponsor a spouse and children. No home business licence page states anything equivalent. The catch is that u.ae's Green visa page publishes no income threshold, qualification or permit condition for that category, so you cannot learn from it whether you qualify. ICP on 600 522222, or GDRFA in Dubai, would have to tell you.

You can hold it alongside a job. ADRA's page is open to UAE nationals and residents "including those in full time-time jobs", the doubled word being ADRA's own typo, and GoFreelance confirms the same subject to "filling out and submitting a declaration form".

Premises is the third, and it comes with a clash worth naming. ADRA says "no office required" and "you can run your business directly from your home", with no premises document in its list and no service agent needed for foreign investors. The federal portal says flatly that "all businesses in the UAE must have a physical address to operate" and that an "office and warehouse rental agreement must be provided". Both cannot be complete descriptions of the same licence, and only the department issuing yours can settle it. In Abu Dhabi that is ADDED on 800 555, open 8:00 am to 3:00 pm.

What nobody has published, and who to ask

Can a freelance permit ever be used to make and sell a physical product? No authority answers either way. ADDED on 800 555, SEDD on 80080000, or the free zone that would issue it.
Which activities are on Abu Dhabi's approved freelancer list? ADRA advertises over 100 and publishes none. ADDED on 800 555.
What is the minimum legal age for the Abu Dhabi licence? TAMM requires applicants to meet "the minimum legal age requirement" and never states the age. ADDED on 800 555.
What are that licence's actual terms and conditions? TAMM shows a Terms of Service control labelled "View" that produced no readable text when activated in a browser on 3 October 2026. ADDED on 800 555.
Does TAMM's "Visitor" tag mean someone on a visit visa can hold the licence, or only begin an application? It is the only economic licence on TAMM's list carrying that tag. ADDED on 800 555.
What does a MOHRE freelance permit cost, how long does it last, and what are its conditions? MOHRE on 600 590000.
Has the Cabinet issued the resolution Article 8(2) requires, setting registration procedures for freelancers? We found none. Also MOHRE on 600 590000.
Does a freelance permit satisfy the licence a municipal food approval sits on top of? No authority joins the two up. Your emirate's food control section, or ADAFSA on 800 555.
What are the conditions for a freelancer to get the Green visa? ICP on 600 522222.
Does Dubai offer any mainland freelance route? u.ae lists none and Invest in Dubai blocked every request, so this rests on u.ae alone. Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, whose own site we could not reach in this pass.
Which of AED 7,500 or AED 7,520 does GoFreelance charge, and what do the asterisk conditions cover? Dubai Media City on +971 4 391 4555.
Is Sharjah's home licence formally the Accreditation licence or a separate home-based licence? Two English labels sit on one page, while the Arabic page gives one name for both. SEDD on 80080000.

One limitation to carry with all of that: searching was not available in this pass, so every source here was reached by a directly constructed URL and none of it comes from press reporting. The licence routes themselves, emirate by emirate, are in the UAE home business licence guide, and whichever you take, the licence is yours to hold and keep current.

Frequently asked questions

Is a freelance permit cheaper than a home business licence?

In Abu Dhabi it sits in the same range as the emirate's other routes, which is why the AED 1,200 against AED 1,425 gap matters: AED 225 on a licence that one of the two sites prices at AED 1,200. The free zone permits are a different scale, at AED 7,500 or AED 7,520 for GoFreelance and from AED 6,100 at RAKEZ, and neither of those includes a visa.

Can a freelance permit holder sell through an online marketplace?

No authority addresses marketplace selling. What is published is narrower and still decisive: GoFreelance and RAKEZ both bar trading under any name but the holder's own, so a storefront under a brand name sits outside the permit's own terms. Ask the issuing zone before you build anything around it.

I am a make-up artist. Does the freelance route work for me?

It is the one case on the published lists where it plainly might. GoFreelance lists Make-up Artist and Hair Stylist as design-family activities, described as services to clients. Every limit in this guide still applies, including no brand name, no staff and a personal bank account only.

Do I still need a food permit if I hold a freelance permit?

Nobody has published an answer. Food approval normally sits on top of a licence, and no authority states whether a freelance permit is the kind of licence it can sit on. Ask your emirate's food control section, and see the KLU fees, payouts and delivery answers for how selling through KLU itself works.

Sources

Last verified: 3 October 2026.