The One Freezone Passport Dubai is a Dubai Free Zones Council scheme that lets a company licensed in one Dubai free zone use facilities in another without taking out a second licence. It launched on 22 July 2025 and, as of July 2026, runs between Jebel Ali Free Zone and DWTC Free Zone only.
That last clause is the part most guides leave out. A year after launch, the scheme still has two participating zones. No third zone has been publicly announced. If you are reading a page that promises access to multiple Dubai free zones citywide, check the date on it.
This article does two things differently. It cites primary sources at every factual claim. And it keeps a hard line between what the government has confirmed and what advisory firms are estimating. Those are not the same thing. On this topic, the gap between them is wide.
What the One Freezone Passport Dubai actually is
The Dubai Free Zones Council launched the scheme on 22 July 2025. The mechanism is easy to state. A company holding a licence in one participating Dubai free zone may use facilities in the other participating zone without applying for an additional licence. You keep one licence. You gain a second physical location.
Dr. Juma Al Matrooshi, Assistant Secretary General of the Dubai Free Zones Council, presented it as a step toward treating Dubai's zones as one connected system. Two other officials lead the operational side: Abdalla Al Banna, Vice President of Free Zone Regulatory Operations at DWTC, and Amna Al Ali, Vice President of Licensing and Registration at Jebel Ali Free Zones.
The first corporate member is Louis Vuitton. Its warehouse operations stay inside JAFZA. Its corporate office was established at One Za'abeel, which sits inside DWTC Free Zone. According to the Emirates News Agency report on the DWTC Free Zone onboarding, that expansion was processed in five days.
That is the confirmed picture in full. It is a real change. It is also narrower than the marketing around it suggests.
This is not free zone to mainland access
Keep these two ideas apart, because they get blurred constantly.
The passport is a free zone company reaching another free zone. It moves you sideways inside the free zone system. Nothing more.
A free zone company reaching the Dubai mainland is a different mechanism entirely. That route needs a mainland licence, a branch, or a distributor. It sits with the Department of Economy and Tourism, not the Free Zones Council. The passport does nothing for you there. If mainland access is the real goal, read our mainland versus free zone decision guide instead.
Which free zones are in the scheme as of July 2026
Two. Jebel Ali Free Zone and DWTC Free Zone.
That deserves a plain statement with a date attached. The scheme was announced as a phase one, and a phase one implies a phase two. As of July 2026, no further Dubai free zone has been publicly confirmed as joining. There is no published participation list covering DMCC, IFZA, Meydan, Dubai South or DIFC.
The idea of one licence across multiple Dubai free zones is real. Today it means exactly one pair of them.
So if your licence sits anywhere other than JAFZA or DWTC, you cannot use the passport today. Your activity does not change that. Your size does not change that. This is why choosing your primary zone still matters far more than the passport does. If you have not licensed anywhere yet, that decision is where your attention belongs, not here.
What the passport does, and what it does not do
If your goal is a single Dubai licence covering two zones, this table is the whole trade.
| The passport does this | The passport does not do this |
|---|---|
| Lets you use facilities in the partner zone with no second licence | Give you access to the Dubai mainland |
| Keeps you on one licence, one registration, one renewal | Let you change your licensed activities |
| Allows a split like warehouse in one zone, office in the other | Transfer or extend your staff visas |
| Applies to companies already licensed in JAFZA or DWTC | Permit virtual, flexi or hot desks in the second zone |
| Was used to onboard Louis Vuitton in five days | Cover retail, DNFBPs or regulated financial institutions |
| Removes a duplicate licence fee from the expansion | Change your corporate tax, substance or AML position |
Read the right-hand column twice. It carries more weight for most readers than the left one.
Who can actually operate in two free zones, and who is shut out
Being licensed in JAFZA or DWTC is the entry ticket, not the answer. Plenty of companies in both zones still cannot use the scheme. The restrictions are set out in KPMG's UAE tax insight on the scheme. Three sectors are excluded outright:
- Retail. Shut out.
- Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs). This is the AML category that covers real estate brokers, dealers in precious metals and stones, auditors, and company service providers. Shut out.
- Regulated financial institutions. Shut out.
Four further conditions apply to everyone else:
Your activities must be identical. The secondary presence has to carry the same licensed activities as the primary one. Not similar. Identical. In practice this means an activity amendment on your existing trade licence is often the real first step, before the passport is even on the table.
Your ownership must stay the same. The same shareholders, directors and managers must be retained from the primary licence. You cannot use the passport to bring in a new partner in the second zone.
Professional activities cannot use it for warehousing. If your licence is a professional or services licence, you cannot use the passport to take warehouse space. That closes a route people ask about often.
And you need real premises. Virtual offices, flexi desks and hot desks are not permitted in the secondary free zone. Whatever you take there has to be an actual dedicated space.
Four gates, six real profiles
Who the One Freezone Passport is actually open to
Every company has to clear all four gates. One red cell ends it. These are the six situations we are asked about most.
| Your situation | In JAFZA or DWTC | Identical activity | Dedicated premises | Sector allowed | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freight and logistics traderWarehouse in JAFZA, wants a corporate office in DWTC | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Open |
| Management consultancyLicensed in DWTC, wants warehouse space in JAFZA | Yes | NoProfessional licence, no warehousing | Yes | Yes | Blocked |
| Consumer retail brandWants a second showroom in the partner zone | Yes | Yes | Yes | NoRetail excluded | Blocked |
| Broker, auditor or metals dealerA DNFBP under the AML rules | Yes | Yes | Yes | NoDNFBP excluded | Blocked |
| Software firm on a flexi deskWants a hot desk in the other zone | Yes | Yes | NoNo virtual or hot desks | Yes | Blocked |
| Manufacturer in DMCC, IFZA or MeydanWants space in JAFZA | NoZone not in the scheme | Not reached | Not reached | Not reached | Blocked |
The gate that catches most people is the first one
Five of these six profiles are perfectly ordinary Dubai businesses. Only one of them can use the scheme today. Ownership must also stay identical to the primary licence in every case.
Scheme launched by the Dubai Free Zones Council on 22 July 2025. Exclusions and conditions per KPMG's UAE tax insight. Position as of July 2026.
If any of those gates closes on you, the passport is not your route. The alternatives are a second standalone licence, a mainland licence, or a branch of your existing company. Each carries its own cost and its own compliance load.
Can you move your staff to the second free zone?
No, and this is the single most misunderstood point about the scheme.
Staff visas in the UAE are sponsored by the free zone authority that issued them. They sit with your establishment card in that zone. Nothing in the announcements from the Dubai Free Zones Council, JAFZA or DWTC changes that. The passport is a licensing and facilities arrangement. It is not an immigration arrangement.
The practical effect is direct. Employees sponsored under your JAFZA establishment card remain JAFZA employees. If you need people permanently based at the second location, you are looking at fresh sponsorship there, which usually means the visa quota rules of that zone and the premises to support them. Budget for that before you budget for the space.
Confirmed facts versus advisory estimates
This section is the reason the article exists. The numbers circulating about the One Freezone Passport Dubai come from two very different places, and almost nobody labels which is which.
What the government has confirmed:
- Launch date: 22 July 2025, by the Dubai Free Zones Council.
- Participating zones: two, JAFZA and DWTC Free Zone.
- First corporate member: Louis Vuitton, warehouse in JAFZA, corporate office at One Za'abeel in DWTC Free Zone.
- Processing time for that expansion: five days.
- Mechanism: no additional licence required.
What is a professional-firm reading of the rules, and therefore reliable but not a government tariff: the exclusion list, the identical-activity condition, the same-shareholders condition and the ban on virtual desks, all as published by KPMG.
What is an advisory-firm estimate with no government confirmation:
- An expansion cost commonly quoted at AED 17,500 to 45,000. No public tariff supports this. Treat it as a planning range, not a price.
- An approval window commonly quoted at five to ten working days. The only officially reported figure is five days, for one company, in a launch announcement. Launch cases are not a normal sample.
- A cost saving of "over 40 percent" attributed to an unnamed logistics company. There is no way to verify an unnamed case.
None of those three estimates is dishonest. They are simply not evidence. If you are building a budget, mark them as assumptions and get a written quote from the zone before you commit.
Check the source before you budget
Confirmed fact, or advisory estimate?
Every number circulating about this scheme sits in one of these two columns. Almost nobody says which.
What is actually on the record
- 22 July 2025. Launch date, Dubai Free Zones Council.
- 2 free zones. JAFZA and DWTC Free Zone, phase one.
- 1 named member. Louis Vuitton: warehouse in JAFZA, office at One Za'abeel.
- No second licence. The mechanism itself, as announced.
Source: Dubai Free Zones Council via the Emirates News Agency.
What advisers are quoting
- AED 17,500 to 45,000. Quoted expansion cost. No public tariff supports it.
- 5 to 10 working days. Quoted approval window. Built out from a single launch case.
- "Over 40 percent" saved. Attributed to an unnamed logistics company, so unverifiable.
Source: advisory-firm commentary. Useful for planning, not evidence.
One company. One timeline. Everything else is a range someone chose.
Mark the right-hand column as assumptions in your model, and get a written quote from the free zone before you commit to a number.
Position as of July 2026. Government facts per the Dubai Free Zones Council announcement of 22 July 2025; restrictions per KPMG's UAE tax insight.
The honest cost comparison is against what a second standalone licence would have cost you. That figure is knowable, and it is the number the passport is really competing with. We break the recurring side of it down in our guide to what a free zone licence costs in year two.
A second free zone, or the mainland?
For most companies we speak to, this is the actual decision. The passport is one option on a shortlist of two.
| Second free zone via the passport | Mainland licence | |
|---|---|---|
| Who qualifies | JAFZA or DWTC licensees only, identical activities, three sectors excluded | Almost any activity on the Department of Economy and Tourism list |
| Selling inside the UAE | Still restricted by free zone rules | Direct, no distributor needed |
| Foreign ownership | 100 percent | 100 percent for the large majority of activities |
| Extra licence needed | No | Yes, this is a licence in its own right |
| Staff visas | Stay with the issuing zone | Quota tied to your office space |
| Cost visibility | Advisory estimates only, no published tariff | Published government fee schedule |
| Best suited to | A physical split, such as warehouse plus office | Selling to the UAE internal market |
The passport wins when you have one business that needs two kinds of space in Dubai. It loses the moment your growth is about reaching UAE customers directly, because it does not touch that problem. The UAE government's own overview of doing business on the mainland sets out that route. Where a reader is genuinely weighing the two, a short consultation is usually faster than a week of reading.
What the passport does not change: tax, substance and compliance
Nothing here moves. This is worth being blunt about, because expansion announcements often get read as tax news.
Your corporate tax position is untouched. Your Qualifying Free Zone Person status, if you hold it, is decided by the same tests as before. Using a second zone does not create it and does not protect it. The substance, qualifying-income and de minimis conditions all still apply exactly as set out in our guide to keeping the 0 percent rate as a Qualifying Free Zone Person.
Economic Substance Regulations are unchanged. AML and CFT obligations are unchanged. Your accounting, audit and filing duties are unchanged. The passport removes a licence fee and a duplicate registration. It removes no compliance obligation at all.
