Trade licence activities in IFZA

The International Free Zone Authority (IFZA) is one of Dubai's broad-purpose free zones, used by consultants, service businesses and small trading companies alike. Office arrangements for an IFZA company typically run from a flexi-desk through to a dedicated serviced office, with visa allocation tied to the office package and premises held. A standard IFZA free zone licence also carries the zone's usual renewal cycle, an immigration file for staff visas, and the UAE corporate tax registration obligation that applies to businesses operating across the Emirates.

IFZA's own register splits activities into two families. The one covered here is sometimes described as the Trade family and sits under what IFZA's website labels a Commercial Licence: 437 of the zone's 824 registered activities, built around buying, selling, importing, exporting and distributing goods. The separate Service family, which IFZA presents as its Professional Licence, covers the remaining 387 activities for work that is not based on moving physical goods, such as consultancy, design or technology services.

Within the Trade family, General Trading sits as its own entry rather than a shortcut through every other trading activity. Most of the remaining entries are written narrowly, by product category: Construction & Building Materials Trading, Auto Spare Parts & Components Trading, Mobile Phones & Accessories Trading and Goods Wholesale Trading are examples drawn from IFZA's own register. A company's actual trade in goods needs to match one or more of these named activities, not a general description of what it buys or sells.

A worked example helps: a founder who sources tiles, sealants and other building supplies from overseas manufacturers and resells them to UAE contractors is dealing in physical goods, so Construction & Building Materials Trading is the natural named activity, with General Trading added if the product range is broad enough to need it. The same founder would not need anything from IFZA's Service family, since they are reselling materials rather than advising on their use — a Professional Licence activity such as Management Consultancy would not match what the business actually does. A consultancy advising contractors on which materials to specify, by contrast, has no goods changing hands and sits in the Service family instead, even though both businesses work in construction.

Velarozone is an advisory and company-setup firm, not IFZA: we do not issue the licence, and IFZA remains the authority that assesses the application and keeps the official activity register. Our role is matching a business's actual trade in goods to the correct named activities on that register, then preparing and submitting the application on the applicant's behalf. For more on how Velarozone works alongside UAE free zones generally, see [why Velarozone](/why-velarozone).