Shams: Activity Classes, Red Licences, and Studios

Shams does not sell activities one at a time. A licence is configured in one of two shapes: either one business activity group together with a set number of business activity classes, inclusive of all subclasses, or a slightly larger number of business activity classes on their own, again inclusive of all subclasses under the selected classes and at no additional cost.

The subclass inclusion is the part that matters. Because everything beneath a chosen class comes with it, a business that does several closely related things — content production, editing, and distribution, say — usually fits inside one class rather than needing three separate activities.

Commonly taken configurations include e-commerce, general trading, management consultancy, IT services, advertising and marketing consultancy, accounting and bookkeeping, and holding-company activities. That range is wider than the media label suggests.

Shams divides activities that need an outside authority's sign-off into two categories, and the distinction has real consequences for planning.

Pre-approval activities are issued with a red licence. The company exists, but it cannot operate the activity until approval is obtained from the relevant external government authority. Post-approval activities are licensed normally, but the activity may not legally commence until the outside authority has signed off after issuance.

This is more transparent than most zones manage, and it is worth using. Before you pay for anything, establish which category your activity falls into — a red licence that sits idle for months while a regulator considers it is a cost with no revenue against it.

Shams offers shared desks, dedicated desks, closed offices within a shared environment, and meeting rooms. It also operates production facilities in its own right — studios, a fully equipped podcast and video recording room offering live-streaming and editing, and filming locations available for rent — alongside on-site amenities including a fitness centre and a restaurant.

For a content business, that is a genuine operational argument rather than a marketing one: the facilities you would otherwise rent by the day are in the zone where you are licensed. For a consultancy with no production requirement, they are irrelevant, and the decision falls back to cost and emirate.

The site itself is large — Shams spans over two million square metres at Al Messaned — so 'in the free zone' is not the same as 'next door'. Check where specifically your workspace and the facilities you intend to use sit.

Shams was created by Amiri Decree in 2017 and publishes its own body of rules: companies and licensing regulations, companies liquidation regulations, real-estate regulations, and employment regulations, each issued and updated in its own right.

The employment regulations are the ones people overlook. A free zone with its own employment framework means your contracts, notice periods, and end-of-service treatment follow that framework rather than being assumed from elsewhere. If you plan to hire, read them before you draft a contract.

Both are Sharjah free zones established in 2017 under the same patronage, both licence broad activity lists well beyond their founding sector, and both are commonly shortlisted together.

The practical differences: Shams runs production facilities and structures licences around activity groups and classes with subclasses included, and it flags gated activities through the red-licence mechanism. SPC Free Zone grew out of publishing, is a subsidiary of the Sharjah Book Authority, and offers a dual licence covering both free-zone and Sharjah mainland operation.

If you make content, Shams has the facilities. If you need to reach the Sharjah mainland market, SPC has the licence structure for it.