Types of Free Zones in Egypt:

• Public Free Zones:
  • It is a territory subject to the sovereignty of the State, it is located most of the time in one of the State's ports (sea port – land border – airport). It is surrounded by boundary walls to be separated from the rest of the State. The Public Free Zone includes group of investment projects set up to take advantage of incentives and privileges of investment in this zone. The State provides the necessary infrastructure to operate business inside the zone. There are nine Public Free Zones in Egypt located in Alexandria (Amrya), Cairo (Nasr City), Port Said, Suez, Ismailia, Damietta, Shebeen ALKoum, Qeft, and Media Zone in City of 6th October. Public Free Zones are not a specialized zones -except the last one- as each zone includes variety of projects as inventory, industrial, services, and financing services.
• Private Free Zones:
  • Allocated to single investment project in case the nature of the project requires this option, such as the cases where the location of the project is effective for its economic aspects (such as near to source of raw material), the location consistent with the activity such the cases in maritime transport projects, cement silos, or the project takes part in developing a new urban area as per the State's plan. The project established under this system enjoys the same privileges, incentives, and guarantees provided to projects in Public Free Zones. The administrative supervision is conducted by the closest Public Free Zone. Any project can be transformed to work under Private Free Zones system if only the project already operating and its exports in not less than 50% of its production. There are 164 projects in Egypt works under the system of Private Free Zones.
  • Law No. 72 of 2017 on Investment Guarantees and Incentives regulates the work of both Public and Private Free Zones. Exempt projects from custom taxes, Sales Tax, and many other fees are among privileges provided by the Law. These projects subject only to annual fee approximates 1% of goods value which enter or exit the Zone on behalf of the project, in the event of Services projects this fee reaches 3% from the added value achieved by the project. It is allowed for operating projects to transfer its profits or return of original capital without restrictions.

Note: incorporating new companies under the system of Private Free Zones according to Law No. 17 of 2015 is cancelled.

In the event of incorporation of a company to work within the Public Free Zones' system according to provisions of Law No. 72 of 2017 on Investment Guarantees and Incentives, aforementioned documents shall be required in addition to the condition of completing the pre-incorporation approval of GAFI, this approval is issued from the respective Free Zones' Board of Directors where the project will set up. ​