Guide pratique sur zones franches industrielles et commerciales d'iran pour les investisseurs étrangers : cadre, opportunités, chiffres et voies d'entrée.
Free zones of Iran
L'analyse détaillée ci-dessous est publiée en anglais.
Iran operates seven Free Trade-Industrial Zones and dozens of Special Economic Zones. They are the fastest legal route into the country: a zone entity can be registered without a FIPPA licence and carries a statutory tax holiday.
Zone choice is a logistics decision more than a fiscal one. Kish and Qeshm serve Gulf trade and services, Chabahar serves the Indian Ocean and the North-South corridor, Anzali and Aras serve the Caspian and the Caucasus.
The zones were created to attract export-oriented manufacturing and transit trade without exposing the mainland tariff regime. Each zone is governed by its own Organization, which issues activity licences, leases land and acts as a one-stop shop for permits.
Because zone authorities compete for tenants, land terms and licence conditions are negotiable in a way mainland registration is not.
Kish is the services and trading zone with the strongest hospitality and retail infrastructure. Qeshm combines heavy-industry land with deep-water access. Chabahar is the strategic transit play, with Indian-developed port capacity and links toward Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Aras and Maku face Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan and are used for assembly serving Eurasian markets. Anzali serves Caspian shipping toward Russia and Kazakhstan. Arvand borders Iraq and serves the Basra corridor.
The recurring mistake is registering in a zone while operating on the mainland. Goods moving from zone to mainland are treated as imports and attract duty on the non-domestic value share, which erodes the fiscal advantage.
The second failure mode is understaffing local compliance: zone entities still file with the tax administration and the social security organisation, and the holiday covers corporate income tax only.
Qeshm and Arvand offer the strongest combination of industrial land, deep-water access and utility supply. Aras and Maku are preferred where output is destined for Turkey, the Caucasus or Eurasian markets.
It applies from the start of declared activity for entities licensed and operating inside the zone. Annual filings are still required and the exemption covers corporate income tax rather than payroll or social security.
Yes, but the shipment is treated as an import and duty applies to the imported value share, so the economics must be modelled before choosing a zone structure for a domestic-market product.
No. Zone entities register directly with the zone Organization. Many investors still obtain FIPPA in parallel to secure repatriation protection over registered capital.
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