A corporate video in Dubai typically costs between AED 12,000 and AED 35,000, while a broadcast-grade TV commercial starts around AED 25,000 and can pass AED 150,000. Those are market ranges rather than a price list, and the spread inside them is the interesting part — because two films of identical length routinely differ by a factor of five.
We produce film out of Dubai and Karachi, and the question we are asked first is almost always the wrong one. “What does a two-minute video cost?” has no answer. Here is what the number is actually made of.
How much does video production cost in Dubai in 2026?
Published market ranges for 2026 cluster fairly tightly. A one-to-three minute corporate film sits around AED 10,000–30,000, with the most common single-shoot-day budget falling between AED 12,000 and AED 25,000. A one-minute film produced to a professional standard is commonly quoted at AED 15,000–45,000. TVC-grade work with full crew, casting, multiple locations and commercial post starts near AED 25,000 and climbs past AED 100,000, with broadcast-quality commercials quoted at AED 45,000–150,000 and above.
Note what those bands imply: the one-minute film can cost more than the three-minute one. Duration is close to irrelevant to price.
Why video is not priced per minute
Because you are not buying minutes. You are buying shoot days, crew size, and post-production weight, and none of the three scale with runtime. A sixty-second commercial with six to fifteen crew, cast talent and three locations consumes far more of all three than a five-minute interview film shot in one boardroom with a crew of three.
This is why a per-minute rate card is a warning sign rather than a convenience. Any studio quoting one is either averaging across jobs that have nothing in common, or has not asked what the film has to do yet.
| Format | Market range (AED) | What moves it inside the band |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate film | 12,000–35,000 | Number of interviews and locations |
| 1-minute professional film | 15,000–45,000 | Talent, set build, motion work |
| TVC (commercial grade) | 25,000–100,000+ | Casting, locations, commercial post |
| TVC (broadcast) | 45,000–150,000+ | Crew of 6–15, multi-day, licensing |
| Social cutdowns | Marginal | Ratios and languages, if planned pre-shoot |
The cost nobody puts in the budget: permits
The Dubai Film and TV Commission is the sole authority for filming permits, and one is required for essentially any professional production. The application fee is AED 520 and non-refundable. Public locations carry an additional location fee. Private locations are negotiated separately and can reach several thousand dirhams per day. Filming without a permit carries a AED 25,000 penalty.
The bigger cost is schedule, not money. Standard processing runs three to five working days, which means permits sit on the critical path. A production plan that treats them as paperwork to sort out later is a production plan that slips.
And one clause catches overseas brands repeatedly: a foreign entity cannot apply for a DFTC permit directly. You must appoint a UAE-licensed production company as the local applicant. However capable your home crew, the permit has to be raised here.
What actually determines your quote
- Shoot days — the single largest lever; two days is not twice one day, it is closer to 1.7x once mobilisation is paid
- Crew size — a TVC typically runs six to fifteen on set against three or four for a corporate film
- Talent — casting, usage rights and territory, which recur if the film runs longer than the licence
- Locations — each move costs setup time; private venues add day rates
- Post-production weight — a straight cut versus grade, sound design, motion graphics and VFX
- Deliverables — cheap if scoped before the shoot, expensive if requested after it
- Languages — subtitling is minor; re-voicing and re-timing are not
How to get a cheaper film without a cheaper film
The reliable saving is not negotiating the day rate down. It is extracting more from the day you have already paid for. Getting crew, talent and location into one place is the expensive event; everything cut from that footage afterwards is comparatively marginal.
Our LWK & Partners documentary shipped a seven-minute master, seven one-minute thematic cuts for social and events, and subtitle tracks in English, Arabic and Chinese — from a single production block. Commissioned separately, that would have been three productions.
So the most valuable line in a brief is not a budget figure. It is the list of everything the footage has to feed over the next twelve months: broadcast, paid social, the website, the trade stand, next year's sales deck. Scoped up front, most of it costs almost nothing to add.
A shooting-in-both-markets note
Crew and location costs in Pakistan are materially lower than in the UAE. For brands with flexibility on where elements are captured, shooting part of a production in Karachi while keeping direction, grade and sound consistent with the UAE work is a genuine saving that does not show up in the finish. It is not right for every brief — a film that must feature a recognisable Dubai location obviously has to be shot in Dubai — but for studio, product and narrative work it is worth asking about.
Whatever the budget, the question to put to any video production company in Dubai is not what a minute costs. It is how many shoot days the quote covers, how large the crew is, whether permits are included, and what happens when you ask for a ninth cutdown in March.