This article investigates on a compact dual-band open-ended metamaterial antenna for microwave frequency applications. Designed antenna has been incorporated with U-shaped slot, meandered line inductance and a square stub. Since the designed antenna structure has been applied with open-ended boundary condition, so the shunt constituent parameters are significantly responsible for the zeroth order resonance. The designed compact antenna having a total footprint area of 0.266λ0 × 0.092λ0 with respect to the zeroth order resonance frequency of 2.58GHz. The designed antenna demonstrates-10dB fractional bandwidth of 4.26% and 28.03% with respect to the center frequency of 2.58 and 5.28GHz respectively. Further, the designed antenna offers an average broadside gain of 1.52dBi and 1.84dBi for both the working bands respectively. In addition to above the designed antenna offers an average radiation efficiency of 76.73% and 95.53% in both the working bands. Design and simulation of the proposed antenna has been performed using HFSS 14.0 3D simulation software and all the results are verified by CST micro Studio 11.0. The performance and size of antenna make it suitable for different WLAN (5.15-5.35, 5.47-5.725, 5.725-5.850GHz) and Wi-MAX (2.5-2.69, 5.2-5.8 GHz) applications. © 2018 IEEE.