Dubai REST, DubaiNow, Ejari & DET: How to Use Dubai's Property Government Portals

Match the task to the authority first, then to the channel — most delays come from people queueing at the wrong counter. The table below maps the tasks a commercial investor or occupier actually performs against the portal that owns them. The wider legal framework sitting behind these systems is set out in the legal, tax and ownership hub guide.

Dubai REST is DLD's smart real estate platform, and it is the only app on this list built specifically around property transactions. DLD's own description names the audience as property owners, tenants, brokers, developers, valuators and investors, and lists the functions as managing leases — registration, renewal and cancellation — submitting and following up rental dispute cases, requesting maps, a "To Whom It May Concern" letter, mortgage bids and property evaluations, viewing the rental index and sale index across different periods, a real estate wallet showing property pricing and rental return, and service charge payments (dubailand.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026). It is available in Arabic and English on both major app stores.

An earlier DLD release, dated 15 December 2023, described an improved interactive interface and named further features including the Rental Calculator, the Smart Investment Map, the DLD Document Vault, the Green List, broker verification, training courses and exams, project tracking and the "Ask Malik" service. Treat that list as indicative rather than current: DLD refreshes the interface periodically, and menu names move.

One thing worth being precise about is tokenisation, because the portal you would expect to hold it is not the one that does. DLD's Real Estate Tokenization page describes blockchain-based tokenisation enabling fractional ownership, delivered in collaboration with the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, the Dubai Future Foundation and the Central Bank of the UAE. DLD's release of 25 May 2025 names the actual channel: the pilot ran on the Prypco Mint platform at mint.prypco.com, which that release describes as making Dubai the first city in the MENA region to adopt a licensed platform for real estate tokenisation, with fractional purchases from AED 2,000, transactions carried out exclusively in dirhams and no use of cryptocurrencies during the pilot phase, and availability described at that point as exclusive to UAE ID holders with global expansion planned. A separate release of 29 May 2025 — which is the one that describes Prypco Mint as licensed by VARA — announced a Property Token Ownership Certificate, but does not say how or where a holder obtains or views it. A DLD release of 9 February 2026 confirmed Phase II, opening secondary-market resale from 20 February for approximately 7.8 million real estate tokens; that release names no platform for the resale market and restates no eligibility rule.

Two practical consequences. First, none of those DLD sources says a tokenised interest appears inside the Dubai REST wallet, so assume your holding is visible on the issuing platform rather than in the DLD app, and confirm that with the platform before you buy. Second, the eligibility wording is pilot-stage and DLD has since said it is studying the onboarding of additional platforms, so check current eligibility on the platform itself rather than relying on the May 2025 phrasing.

DubaiNow is the emirate's general government services app, and it overlaps with Dubai REST only at the edges. Digital Dubai's own page describes access to more than 250 government and private-sector services from over 35 entities, organised into categories including bills, driving, housing, residency, health, education, police and security, travel and Emirati services (digitaldubai.ae, accessed Aug 2026). The property-relevant items it advertises are narrow but genuinely useful: signing a tenancy contract and obtaining Ejari, verifying any Dubai title deed, and viewing and paying DEWA accounts.

DubaiNow also appears as an accepted channel for DLD's property valuation service alongside Dubai REST and the trustee centres, which is a good illustration of how the two apps interlock rather than compete. For a commercial occupier the practical division is simple: Dubai REST for the asset, DubaiNow for the overheads. If your holding costs are the thing you are modelling, the buying costs calculator is a better starting point than either app.

Registering online through Dubai REST or the DLD website costs AED 177.75 in total and requires only a copy of the Unified Tenancy Contract. DLD breaks that figure down as AED 100 for registering a tenancy contract, a AED 10 knowledge fee, a AED 10 innovation fee, a AED 55 service partner fee and AED 2.75 VAT. Registering in person at a Real Estate Trustee Centre is quoted at a total of AED 220, on the same AED 100, AED 10 and AED 10 base but with the service partner element at AED 95 plus VAT, and requires the original Unified Tenancy Contract, presentation of the applicant's Emirates ID, and an official power of attorney where someone signs on your behalf. Quoted processing at a trustee centre is 25 minutes, excluding waiting time (dubailand.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026).

Cancellation runs on the same rails and is free of charge through the app or website, or AED 40 plus VAT at a service centre. If the contract is still live, the centre will also want a letter from the property owner. Downloading a rental certificate later is a separate lookup, and it takes two identifiers. The Ejari contract number is mandatory in every case; alongside it the form takes either the DEWA premise number or the municipality number with its sub number, as a radio choice — so the contract number alone will not submit, and the two location identifiers cannot be combined. Capture the contract number and the DEWA premise number at registration, the form's default pairing, and the municipality route stays the alternative you never need (dubailand.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026). The legal reasoning behind why registration matters at all, and how Oqood differs for off-plan purchases, is covered in the guide to RERA, Ejari and Oqood.

Every mainland business needs registered premises, and in Dubai that means Ejari. The UAE government portal is explicit at the licensing stage: all businesses in the UAE must have a physical address to operate, an office and warehouse rental agreement must be provided, some emirates require the agreements to be attested, and in Dubai the agreement must be registered with Ejari — with a lease contract attested by RERA presented when the licence is collected (u.ae, accessed Aug 2026).

There is a statutory obligation underneath that requirement, and it is narrower than it is usually described. Article 4 of Law No. 26 of 2007, as replaced by Law No. 33 of 2008, provides that all lease contracts related to real property governed by the Law, and any amendments to them, will be registered with RERA (dlp.dubai.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026). That is a standing registration duty on the parties. It is worth being precise about what the amendment removed, because the superseded wording is still quoted freely: the 2007 original also barred judicial authorities and government departments, authorities and corporations from considering any dispute or claim, or from taking any action relating to an unregistered lease contract, and the 2008 replacement of Article 4 does not carry that bar. The registration duty is live law; the blanket statutory freeze on public bodies is not. Anyone who tells you an unregistered lease is legally invisible to every Dubai authority is quoting a provision that was superseded in 2008.

The renewal mechanic itself is not settled here — whether DET's systems refuse a renewal outright once the Ejari record has lapsed, and what exceptions apply to virtual offices or to free zone arrangements. As at 17 August 2026 DET has not published a renewal rule addressing this, so none is stated here. The two DET addresses the federal portal itself links to, www.dubaidet.gov.ae and www.investindubai.gov.ae, are the right places to look, so go to them directly. Every other readily available account of the renewal checklist is a company-formation marketing page rather than an authority, including the widely repeated claim that the tenancy must run at least a month beyond the licence expiry date, which DET's own material does not confirm. Treat the dependency as real, keep the Ejari live and renewed ahead of the licence, and ask DET in writing for your licence category's current renewal checklist rather than planning around a figure from a consultancy blog. Whether you sit on the mainland or in a free zone also changes who your regulator is in the first place — see freehold versus leasehold and who can own what and the wider licensing and utilities hub.

Mollak is RERA's e-system for monitoring service charge accounts in jointly owned property, and it is where the money actually moves. Its public site describes an integrated system monitoring accounts related to service charges, quarterly invoicing to unit owners, payment through the portal, escrow account mechanisms, RERA-approved service charge rates, and directories of approved management and auditing companies (mollak.dubailand.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026). Alongside it, DLD's Service Charge Index lets you look up the charge attached to a specific title deed by certificate number, certificate year, property type and budget year, and it covers office and other non-residential usage types. Note DLD's own caveat that the indexed service charge does not include arrears.

The liability question matters more than the plumbing. DLD states that under Article 16(b) of Law No. 6 of 2019 on jointly owned real property, the owner is liable to pay service and usage charges unless the lease provides otherwise, and remains liable even where the tenant does not pay. Non-payment can escalate as far as the sale of the unit to settle the charges, and RERA-approved invoices are the reference point if the amount itself is contested. If you are buying a unit in a multi-let commercial tower, that makes the Mollak history a due diligence item, not an afterthought — an inherited arrears position follows the asset.

They will not decide a dispute. DLD's own contractual disputes service states that the department is not competent to adjudicate real estate disputes and contractual claims, and that judicial authorities must be approached to preserve the rights of all parties (dubailand.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026). Dubai REST lets you submit and track a rental dispute case, but submission is a filing channel, not a judgment. The substantive rules on rent increases, notice periods and eviction grounds — the things that actually decide a commercial case — are set out in the guide to Dubai commercial landlord and tenant law.

Nor will they tell you your tax position. Registration and filing for corporate tax and VAT sit with the Federal Tax Authority on tax.gov.ae, entirely outside the DLD and DET stack, and the treatment of commercial property is not intuitive — see UAE corporate tax and VAT on commercial property and the article on the VAT rules when buying commercial property in Dubai. Equally, residency obtained through property investment runs through ICP and GDRFA channels rather than DLD's, as covered in the guide to the UAE Golden Visa through commercial property investment.

The Rental Disputes Centre does, and its fee scale is published. The Centre was established by Decree No. 26 of 2013 and has exclusive jurisdiction to determine rent disputes arising between landlords and tenants of real property situated in the Emirate, including in free zones, together with counterclaims, provisional and summary actions brought by either party to a lease, and appeals from decisions and judgments that are subject to appeal. RDC's own description adds that its scope was extended in 2019 to disputes concerning jointly owned property under Law No. 6 of 2019 — the same law that puts the service charge on the owner — which is directly relevant if you hold a strata commercial unit. Internally it runs a Conciliation Department that reviews claims first, First Instance and Appellate Committees, and a Judgment Execution Department (rdc.gov.ae and dlp.dubai.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026).

Three exclusions are set out in the decree, and each one can move your dispute somewhere else entirely. The Centre has no jurisdiction over rent disputes arising within free zones that have their own tribunals or special courts with jurisdiction inside their boundaries, over disputes arising from a lease finance contract, or over disputes arising from long-term lease contracts under Law No. 7 of 2006. If your premises sit in a free zone with its own judicial arrangements, establish which forum applies before a dispute crystallises rather than after.

Half the court fee paid on basic claims is refunded if you seek conciliation and reach a settlement, which is a real financial incentive to try the Conciliation Department before the committees. RDC quotes one business day to complete the registration itself — that is the registration clock, not the case clock, and RDC's e-service page for the filing publishes no figure for how long a case then takes. Filing runs through RDC's own website or a Real Estate Services Trustee Centre; Dubai REST is a submission and tracking channel, not a separate forum.

A corporate claimant is asked for the latest Ejari lease copy, the commercial licence together with photo identification for the manager or owner, and a bank letter or statement showing the plaintiff's IBAN. For an eviction claim you also need the notarised notice with the process officer's report, or the registered-post receipt. That last item is the one landlords get wrong: serve notice properly and keep the proof, because a defective notice can cost you the claim regardless of the merits. The substantive grounds are covered in the guide to Dubai commercial landlord and tenant law.

Consistency across portals is the single biggest cause of avoidable rejection. Before you start any application, confirm that the company name, trade licence number and Emirates ID details you hold match exactly what each system already has on file — a trading name that differs by a word between the tenancy contract and the licence will stall a registration. Confirm which entity is the contracting party, because a lease signed by a shareholder personally will not support a licence held by the company. Check that the Unified Tenancy Contract is the version the system expects, and that the premises use permitted under the licence matches the use described in the lease.

Then check what the step you are about to take actually costs and how long it holds you up, because the valuation is the one that catches people out. DLD prices a valuation by property type rather than at a flat rate, and the commercial and industrial categories are set out in the frequently asked questions below. Most categories also carry AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees, and a trustee-centre service partner fee published at between AED 180 and AED 530 plus VAT; the agricultural-land category, which covers commercial and industrial compounds, publishes no partner fee, and the hotel category prices the knowledge and innovation fees per drawing. Residential units and attached villas are quoted as instant; everything else is 7 working days (dubailand.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026). Budget the time, not just the fee. For a broader orientation on how these bodies fit together, the article on Dubai real estate regulation is a useful companion read.

Yes — the cap is not a residential-only rule, and the calculator you are looking at is the statutory reference point. Decree No. 43 of 2013, issued on 18 December 2013, sets the maximum rent increase available when a lease is renewed: no increase where the rent is up to 10% below the average rental value of similar units, 5% where it is 11% to 20% below, 10% where it is 21% to 30% below, 15% where it is 31% to 40% below, and 20% where it is more than 40% below. Article 2 applies the decree to landlords in Dubai, private and public, including those in special development zones and free zones such as the DIFC, and it draws no distinction between residential and commercial property. Article 3 determines the average rental value of similar units by reference to the Rent Index of the Emirate of Dubai approved by RERA (dlp.dubai.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026).

Law No. 26 of 2007 sits underneath that, and it has to be read as amended by Law No. 33 of 2008, which replaced eleven of its articles including both of the ones that set its scope. The amended Article 2 defines the real property in scope as immovable property, and everything attached or annexed to it, leased out for residential purposes or for practising any commercial activity, trade, profession or other lawful activity. The amended Article 3 applies the Law to land and real property leased out in the Emirate, excluding only real property provided free of rent by natural or legal persons as accommodation for their employees. Commercial premises are squarely inside that scope.

One point deserves emphasis, because the outdated version of it circulates widely and is acted on. The 2007 original contained a rule at Article 9 that rent could not be increased, nor lease terms amended, before two years had passed from the start of the contractual relationship. That article was replaced in 2008, and the replacement says nothing of the kind — it deals only with the parties specifying rent in the lease and, where they have not, with how the Tribunal determines the rental value of similar property. There is no two-year freeze in the law as it now stands. What governs an increase on renewal is Decree No. 43 of 2013 and the RERA-approved index, as set out above. Note also that the Dubai Legislation Portal's page for the 2007 Law carries the unamended original text and displays no amendment banner, which is why the superseded wording is so often repeated as though it were current; read it alongside Law No. 33 of 2008 on the same portal (dlp.dubai.gov.ae, accessed Aug 2026).

What none of that settles is whether the index category is a fair comparable for your particular unit. "Commercial", "retail", "shopping mall", "industrial" and "industrial lands" are coarse buckets for a market that prices a Grade A office floor and a light-industrial shell very differently, and the calculator publishes no guidance on how to reason about that gap. If the parties disagree on the comparable, the argument goes to the Rental Disputes Centre on the fee scale set out above, not back to the calculator. The reform programme behind the index is covered in the Smart Rental Index and rent reforms guide.