Office, Ejari and Signage Requirements for a Dubai Trade Licence

Because the licensing statute itself demands one. Article 17 of Law No. (13) of 2011, which regulates the conduct of economic activities in Dubai, requires a licence applicant to specify the premises in the Emirate through which its economic activities will be conducted. Article 18 carves out one exemption, and it is narrower than it is often described: the DED may issue licences "authorising UAE nationals to conduct certain Economic Activities determined by the DED from home or through Business Incubators". If you are not a UAE national, there is no home-office route around the premises requirement.

The same law sets the licence clock. Article 8(a) makes a licence valid for one year, renewable for the same period, extendable to as much as four years at the business's request with DED approval in coordination with the competent entity. Article 8(b) then fixes the renewal window rather than a post-expiry cushion: a business "must renew its Licence within the last month prior to its expiry".

That premises requirement is what pulls Ejari into the licensing chain. A tenancy contract on its own is a private document; the registered Ejari record is what turns it into something the government can verify against a unit. If you are still choosing between structures, the trade-off is set out in mainland versus free zone licensing in Dubai — free zone authorities run their own premises and lease-registration regimes rather than Ejari.

It is mandatory as a matter of law. Article 4 of Law No. (33) of 2008, which amended Law No. (26) of 2007, provides that all lease contracts related to real property governed by that law, and any amendments to them, will be registered with RERA. Dubai Land Department's own Ejari tenancy guide states the position in plain terms: registration of tenancy contracts through Ejari is mandatory, and the programme exists pursuant to those two laws.

There is a second, more practical consequence. Legal commentary on Dubai commercial leasing — for example the RDSC analysis published by Kayrouz & Associates in March 2026 — takes the view that neither party can bring a dispute before the Rental Disputes Centre, the courts or any government authority without a registered Ejari contract, and that for companies Ejari registration is also required to obtain or renew a trade licence. For an occupier, that means an unregistered lease is not just a licensing problem; it is a lease you may struggle to enforce.

Dubai Land Department publishes two prices for the same service. Registering or renewing through the DLD website or the Dubai REST app costs AED 100 for the tenancy contract registration, AED 10 knowledge fee, AED 10 innovation fee, and a service partner fee of AED 55 plus AED 2.75 VAT — a total of AED 177.75. Through a real estate services trustee centre, the government components are identical but the service partners' fee is AED 95 plus VAT, and DLD gives the total as AED 220. DLD quotes 25 minutes at a trustee centre, excluding waiting time.

Those are the registration fees only. They are not the cost of the licence, the market fees, the activity approvals, or the fit-out consents that follow. The wider sequence is mapped in the Dubai trade licence process from initial approval to issuance, and the shortcuts and limits of the fast-track route are covered in the Dubai instant licence via Bashr.

Primarily the landlord, with the tenant as the fallback route. DLD's tenancy guide lists among the landlord's undertakings that the landlord will authenticate the lease contract at RERA and present the documents and tenant information for each contract, whether a new lease or a renewal. It then sets out a separate document list headed for the situation where the lessor or property management company does not register the lease contract and registration proceeds through the tenant — in that case the tenant supplies the original contract, the last month's electricity and water invoice in the tenant's name, a copy of the land map or title deed, and a copy of the trade licence where the tenant is a company.

DLD's FAQ confirms the same balance of responsibility from the other direction: a tenant can initiate registration, but the landlord's approval is required for the process to be completed, and a tenant attending a trustee office needs an NOC from the owner. This is worth settling explicitly in heads of terms rather than discovering at fit-out.

More than most occupiers expect. The tenancy guide sets out conditions that touch directly on whether a unit is lettable at all, and several of them are the same checks a buyer would make in a licensing and premises due diligence exercise.

Two of those bite hard in commercial practice. The sublease exclusion means an occupier taking space from an existing tenant rather than the owner may find there is no registrable contract behind the arrangement — and therefore no Ejari to support a licence. The independent-meter condition for partial lettings is why the electrical position has to be resolved early; see DEWA electrical load and connection requirements for commercial premises and, for how demand varies by use, how electrical load needs vary by business activity.

Yes, provided the business centre itself is properly constituted. DLD's guidance on registering a business centre licence in Ejari sets specific thresholds: the business centre's own premises must be not less than 5,000 sq ft and held on a tenancy valid for five years; each lettable unit must be 100 sq ft or more; the Ejari must be registered for five years under the business centre name and not the owner's; Dubai Municipality approval is needed; and the maximum allowed contract per unit is one in any 365 days. DLD also lists a physical survey fee of AED 2,010 payable at its customer service counter as part of that process.

The one-contract-per-unit-per-year rule is the detail worth remembering. It is the reason a single desk cannot support an unlimited stack of licences, and it is the sort of thing that surfaces late — after a licence application has already been lodged.

DET, for the great majority of commercial shopfronts. Decree No. (6) of 2020, which regulates advertisements across the Emirate including special development zones and free zones such as the DIFC, provides at Article 4(a) that no person may display an advertisement in any advertising space in the Emirate using an advertising medium without first obtaining a permit. Article 5 then splits the permitting function by where the advertisement sits.

Dubai Media Office restated the operational position in May 2026: DET is responsible for issuing permits related to trade-name signage, as well as monitoring and inspecting shopfronts. Where a sign is large, building-mounted or structural rather than a simple fascia, the Municipality and RTA limbs of the table become live — which is one reason multi-authority sequencing matters, as covered in external government approvals for Dubai business licences.

Ten working days, as a statutory ceiling. This is the one signage timing figure with a primary source behind it, and it comes from the decree rather than from any authority's service page. Article 8 of Decree No. (6) of 2020 provides that an application "that meets the requirements, and is supported by the documents, prescribed by the Competent Entity will be determined within ten (10) working days from the date of its submission".

Read that wording carefully before you build a programme on it, because two qualifications are doing real work. First, the clock is conditional: it starts on a complete, compliant, fully documented application, so a submission returned for missing documents never entered the window in the first place. Second, "determined" means decided, not necessarily approved — a refusal inside ten working days satisfies the article as well as a permit does.

The figure also binds whichever entity in the table above is competent for your medium, not DET alone. What no authority adds on top of it is a shorter service-level promise of its own. Dubai Municipality's services catalogue states a duration against many of its services — "within 1 working day" for a To Whom it May Concern certificate on plot status, "in 2 days" for a food export certificate — but none of the five signboard and billboard permit services relevant to premises signage — billboards on lands, billboards on buildings, billboard content approval, roof and pole advertisements, and signboards in historical areas — carries a stated processing time. The catalogue's Permit to Advertise Consumer Products does state "in 3 days", but that permit governs product advertising rather than premises signage. No faster DET target appears in DET's own published material, so if DET publishes one, it is not assumed here.

The practical consequence for a fit-out programme is to schedule the statutory ten working days, treat anything quicker as luck rather than plan, and refuse to programme against a turnaround quoted by a signage contractor who cannot point to where the authority published it.

One trade name per shopfront, displayed horizontally, Arabic above English, static content only. Dubai Media Office set out the framework on 12 May 2026: each commercial establishment is permitted to display one trade name only, with more than one advertisement or trade name on a shopfront prohibited; trade names may not be installed vertically and must be displayed horizontally with Arabic positioned above English; projection is permitted from one side only; signage content must remain static, with changing or animated content including videos or moving images not permitted; and signage may not be placed on building balconies or on the external façades of offices, clinics and commercial outlets located above the ground floor. The same release goes further on two points often attributed to press coverage: signage dimensions "must be proportionate to the height and width of the shopfront, without excessive height, width, or thickness", and the guidelines include requirements "related to lighting and brightness, including the use of approved measurement tools, adherence to permitted brightness levels, and avoiding bright white backgrounds".

On timing, the framework is not new in 2026. The Out-of-Home Advertising Manual was launched by the RTA in collaboration with Dubai Municipality and DET on 15 August 2024, and Administrative Resolution No. (180) of 2025 — issued by the Director General of Dubai Municipality on 13 June 2025 — approved the manual together with its procedures, conditions, requirements, specifications and timeframes, coming into force on publication in the Official Gazette. The May 2026 announcement was an enforcement and awareness restatement, not a new rulebook.

The full technical specifications are public and free. The RTA publishes the Dubai Out of Home Advertising Manual, Edition No. 2, 2024 as a 112-page PDF on its own website, and the shopfront rules are in it in full.

One point of navigation first, because it will otherwise cost you an afternoon. DET's May 2026 release encourages stakeholders to refer to "Section 3.4 of the Outdoor Advertising Manual". Section 3.4 of the published manual is Unipoles — the freestanding roadside billboards — at page 59. The shopfront rules are Section 3.40, "Flush wall signage – Shop Front", at page 89, with Section 3.41 "Projected wall signage" at page 91 and Section 3.42 covering films or stickers on glass store facades at page 92. Quote the section title as well as the number when you ask an authority or a fabricator for it.

Section 3.40 defines flush wall signage as business signs affixed on shop fronts carrying the name and logo of the business, and requires them to meet the conditions, provisions and criteria required by RTA, Dubai Municipality and DET together with current by-laws. The measurable limits are these.

Digital shopfront signage is permitted provided it is static in nature, and the size and spacing rules for non-digital signs apply to it unchanged. A projected sign under Section 3.41 is tighter again: maximum height up to 1m, width 0.5m, thickness up to 0.1m, 0.3m between wall and edge, and content restricted to the name and logo in English. The manual also requires the style, colours and graphics of a sign to blend with the front and façade of the building, and it treats sub-fascia installation as permitted only where the sign and letters do not project beyond the defined specifications.

Two consequences for a fit-out programme. The width rule is the one brand teams miss: a fascia is not the full shop width, because 10 per cent at each end must be left blank, and the manual expects your sign to match the size of its neighbours along the block. And any deviation from the standard sizing, positioning or digital specification requires an exceptional approval from the technical committee appointed by RTA, Dubai Municipality and DET, sought through the process in Appendix B of the manual — a defined route, but one with its own lead time, so a non-standard design has to be identified early rather than discovered at inspection.

Executive Council Resolution No. (13) of 2011 does price a "Request for a copy of advertising signboard specifications" at AED 100, and there are situations — a contested design, or a specification you want confirmed for your own file by the authority that will judge the sign — where paying for an authority-issued copy earns its keep. It is not the way to obtain the base specifications, which are a free download. Give your fabricator the manual's own figures, and treat a contractor's assurance about what the manual permits as no evidence of what it says.

There is also a licensing-side obligation that catches out rebranding tenants: Article 19(4) of Law No. (13) of 2011 requires a business to use the trade name specified in its licence in all dealings with third parties. A sign that shows a marketing name rather than the licensed trade name is a problem before anyone reaches the advertising decree.

The DED fees and fines schedule approved by Executive Council Resolution No. (13) of 2011 remains the legislated schedule, and it prices these items directly.

Two things to understand about that table before you use it.

On currency. Every line above was read directly from the resolution's own text on Dubai's official legislation portal, so these are the amounts the legislation sets, quoted rather than reconstructed. What the published record does not settle is whether DET charges them unchanged in 2026. Dubai's official legislation portal carries no repeal note and no "amended by" reference against the resolution, and no amending resolution appears on that portal — but that is an absence of evidence on one portal, not a confirmation, and DET's live fee schedule is not on the public record as at 17 August 2026, so there is nothing to cross-check the legislated amounts against. Treat the 2011 figures as the statutory baseline and as the right list of questions to put to DET, not as a quote. Confirm the amounts before any of them goes into a budget.

On which penalty regime applies. The two regimes are not in competition, and the decree says so itself. Article 17(a) of Decree No. (6) of 2020 sets its range — not less than AED 1,000 and not more than AED 15,000, doubled on repetition of the same violation in the same advertising space within one year, capped at AED 30,000 — expressly "[w]ithout prejudice to any stricter penalty stipulated in any other legislation". Article 17(b) then delegates the detail: "The Chairman of the Executive Council will determine, pursuant to a resolution issued by him in this regard, the prohibited acts and the fines to be imposed on the perpetrators of these acts." An itemised DED schedule approved by an Executive Council resolution is precisely the instrument that article contemplates, and Article 22 repeals other provisions only "to the extent that" they contradict the decree — so the 2011 items survive where they do not conflict.

What remains genuinely open is narrower than "which regime wins". The 2011 resolution predates the 2020 decree by nine years, and Dubai's official legislation portal carries no post-2020 Executive Council resolution setting advertising prohibitions and fines. So the itemised schedule DET actually applies today is unconfirmed. Budget for exposure to both layers rather than picking one: the decree's range, plus Article 17(c) measures that hurt more than the fine — removal of the advertising medium at your expense, revocation of the permit, suspension of your access to the system, and suspension of the establishment's business for up to six months — alongside whichever itemised DED fines are current.

For completeness: Decree No. (20) of 2018 exempted DED-licensed establishments from accrued fines, but it was a one-off amnesty requiring action before the end of 2018 and did not abolish the underlying schedule.

Treat it as a live renewal risk rather than a paperwork nuisance. The premises requirement in Article 17 does not pause because a lease has run out, and Article 30(a)(1) of Law No. (13) of 2011 allows the DED to close a business for failure to renew the licence and cessation of activity, following newspaper publication and a two-week objection window. The fines above then run alongside.

Two points the legislation does settle. Article 8(b) of Law No. (13) of 2011 requires a business to renew "within the last month prior to its expiry", so the statutory renewal window sits before expiry rather than after it — the law writes in a lead time, not a grace period. And the fines schedule prices delay rather than simply prohibiting it: AED 250 for failure to renew within the prescribed period, then AED 200 for each month of delay, with part months rounded up to a full month.

What DET's own published material does not settle is the behaviour of DET's renewal system: whether an expired Ejari produces an immediate system-generated rejection, and whether any operational tolerance attaches to that specific condition. Company-formation firms publish confident answers to exactly this question, but none traced back to a DET publication, so none is repeated here.

Do two things instead of relying on a number. Ask DET in writing what its portal does on the day the Ejari expires, and ask before your renewal month rather than during it, when the answer stops being informational. Then operate on the conservative assumption in the meantime: keep the Ejari valid across the whole renewal window, and diary its expiry as a date separate from the licence expiry, because the two rarely fall together and the earlier one is the one that bites.

Pre-clear the things that block registration rather than the things that block a viewing. Is the title clean and the unit registered at the Land Department? Does the completion certificate match what is physically there, with no unpermitted mezzanines or partitions? Is the area designation right for the tenant type you are targeting? Is there an independent meter, or will you be creating one? Has the previous tenant's contract been formally ended with a final DEWA settlement, since DLD will not register a new contract until it has been?

On the signage side, check the fascia zone against the one-name, horizontal, ground-floor-only framework before you market a unit as suitable for a brand with a vertical logo or a media façade. Units in Dubai retail property are the most exposed to this, because retail tenants are the most likely to arrive with fixed brand standards. Occupier demand context is set out in what Dubai's office space shortage means for investor returns, and because Ejari-registered contracts are the raw data behind DLD's published rent benchmarks, the implications of Dubai's Smart Rental Index are worth reading alongside it. To sense-check a proposed rent against registered evidence for the area, start with our Dubai rental index tool.