Trakheesi Permits in Dubai: How the System Works (2026)

Every Dubai property advertisement needs a permit number before it is published, and the system that issues it is Trakheesi, run by the Dubai Land Department. The rule is not portal policy — the portals enforce it because DLD requires it, and it applies equally to a listing no portal ever sees.

What is Trakheesi and what is a Trakheesi permit?

Trakheesi is DLD's licensing and permitting platform. Brokerages use it for trade licence services, broker card issuance and, most often day to day, the Real Estate Ad Permit — the advertising permit whose number must appear on a property advert. That permit is issued under DLD's Real Estate Ad Permit e-service, which states a fee of AED 1,000 plus an AED 20 Knowledge and Innovation Fee and a processing time of one working day (DLD e-service page, accessed 10 September 2026).

A permit is issued against a specific property and a specific advert, not against the brokerage in general. One permit does not cover a second unit, and it does not cover a re-listing of the same unit after the marketing agreement changes. This is the detail that most often catches out a team treating the permit as an annual licence rather than a per-listing artefact.

The number appears on portals as the "RERA permit number", the "Trakheesi permit number" or simply "permit number". All three describe the same artefact: an advertising permit issued through Trakheesi by DLD.

Where do brokers access Trakheesi?

Brokers access Trakheesi through the Dubai Land Department website at dubailand.gov.ae, where it is listed among DLD's e-services. Sign-in is under the brokerage's own DLD account, and access levels differ for broker card holders, brokerage administrators and agents. Trakheesi is also reachable through the Dubai REST ecosystem.

Property Finder's guide lists Trakheesi customer service as +971-800-4488 for access problems, and states DLD approval within 24 hours; Bayut gives two working days for broker card issuance. Both are portal-reported figures rather than DLD-stated ones.

There is one legitimate destination. Applications are made by the brokerage, through DLD, under the brokerage's own account — Tend does not sign in on a brokerage's behalf or issue permit numbers, and you should be wary of any product that offers to.

What does a Trakheesi permit cost?

DLD's own Real Estate Ad Permit e-service page is the authoritative source, and it settles a figure that circulates incorrectly. A Real Estate Ad Permit is AED 1,000, plus an AED 20 Knowledge and Innovation Fee — AED 1,020 in total. Processing time is stated as one working day.

Permit or service	Fee	Source
Real Estate Ad Permit	AED 1,000 + AED 20 KIF	DLD e-service page
Project Launch Event Permit	AED 5,000	DLD e-service page
Exhibition, preliminary booking	AED 10,200, non-refundable	DLD e-service page
Exhibition, per exhibitor	AED 1,020	DLD e-service page
Broker card (e-card)	AED 220	Property Finder, portal-reported

The widely repeated "AED 220 Trakheesi permit" is the broker card fee, not an advertising permit fee. Rows are separated by source deliberately: the top four come from DLD, the last one does not.

How do you get a Trakheesi permit for a listing?

The permit follows the marketing authority. A brokerage cannot obtain one without a documented right to market the property, which is the substantive requirement behind the paperwork.

1. Secure the marketing agreement. Form A for a resale listing, or a developer NOC for off-plan. This is the gate — no marketing contract, no permit.
2. Confirm the broker card and licence are current. An expired card blocks the application before the listing details matter.
3. Submit through Trakheesi on the DLD website, with the property details and the supporting document attached.
4. Pay the fee — AED 1,000 plus the AED 20 Knowledge and Innovation Fee for a standard ad permit.
5. Publish carrying the permit number and Madmoun QR code, both issued on approval.

DLD states one working day for processing. Rental listings follow the same path as sales, with the tenancy-side documentation in place of a sale mandate.

What is Madmoun and where does the QR code go?

Madmoun is the QR code issued alongside a real estate advertising permit. It lets a customer verify an advertisement's authenticity and validity through Trakheesi — the consumer-facing half of the permit system.

DLD announced Madmoun on 18 April 2023, effective 24 April 2023, in a statement by H.E. Eng. Marwan bin Ghalita, then CEO of RERA at DLD. All real estate companies are expected to feature the QR code on their print and audiovisual advertisements.

For a brokerage, the practical consequence is that permit compliance became publicly checkable. Anyone looking at a hoarding, a brochure or a portal listing can scan the code and see whether the advert is backed by a live permit. Enforcement no longer depends on an inspector being present — a competitor, a landlord or a buyer can check any advert from their phone, which is a different risk profile from periodic inspection.

How does DLD enforce advertising permits?

Actively, and the citable numbers come from DLD's own enforcement release rather than from industry commentary. In the first half of 2024, DLD's Real Estate Control Department fined 256 brokers for failing to comply with advertising terms and conditions. Those are the most recent enforcement figures DLD has published; treat them as a picture of enforcement posture rather than a current-year count.

Enforcement activity, H1 2024	Figure
Brokers fined	256
Field inspection tours	450
Advertisement inspections	1,530
Legal warnings issued	1,200

Those figures are attributed to Ali Abdullah Al Ali, Director of the Real Estate Control Department at RERA, in a DLD release published 17 July 2024.

One correction, because nearly every article on this topic repeats it: the AED 50,000 fine figure is widely circulated across industry sources but does not appear in DLD's enforcement release, which names no AED amount. Treat it as reported rather than confirmed, and check the current penalty schedule with DLD before relying on a number.

How long is a Trakheesi permit valid?

This is genuinely unresolved in public sources, and it is more useful to say so than to pick a number. Published guides variously state 60 days, three months and one year. DLD's Real Estate Ad Permit e-service page states no validity period at all.

Claimed validity	Where it appears
60 days	Industry guides
60 days to 3 months	Industry guides, self-flagged as conflicting
One year	Portal-reported, not DLD-confirmed
Not stated	DLD e-service page

The operationally safe approach is to treat the expiry date returned with the permit itself as authoritative, and to track it per listing rather than assuming a standard term. A brokerage running several hundred live adverts is managing several hundred independent expiry dates — a records problem before it is a compliance problem.

Does the permit rule apply to WhatsApp and social media?

Yes. The requirement attaches to the advertisement, not to the platform. It covers portals, print, billboards, SMS and social media, which includes a broadcast promoting a specific property.

This catches teams who assume the rule is a portal rule. An agent forwarding a unit to a broadcast list is advertising a property in Dubai, and the same permit obligation applies as it would to a portal listing. A one-to-one reply to a buyer who asked about a specific property is a different act from a promotional broadcast to a list, which is why the distinction between responding and advertising is worth being deliberate about.

Where does Tend fit here?

Permits are issued by DLD, under the brokerage's own account. What a brokerage needs on its own side is the record — which advert went out, for which property, under which permit number, and to whom. Tend is a WhatsApp AI agent and CRM for Dubai brokerages, and that record is what it holds.

The structural point is ownership. Every WhatsApp thread belongs to the agency rather than to the agent's handset, so what was sent about a property stays retrievable after that agent has moved on. For a brokerage whose enquiries run over WhatsApp — Click-to-WhatsApp ads, the number on a listing, referrals — that means the conversation history stays with the agency rather than on individual handsets.

Alongside it sits the property record. Off-plan projects carry RERA permit, DLD registration and escrow fields as structured data, so the permit number sits on the project record itself rather than in a separately maintained spreadsheet that someone has to remember to update.

Tend is priced per agency, not per conversation. Starter is AED 499 per month for three agents (up to five), Team AED 999 for five (up to 15), and Growth AED 1,999 for 15 (up to 30). Pro starts from AED 3,499 for 30-plus agents. Extra agents are AED 99 each within a tier's limit, and Growth and Pro carry a one-time onboarding fee, billed as its own line rather than folded into the monthly price. If your adverts and enquiries both run over WhatsApp, the question worth answering first is a concrete one: pick any property you advertised last quarter and see how long it takes to produce what was sent about it, by whom, and under which permit number.

How current is this information?

Fee figures, processing time and permit scope come from the Dubai Land Department Real Estate Ad Permit e-service page, accessed 10 September 2026. Enforcement figures come from a DLD release published 17 July 2024. The Madmoun requirement comes from a DLD release of 18 April 2023.

Broker card fees, the 24-hour approval time and the customer service number are portal-reported by Property Finder and Bayut rather than DLD-confirmed, and are labelled as such above. The validity period and the AED 50,000 fine figure could not be confirmed on a DLD source and are presented as unresolved rather than settled.

Government fees and procedures change. Verify current figures with DLD directly before acting on them. Figures on this page were last verified on 10 September 2026.