Trade Licence Costs, Line by Line

A trade licence quotation can arrive as a single number. Behind it sit fees set by Dubai Economy and Tourism, costs charged by other bodies, the rent on your premises and a provider's fee. The number means nothing until you can see which is which.

This article sets out the lines for a new Dubai mainland licence. It sits inside the wider Dubai setup overview, and it assumes you have already identified your activity. If you have not, start with the licence types, because the activity changes the cost.

Fees checked on 18 September 2026.

The three groups

Government charges are set and published by the authority.

Mandatory third-party costs are not Dubai Economy and Tourism fees, but the licence cannot be issued without them. Registering the lease is the clearest example.

Service fees are what a provider charges for the work. They are set by the provider.

A quotation that merges the three is not necessarily wrong. It is simply impossible to check.

Group one: government charges before the licence

Initial approval. Dubai Economy and Tourism publishes the initial approval service at AED 120, with a service time of "10 minutes - Regular". It describes initial approval as "necessary to complete procedures in other government departments and obtain their approvals".

Trade name reservation. Dubai Economy and Tourism's FAQ states: "Initial approval: 120 AED , trade name reservation: 620 AED". We found the reservation figure only on that FAQ page, which is undated, and not on a service card reviewed on 18 September 2026. Confirm it on the service card when you apply.

Group one continued: government charges at issuance

Dubai Economy and Tourism's service for issuing a trade licence describes it as "A service through which customers receive a trade license to practice a business activity after obtaining the external approval and registering the lease." The page publishes these fee lines.

The page states validity of one year or two years.

Read the table in two halves. The first five lines carry no activity or name condition on the page, and total AED 1,020. The remaining lines depend on the name you choose and the activity you hold. The largest published amounts sit in the second half, so find out which of those lines, if any, apply to you.

One year or two

The issuance page states that a licence can be issued for one year or two years. When you compare quotations, check that they cover the same validity. A one-year quotation and a two-year quotation are not comparable until you know which lines each one pays once, which it pays per year, and what the renewal will cost at the end of the term.

Contract attestation lines

Where the company needs its establishment contract or a service agent contract attested, the same page publishes separate lines:

• "AED 300 for each party's signature on the document for attestation of signatures on a document valued less than AED 100,000."
• "%0.5 of the document value with a maximum of AED 15.000 for attestation of signatures on a document valued more than AED 100,000." We have reproduced the page's own formatting.
• AED 500 to postpone completion of the transaction to the following day, at the parties' request.
• AED 500 for signature by one of the parties at a different services centre.
• AED 100 for the e-signature of each concerned party.

Ask the provider which of these, if any, apply to your application, and why.

Charges linked to rent

Dubai Economy and Tourism's official cost estimators take the yearly rent of the premises as an input. We did not find a published rate for any rent-linked charge on the issuance page, the renewal page, the FAQ or the two estimator help pages reviewed on 18 September 2026. Use the official estimator with your own rent figure rather than a percentage quoted by anyone else.

Group two: mandatory third-party costs

Premises. The licence is issued after "registering the lease", so the rent itself is part of the cost of being licensed. Your own lease sets the figure. What a business centre package includes, and what it does not, is covered separately.

Lease registration (Ejari). Dubai Land Department publishes the Ejari registration through its app or website as AED 100 for registering a tenancy contract, 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 published total is AED 220.

External approvals. Some activities need approval from an authority other than Dubai Economy and Tourism. Any fee for that approval is not on the Dubai Economy and Tourism issuance page, so ask the approving authority. We did not find a consolidated list of external approvals and their fees on the pages reviewed on 18 September 2026, so ask for each one by name.

Possible third-party costs

Dubai Chambers membership. We did not find an official statement that Chamber membership is required for every mainland licence on the pages reviewed on 18 September 2026. The issuance page includes a Dubai Chamber fee within the merchant licence line. Dubai Chambers publishes new-member fees by category on its own site, updated 20 July 2026. Examples include "National establishments (practising specific activity): AED 700", "General trading: AED 1,200 - AED 2,200" and "Handicraft, e-traders and Intelaq licence: AED 300". Ask the provider whether a Chamber line is in your quotation, which category it uses, and check it against the Chamber's page.

Group three: service fees

We do not publish a RINJAZ fee in this article. What you should expect from any provider, us included, is a written fee that sits beside the government and third-party lines rather than absorbing them.

Costs that belong in a different budget

Three costs can be folded into a "licence package" but are not licence costs.

• Hiring costs. Establishment cards, work permits and residence permits are separate transactions with separate authorities. The per-employee visa cost breakdown covers them.
• Renewal. The renewal service publishes different amounts for several lines. For example, it lists "General Trading Fee: AED 3,000" and "Business Center Fees: AED 5,000", against AED 15,000 and AED 25,000 at issuance. Renewal is covered in its own article.
• Changes after issue. Adding an activity or a partner is an amendment, with its own fees.

A note on one conflict. Dubai Economy and Tourism's FAQ describes "An annual fee of 25,000 twenty five thousand AED" for every business centre site, while the renewal page lists AED 5,000 for business centres. These may be different fee lines. We have not resolved the difference, and a business centre operator should confirm the current position with the authority.

Five questions to ask about any quotation

This list is ours.

1. Which activity, and which activity code, is the quotation based on?
2. Does the trade name you want trigger the foreign trade name fee?
3. Which external approvals are included, and which authority sets each fee?
4. Is the rent, the Ejari registration and any Chamber line included, or separate?
5. Is this a one-year or two-year licence, and what will the renewal lines be?

A provider who answers all five in writing has given you a quotation you can check. A provider who answers none has given you a price.

Practical asset: the quotation audit worksheet. Take any quotation and rebuild it in three columns. Government: initial approval; trade name reservation; the five lines listed without a condition; any foreign trade name fee; any activity-specific fee; any contract attestation line. For each, write the published amount beside the amount quoted. Third-party: rent; Ejari; each external approval by name; any Chamber line. For each, ask for the third party's receipt. Service: the provider's written fee. Then add a fourth line for anything left over. If the fourth line is not zero, ask what it is. The worksheet does not tell you whether a price is fair. It tells you what you are paying for.

Why there is no total in this article

Any total would have to assume an activity, a trade name, a premises and an approval route. Each of those changes the bill. A published average would be wrong for almost every reader, and you would anchor on it. The lines above are the published facts. Your total comes from applying them to your own case.

Information verified against official sources on 18 September 2026. Fees checked on 18 September 2026.

Send us your quotation. If you send it, we can map it line by line against the published fees, mark any line we cannot match to an official source, and return it in the three-column format above, each government figure with its source and the date we checked it. If a cost is not officially published, the audit will say so rather than estimate it.

Paying every fee on this page does not buy a licence. Dubai Economy and Tourism decides whether to issue it, and any external approving authority decides its own approval. A service provider's role, within whatever its licensed activity covers, is to prepare the application, submit it, coordinate the approvals and track it.