Trakheesi permit: what Dubai brokers do before advertising

What does RERA actually require before a listing goes live?

The sentence that governs this sits in one paragraph of the Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide, second edition, reference DLD/RERA/RL/LP/Manual/No.6/Vr.2, issue date November 2024. RERA writes that brokerages "must obtain a permit for any real estate advertisement or marketing material through the Trakheesi system" and adds that "the permit number must be displayed on the ad". Two obligations, not one. Getting the permit and printing the number are separate things, and an agency that pulls the permit and then publishes a carousel without the number has met half the rule.

The service behind that sentence covers 14 advertisement types: newspaper ads, SMS ads, outdoor ads, vehicle ads, print ads, electronic ads, billboards, promotional campaigns, open days, classified ads, real estate exhibitions, project launch ceremonies, real estate promotion platforms and real estate seminars. Read that list the way a compliance officer reads it. A portal listing is an electronic ad and a classified ad. A boosted Instagram post about a unit is an electronic ad. An open house is its own category. The published categories do not describe a threshold of spend or reach below which the permit stops applying.

What does a Trakheesi advertising permit cost?

DLD publishes the fees on the Real Estate Ad Permit service card, and this is the table to trust over anything you read on a brokerage blog.

Item on the DLD service card	Published fee
Other permits	AED 1,000
Project launch event permit	AED 5,000
Knowledge and innovation fee	AED 20
Preliminary booking fee, exhibition	AED 10,200
Participation fee per exhibitor	AED 1,020

Two things that card does not say, and it matters that it does not say them. It does not publish a separate per listing price for a single secondary unit, and the lower per advert figures that circulate around the market are not on it. It also does not print a validity period for the permit. Agencies work to internal renewal cycles and portals expire listings on their own schedules, so ask your ORN holder what your Trakheesi account is actually being charged and how long your permits are being issued for, rather than taking a number off a search result. The service duration DLD publishes is one working day, and the channel is the DLD website through Trakheesi.

What has to appear on the advertisement itself?

The permit number. That is the requirement RERA states, and it applies to the advertisement, which means the portal listing, the printed brochure, the billboard and the social asset. Property Finder, Bayut and Dubizzle all carry a permit number field on a Dubai listing, which is the portals implementing the same rule at their end.

Brokers usually also print the office registration number and the broker card number, ORN and BRN, and clients increasingly look for them. Those are Dubai instruments issued through Trakheesi alongside the permit. The obligation written into the Practice Guide paragraph is the permit number, so treat ORN and BRN as the market standard rather than as the same rule.

Anyone can check you. DLD runs a Verify License and Permits service on its website and inside the Dubai REST app that validates licences and permits issued through Trakheesi, and it returns a result immediately. Your seller can check the permit against the unit. So can the agency down the road that wants the mandate.

What do you need in hand before Trakheesi will issue one?

A marketing contract with the owner. The DLD service card lists a copy of the marketing contract with the property owner among the terms, and the Practice Guide sets out the smart contracts RERA expects brokers to use: Contract A is the agreement to market a property between the seller and the brokerage, Contract B the buyer side agreement, Contract F the sale agreement between seller and buyer. Contract A is the document the advertising permission rests on.

Off plan is stricter, and it is stricter before you advertise rather than at the sale. RERA requires a broker marketing an off plan project to confirm the project is licensed and registered with the agency, to confirm an escrow account exists and to instruct buyers to pay only into it, and to hold a marketing contract between the developer and the brokerage office. You validate the project registration in the Dubai REST app through Mashrooi.

One more rule that catches new agents. RERA operates a green list of registered owners inside Dubai REST, and brokers are not allowed to contact owners who are not on it. Contacting an owner outside the green list is a violation, and the Practice Guide says operations can be suspended where a complaint or report follows. A Trakheesi permit does not cover the call itself, because its categories are published and broadcast media, so the rules on contacting owners run alongside this rather than inside it.

What happens if the permit is missing or wrong?

DLD publishes its enforcement. In one release the department fined a group of real estate companies and issued warnings to a larger group for advertising breaches, and it named three behaviours: advertising without obtaining a permit, manipulating permit numbers, and using expired permits. The release states that the matter can escalate to cancellation of the licence.

Be careful with penalty figures. A single fine amount gets repeated across brokerage blogs and listing tools with great confidence and no citation, and it is quoted for situations that have nothing to do with the case that produced it. If a number matters to a decision you are about to make, get it from the circular that applies to your breach or from your licensing contact at DLD, and treat the rest as market chatter.

The commercial cost usually arrives before the regulatory one. A listing with a missing or mismatched permit number gets pulled by the portal, and the unit loses its position and its accumulated leads while you sort the paperwork out. If Abu Dhabi is also on your patch, the equivalent regime there is different in almost every detail and worth reading separately in our guide to Madhmoun permits and the other emirates. The permit is the entry ticket rather than the whole job, and what the portals do with the listing afterwards is set out in our guide to Property Finder and Bayut listing standards.

Frequently asked questions

Does a social media post about a unit need a permit?

The published category list includes electronic advertisements and real estate promotion platforms, and RERA writes the rule as covering any real estate advertisement or marketing material. Nothing in the Practice Guide creates an exemption for a personal account or an unpaid post. Agencies that treat social as outside the rule are relying on an exemption that is not written down.

Does one permit cover several properties?

The DLD service card is structured around the advertisement rather than the agency, with a campaign level permit for project launches and promotional campaigns and separate handling for exhibitions. A single unit advertisement and a project campaign are different applications with different fees. Ask your ORN holder how your account is set up before you assume a permit you already hold stretches to a new unit.

Who applies, the agent or the brokerage?

The brokerage. The DLD service card records the applicant status as a company, and Trakheesi holds the office registration that the permit is issued against. The individual broker card is a separate Trakheesi credential obtained after the licence is registered on the system.

Is a Trakheesi number the same as an Abu Dhabi permit number?

No. Trakheesi is a Dubai Land Department system and it issues Dubai permits. An Abu Dhabi mainland listing needs an ADREC permit through DARI, and a unit on Al Maryah or Al Reem sits under ADGM instead. The numbers are not interchangeable and the portals keep them in different fields.

Sources

• DLD and RERA, Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide, second edition, DLD/RERA/RL/LP/Manual/No.6/Vr.2, November 2024
• Dubai Land Department, Real Estate Ad Permit service card, fees, categories and one working day duration
• Trakheesi system, Dubai Land Department
• Dubai Land Department, Verify License and Permits
• Dubai Land Department, DLD fines 10 real estate companies and warns another 30 for not adhering to advertising requirements

Last verified: 2026-09-02