Advertising a property in the UAE: the rules by emirate

Which authority regulates a property ad in each emirate?

Dubai's regulator is RERA, operating inside the Dubai Land Department. The Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide, second edition, states that brokerages must obtain a permit for any real estate advertisement or marketing material through the Trakheesi system, and that the permit number must be displayed on the ad. The DLD's own Real Estate Ad Permit service card lists 14 categories of advertisement covered, from newspaper ads to electronic ads to open house events, and sets a one working day service duration. Our guide to the Trakheesi permit covers the application, the fees and the documents Trakheesi asks for.

Abu Dhabi's regulator is the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre, ADREC, and its system is Madhmoun, applied for through the DARI portal. Madhmoun became mandatory on 7 July 2025, with listings that predated the rule needing revalidation by 7 August 2025. ADGM, the financial free zone covering Al Reem Island and Al Maryah Island, runs its own advertising permit service in partnership with Madhmoun rather than falling under ADREC directly. The full detail, including published fees, is in our guide to Madhmoun permits in Abu Dhabi.

The other five emirates each have an identifiable regulator: the Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department, Ajman's government service catalogue lists a dedicated real estate advertisement permission service, Ras Al Khaimah Municipality runs a real estate regulatory administration, and Umm Al Quwain's Department of Land and Property maintains its own service catalogue. None of the four publishes a permit fee schedule, a service duration or an advertisement category list as specific as Dubai's or Abu Dhabi's. That gap is not a guess. It is the absence of a document to cite, and it is worth stating plainly rather than inventing a rule that has not been published.

Dubai has two systems with confusingly similar names, and they are not the same thing

Trakheesi is the permit system. A second, separate mechanism sits alongside it: Dubai Land Department's own QR code verification, which the market sometimes calls Madmoun, introduced in April 2023 to let a buyer scan a listing and confirm the advertisement is officially approved through RERA. It is spelled almost identically to Abu Dhabi's Madhmoun and does an adjacent job, generating a QR code against a listing rather than gating whether the ad can run at all. An agent moving between Dubai and Abu Dhabi paperwork who assumes these are the same system, or that a Dubai Madmoun code satisfies an Abu Dhabi Madhmoun requirement, is wrong in both directions. They are issued by different authorities, cover different emirates, and one applicant credential does not carry over to the other.

How many brokers can advertise the same unit at once?

Dubai limits this directly. Since October 2022, a seller can generate a maximum of three Trakheesi permits for one listing, which means a maximum of three agents can advertise that unit online at the same time. Abu Dhabi's Madhmoun system carries an equivalent limit, restricting each property to a maximum of three approved brokers advertising it concurrently. Both caps exist to stop the same unit appearing dozens of times across the portals under different names and different prices, which is the duplicate listing problem the portals otherwise have to police themselves. The mechanics of the cap, what happens when a fourth agent tries to list, and how an exclusive mandate interacts with it are covered in our guide to the three broker limit.

What do the portals check before an ad goes live, regardless of emirate?

Independently of what a regulator publishes, the portals run their own checks. Bayut's ADREC Madhmoun guidance states plainly that listings without a valid Madhmoun permit are automatically flagged or removed, and that advertising a property without a valid permit or with an expired one is treated as a regulatory violation rather than a listing quality issue. Off plan resale listings on Bayut can also carry a Checked or TruCheck badge, which verifies authenticity against Dubai Land Department records and, according to Bayut, correlates with 20 times more impressions and 5 times more leads than an unverified listing. The badge is valid for 45 days per listing and applies to off plan resale property in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Enforcement is not theoretical. Dubai Land Department has publicly named the violations it fines for: companies that did not obtain advertising permits, manipulation of the use of advertising permit numbers, and use of expired permits. In one enforcement action, DLD confirmed fines against 10 companies and warnings to 30 more, describing the fine as progressive from AED 50,000 with the possibility of escalating to cancellation of the violating company's licence. That is the ceiling a portal takedown is protecting a brokerage from, not a separate, softer track.

Emirate	Advertising authority	Published permit system
Dubai	RERA, Dubai Land Department	Trakheesi, plus DLD QR code verification since April 2023
Abu Dhabi	Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC)	Madhmoun, via the DARI portal, mandatory since 7 July 2025
Sharjah, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al Quwain	A named regulator exists in each emirate	No advertising permit fee schedule or service duration is publicly documented

What should a broker check before publishing anywhere in the UAE?

Start with the emirate the property physically sits in, not the emirate the brokerage is licensed in. A Dubai licensed brokerage advertising a Ras Al Khaimah unit is subject to Ras Al Khaimah's rules for that listing, thin as the published detail is, not Dubai's. Confirm the permit number field the portal is asking for matches the system that emirate actually runs. Confirm the marketing contract with the owner exists and names the brokerage correctly, since Dubai's own service card lists a copy of that contract among the requirements for an ad permit. And treat a badge, QR code or verification mark from one emirate as proof of nothing in another. The three broker cap, the permit categories and the enforcement record above all sit inside Dubai and Abu Dhabi specifically. Outside those two, confirm directly with the regulator rather than assume the Dubai or Abu Dhabi rule travels.

Frequently asked questions

Does a UAE wide advertising licence exist?

No single licence or permit covers all seven emirates. A brokerage advertising in more than one emirate holds a separate permit or registration for each one, issued by that emirate's own regulator.

Is Dubai's Madmoun QR code the same as Abu Dhabi's Madhmoun permit?

No. They are separate systems from separate regulators with near identical names. Dubai's is a QR verification layer on top of Trakheesi. Abu Dhabi's Madhmoun is the advertising permit itself, mandatory since 7 July 2025.

What happens if a brokerage advertises the same unit through four agents?

In Dubai, the cap is three Trakheesi permits per listing. A fourth agent cannot generate a valid permit for the same unit under the current rule, which is the mechanism the market uses to stop duplicate listings rather than a manual portal review catching it after publication.

Are Sharjah, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain safe to ignore for compliance purposes?

No. Each has an identified regulator and a real estate framework. What is missing is a public, detailed advertising permit fee schedule and process comparable to Dubai's or Abu Dhabi's, which means a broker working there should confirm requirements directly with that emirate's regulator rather than assume a lighter published record means a lighter actual rule.

Where should a broker start if they are compliant in Dubai but new to Abu Dhabi?

Start with Madhmoun through the DARI portal before publishing anything, and confirm whether the unit sits in ADREC's jurisdiction or in ADGM, since Al Reem Island and Al Maryah Island run their advertising permit service through ADGM in partnership with Madhmoun rather than directly through ADREC.

Sources

• Dubai Land Department, Real Estate Ad Permit service card, fees, categories and one working day duration
• Dubai Land Department, DLD fines 10 real estate companies and warns another 30 for not adhering to advertising requirements
• Bayut agent portal, authentic property listings in Dubai, on the three Trakheesi permit cap since October 2022 and the DLD QR code launched April 2023
• Bayut, ADREC Madhmoun explained, on automatic flagging and removal and the three broker cap in Abu Dhabi
• Bayut agent portal, the Checked and TruCheck badge for off plan property listings, 45 day validity and the impressions and leads figures

Last verified: 2026-09-02