Trakheesi and Madmoun: Dubai property advertising permits

The rule and where it sits

The Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) publishes a Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide, second edition, dated November 2024. It states that brokerages must obtain a permit for any real estate advertisement or marketing material through Trakheesi, and that the permit number must be displayed on the advertisement.^[1] The word the guide uses is any, and it covers marketing material as well as advertisements.

Trakheesi is the system the guide names for licences and permits, practice cards, office registration certificates and any violations or warnings issued to a company.^[1] A listing permit therefore sits in the same system as the licence that allows the brokerage to trade, which is why a missing or mismatched permit is a compliance matter and not only a portal matter.

In practice this means that a portal listing, a social post that shows a unit for sale, a printed flyer and a message to a client list are all things to check against the rule. The DLD Real Estate Ad Permit service page is the authority for what each category requires.^[2]

What the permit service covers

The service page lists fourteen categories. They include newspaper, SMS, outdoor, vehicle, printed, electronic and billboard advertisements, promotional campaigns, open house events and classified advertisements. Where the applicant is a broker, the service terms require a copy of the marketing contract with the property owner for most of those categories.^[2]

When it was read for this guide the page listed a fee of AED 1,000 for most permits and AED 5,000 for a project launch event, plus an AED 20 knowledge and innovation fee, with a service time of one working day, and it describes an employee reviewing and approving the request.^[2] Fees are set by the Department and can change, so the live page governs.

The Madmoun QR code

A Dubai Land Department announcement dated 18 April 2023 describes a service called Madmoun. A QR code is issued for any advertisement permit, so that customers can check the authenticity and validity of the advertisement, and real estate companies can activate the code through the Trakheesi system. The announcement says companies were expected to show the code on print and audiovisual advertisements from 24 April.^[3]

The practical meaning is that the permit has two audiences. The regulator sees the number in Trakheesi, and the customer can scan the code on the advertisement. A permit that exists but is missing from a flyer, a post or a message is a permit the customer cannot check. The announcement as read gives no penalty amount, and a fine figure that appears in some search summaries was not found on a DLD page, so none is given here.^[3]

The order of work

The documents themselves fix the sequence. Contract A, in the RERA guide, is the agreement to market a property between the seller and the brokerage, and brokers are required to use these contracts in electronic form.^[1] The permit service asks a broker for the marketing contract with the owner.^[2] A brokerage cannot honestly apply for a permit on a unit it has no right to market.

That gives the order: the owner instructs the brokerage, the marketing contract is signed, the permit is requested, and only then is the listing written, photographed and published. Reversing it, by writing the listing first and chasing the permit afterwards, leaves an office holding a finished listing it cannot show. That is a practical observation, not something the official pages state.

The RERA guide also contains a rule that bears on the first step. Through the Dubai REST app the agency provides a green list of registered owners' contact details, brokers may not contact owners who are not on it, and a violation is issued if they do.^[1] A permit process that starts with an owner instruction should start with a check that the owner is on the list.

Off-plan: a second layer

Off-plan marketing is governed by the developer's own rules as well. Article 5 of Law No. 8 of 2007 on escrow accounts for real estate development says a developer may not advertise in local or international media, or take part in exhibitions to promote off-plan sales, unless it has written authorisation from the Department.^[4] Article 4 says no developer may engage in the business unless it is recorded in the developer register and licensed.^[4]

The law also bears on the broker through the developer. Article 16 provides jail and a fine of at least AED 100,000, or either penalty, for a developer that deals with a real estate broker who is not registered on the Real Estate Brokers Register. That is why developers ask to see a broker's registration number.^[4] Executive Council Resolution No. 6 of 2010 adds that a project marketed through a broker must be registered with the Department, and that the project marketing agreement with the broker must itself be registered.^[5]

The RERA guide turns this into three checks for brokers before they advertise off-plan stock: the project is licensed and registered with the agency, an escrow account is linked to it with buyers instructed to deposit only into that account, and a marketing contract exists between the developer and the brokerage office.^[1]

Portals as a second check

Portals apply their own checks on top of the official ones. Property Finder's public enterprise API reference describes a compliance check that takes a permit number and a licence number and returns the official data, and it describes the portal as blocking publication where listing fields contradict that data. It also states that brokers need permits at unit level, with project-level permits for developers, and that listings in DIFC and JAFZA are exempt.^[6]

These are portal rules and tools, not the law, and they change. They matter for a practical reason. A portal can stop a listing at the moment of publication, so a missing permit shows up as lost hours before it shows up as a letter from a regulator.

Other approvals that sit beside the permit

A DLD permit does not cover everything an advertisement says or shows. Four other instruments are worth knowing, each described here and not interpreted for any one case.

• Media content. Article 33 of the executive regulations of the federal Media Law (Cabinet Resolution No. 68 of 2024) requires advertisements to be unambiguous and factual and bars incorrect or misleading claims and exaggeration. Article 33(10) requires approval from the relevant authority for real estate advertisements, among other sectors.^[7]
• The Dubai emblem. Dubai Law No. 1 of 2025 prohibits non-government entities from using the emblem in any manner without authorisation, and from using it for the purpose of advertising or promoting products. The measures it lists include closing the establishment and revoking the commercial licence.^[8]
• Outdoor media. Administrative Resolution No. 180 of 2025 approves an Out-of-Home Advertising Manual. It covers physical outdoor media, and the text of the manual was not read for this guide, so take advice before placing a billboard.^[9]
• Content creators. Press and free-zone summaries report that since 1 February 2026 the UAE Media Council has required an advertiser permit for paid and unpaid promotional content, with an exemption for promoting your own business where there is no brand deal. This is secondary reporting, so check the Council's own terms before engaging a creator.^[10]

What the sources do not say

Several points that offices ask about could not be confirmed on official pages. The pages read give no fine amount for advertising without a permit. They give no period of validity for a permit, so the sensible approach is to record whatever expiry the system shows against each listing.

The Department's fees and terms can also change without notice. A brokerage that uses these pages to set up its process should re-read the service page when it reviews the process, and should keep the date it last did so.

Keeping the permit with the listing

The rule is simple, and the failures are about sequence and ownership. Useful questions for an office to ask of its own files: was the permit dated before the listing was written, is a signed Contract A on file for each live listing, which live advertisements across channels show the number or the QR code, and who answers for permits when the agent is away.

A shared sheet with a column for each of those answers works for a small office. The Works CRM, which The Works Group sells and which is still in build, keeps the permit numbers and the Madmoun code on each property, and its product page states that a unit without a live permit or a valid Form A cannot go live.^[11] It is one way of recording this, not the only one, and no software can make an office compliant on its own.

Questions