Key takeaways
- Without a RERA-registered tenancy contract you cannot renew. DED’s system retrieves your rent from RERA to calculate the market fee, so the renewal cannot proceed without it. This stops more renewals than everything else combined.
- The register fee is AED 600 — and it is not the bill. Activity fees dwarf it: AED 3,000 for general trading, AED 5,000 for a business centre.
- Three charges are calculated from your own circumstances — market fee, accommodation fee and general cleaning fees — which is why no one can quote your total without your licence in front of them.
- Dubai approved AED 2.5 billion of economic incentives in 2026 across two packages, several of which touch licence renewal directly. Most are deferrals, not waivers — a distinction that matters enormously.
- A licence is valid for one year and can be renewed online before or after expiry.
- You can renew by SMS to 6969, which most owners do not know.
Trade licence renewal in Dubai is straightforward when the paperwork behind it is in order, and immovable when it is not. The difference is almost always the tenancy registration — and by the time you discover that, the licence has usually expired.
This guide covers the published fees and what each one actually is, the three charges that vary by company, the RERA dependency that blocks renewals, the full renewal process across every channel, the external approvals that regulated activities trigger, and the 2026 incentive measures that change what some businesses pay.
The fee structure, as published
| Item | Fee |
|---|---|
| Licence register fee | AED 600 |
| Trade name advertisements | AED 350 |
| Service request form | AED 50 |
| Knowledge Dirham | AED 10 |
| Innovation Dirham | AED 10 |
| Foreign trade name fee | AED 1,000 to 3,000 |
| General trading fee | AED 3,000 |
| Investment activity fee | AED 3,000 |
| Construction contracting activities | AED 3,000 |
| Business centre fee | AED 5,000 |
People anchor on the AED 600 register fee and are startled by the payment letter. The activity fees are the larger numbers, and they apply according to what your licence permits — a general trading licence carries AED 3,000 on top before anything else is counted.
A trade name in a foreign language adds AED 1,000 to 3,000 of its own.
What each line actually is
Worth understanding, because knowing which charges are structural and which are avoidable tells you where the total is negotiable at the point of setting a licence up — and it is almost never negotiable at renewal.
| Line | What it is | Can you change it? |
|---|---|---|
| Licence register fee | The core charge for maintaining the licence on the register | No — every licence pays it |
| Trade name advertisements | Publication associated with the trade name | No |
| Service request form | The transaction charge for the request itself | No |
| Knowledge Dirham / Innovation Dirham | Nominal levies applied across government transactions, funding knowledge and innovation programmes | No — AED 10 each, applied broadly |
| Foreign trade name fee | Applies where the trade name is in a foreign language | Only by changing the trade name — an amendment, not a renewal |
| Activity fees | Charged according to the activities your licence permits | Only by removing an activity — an amendment with its own consequences |
The AED 3,000 general trading fee, the AED 5,000 business centre fee, the foreign trade name fee — these follow the structure of the licence, and they recur every single year for as long as that structure stands.
Which means a decision taken casually at company formation, often to keep options open, becomes an annual charge nobody revisits. Businesses carry general trading activities they have never traded under, and pay AED 3,000 a year for the privilege.
Renewal is not the moment to fix it — removing an activity is an amendment with its own process. But it is the moment to notice it, and to decide deliberately whether the optionality is worth the annual cost. Read the activity list on your payment letter each year rather than glancing at the total.
The Knowledge and Innovation Dirham, briefly
Two AED 10 lines that people query more often than their size warrants, usually because they appear on transactions where nothing obviously knowledge-related or innovative has occurred.
They are nominal levies applied across a wide range of government transactions rather than charges specific to your licence, and they fund knowledge and innovation programmes. At AED 20 combined they are not worth managing. They are worth recognising on a payment letter, so that an unfamiliar line does not send you back to your provider asking what it is.
The 2026 incentive packages and your renewal bill
This is the part of the picture that changed during 2026, and it is worth setting out carefully because the difference between a deferral and an exemption is the difference between paying later and not paying at all.
Dubai approved two economic incentive packages in 2026. Together they total AED 2.5 billion, and both touch business licensing.
| First package | Second package | |
|---|---|---|
| Value | AED 1 billion | AED 1.5 billion |
| Approved | 30 March 2026, Dubai Executive Council | 21 May 2026 |
| Implementation | Three to six months, from 1 April 2026 | 33 initiatives over three to 12 months |
| Nature | Largely deferrals | A mix of deferrals and exemptions |
What the first package deferred
For a period of three months from 1 April 2026, the following fees were deferred, and the deferrals applied to both new licences and renewals:
| Fee deferred | Relevance to renewal |
|---|---|
| Premium business names | Applies where the trade name carries a premium classification |
| Licence amendment fees | Relevant where you are amending alongside renewing |
| Newspaper announcement fees | Publication charges |
| Local service fees | Applied on licensing transactions |
| Accommodation fees | One of the three variable charges on a renewal |
| Waste management fees | Municipal charges attaching to the establishment |
| Service improvement fees | Applied on licensing transactions |
This is the single most important thing to understand about the first package, and it is the thing most easily misread.
A deferred fee is still owed. The announcement stated that businesses would be provided with an update at the end of the three-month period — not that the fees would be written off.
If you renewed during that window and your payment letter was lighter than you expected, do not treat the difference as a saving. Treat it as a liability with an unconfirmed due date, and keep the cash against it. A business that spent a deferral is a business that will be surprised twice.
The deferral window ran three months from 1 April 2026. Confirm the current position with DET before assuming any fee is still deferred today.
What the second package exempted
The May package is more consequential for a small number of businesses, because it contains genuine exemptions rather than deferrals.
Companies facing temporary business continuity challenges — specifically desert safari and camping operators, marina-related businesses, aviation-related activities, drone and fireworks companies, and event management companies — receive a one-time full exemption from certain fees administered by both the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism and Dubai Municipality:
| Fee exempted | What this removes from a renewal |
|---|---|
| Market fees | The largest variable charge, calculated from registered rent |
| Accommodation allowance fees for employees and licence holders | A variable charge on the renewal |
| General cleaning service fees | The third variable charge |
| Foreign trade name fees | AED 1,000 to 3,000 where applicable |
A one-time full exemption from market fees, accommodation fees, cleaning fees and the foreign trade name fee removes essentially every variable charge on the renewal, and the market fee is usually the largest single number on the bill.
The eligible categories are narrow and named. If your licence sits in one of them, confirm with DET how the exemption is applied to your renewal — whether automatically or on request — because the announcement stated that implementation timeframes would be announced by the respective government entities responsible for each initiative.
If your licence does not sit in one of them, this measure does not apply to you, however similar your business feels to one that does.
Education and cultural sector measures
Two further strands are worth knowing if you operate in these sectors, because both touch licence renewal directly.
Private institutions registered with KHDA benefit from the deferral and instalment of licence renewal fees, and the deferral of fines.
Early childhood facilities registered with KHDA go further: they are exempt from licence renewal fees, from fines, and from Dubai Municipality market fees.
Private institutions get a deferral and the option to pay by instalment. Early childhood facilities get an exemption. Those are materially different outcomes and the wording distinguishes them deliberately.
The pattern holds across both packages: broad measures tend to be deferrals and instalment arrangements, while exemptions are targeted at narrowly defined categories. When you read any announcement of this kind, the operative word is the verb — deferred, instalment, reduced, or exempt — and it is worth reading carefully before adjusting a budget.
Other measures that touch a licensed business
| Sector | Measure |
|---|---|
| Hospitality | Hotels, hotel apartments and holiday homes could postpone paying 100% of sales fees on rooms and food & beverage, and the Tourism Dirham, for three months from 1 April 2026 |
| Tourism (DET-registered) | Exemption from collection of the Tourism Dirham and sales fees on hotel rooms and restaurants; exemption from permit and licence fees for holiday homes; exemption from event permit fees and all postponement and cancellation fees for events, exhibitions and conferences; exemption from fees on sales and commercial promotions; reduced fees for tour guides and desert safari activities; deferral of the e-link fee for tourism companies and hotel classification fees |
| Customs | Data grace periods extended from 30 to 90 days, with the possibility of further extension; instalment option for outstanding amounts on import declarations; 80% reduction in fines for customs cases |
| Government contracting | Final retention security on supply contracts reduced from 10% to 2%; the threshold for exemption from final insurance raised from AED 5 million to AED 10 million |
| SMEs | Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for SME Development extended membership licences by two additional years for all companies whose memberships expire in 2026 |
| Transport | RTA-registered establishments: deferral of payments for passenger activity sectors; exemptions from violations related to the vehicle availability and arrival time indices |
| Civil aviation | DCAA-registered establishments: reduced renewal fees for civil aviation activity permits and suspension of late-renewal penalty fees |
| Real estate | Validity of building permits for construction projects under Dubai Municipality extended |
| Residency | The first package included streamlining the issuance and renewal of residency permits |
These measures were announced with defined windows, and the announcements stated that implementation timeframes would be set by each responsible government entity. Several ran three months from 1 April 2026; the second package spans three to 12 months from May 2026.
So this is a record of what was approved, not a promise about what applies to your renewal today. Before you budget on any line above, confirm the current position with the entity that administers it — DET for licensing, Dubai Municipality for market and cleaning fees, KHDA for education, RTA for transport.
We will not tell you a fee is waived on the strength of an announcement whose window may have closed. If you would like it checked against your specific licence before you renew, that is exactly the kind of question our PRO services team in Dubai answers with a phone call rather than an assumption.
The three variable charges
Beyond the published fees, three amounts are calculated from your own circumstances, which is why no one can quote you an exact total without your licence in front of them.
| Charge | How it is determined |
|---|---|
| Market fee | Calculated from the rent on your registered premises. DED pulls the figure directly from RERA using your contract number — you do not declare it yourself |
| Accommodation fee | Applied in respect of the owners and partners registered on the licence |
| General cleaning fees | Calculated and shown as part of the renewal |
The practical consequence: two companies with identical activities and identical structures pay different totals, because one rents a larger unit. If your rent went up at the last tenancy renewal, your licence renewal cost went up with it.
Most owners treat the tenancy renewal and the licence renewal as two unrelated events months apart. They are not.
Because the market fee is derived from registered rent, agreeing a rent increase is also agreeing a licence fee increase. The second one arrives later, without warning, and gets blamed on the government.
When you negotiate a lease renewal, price the licence consequence into the decision. It will not change the outcome often, but it belongs in the calculation — particularly when comparing a larger unit against a smaller one, where the rent difference is not the whole difference.
Why you cannot be given an exact quote in advance
A fair question, and worth answering plainly rather than treating as an inconvenience.
The published fees are knowable. The three variable charges are not knowable until the system calculates them against your registered rent, your registered owners and partners, and your premises. That calculation happens inside the renewal process, and it produces the payment letter.
So any provider quoting you a precise all-in total before starting is either working from your last renewal — a reasonable estimate, if nothing has changed — or guessing. Ask which. A good estimate framed as an estimate is useful; a guess framed as a quote is not.
The RERA blocker
This deserves its own section because it stops more renewals than everything else combined. DED’s renewal process requires the RERA contract number of the premises where the licence operates, and then retrieves the rent amount from RERA to calculate the market fee.
DED’s guidance is unambiguous: if you have not registered your contract in RERA, you will not be able to renew your licence.
It is not a document you can supply later or a step an officer can waive. The system cannot calculate the fee without it, so the renewal cannot proceed.
A company renews its office lease. The landlord issues a new contract. Nobody registers it. Three months later the trade licence comes up for renewal and stops dead, and the fix now depends on the landlord producing documents at short notice.
Register the tenancy the week you sign it, not the week you need it. See our Ejari registration service in Dubai.
Why the dependency runs on the landlord’s timetable, not yours
The part that makes this failure expensive is that the remedy is not entirely in your hands.
Registration requires documents from the landlord’s side. A responsive landlord produces them in days. A landlord who is travelling, or an agent who has changed, or a building management company mid-handover, produces them when they produce them — and your licence expiry does not move to accommodate that.
This is the whole argument for registering at signature. At signature the landlord is engaged, the paperwork is in front of everyone, and the marginal effort is close to zero. Six months later you are asking a busy stranger for a favour against your deadline.
Once a year, confirm two things about the tenancy behind your licence: that it is registered, and that the registration reflects the current contract rather than a superseded one.
Both are quick to verify and neither is something you will think about spontaneously, because a lease that is working feels like a settled matter. It is settled commercially. Administratively, it is a live dependency of your trade licence.
Premises changes and the registered address
If you have moved, the address on the licence must be amended and the new tenancy registered. Renewing against an old address is not an option, because the market fee is drawn from the registered contract for the premises where the licence operates.
This catches businesses that move quietly — downsizing into a smaller unit, taking space within another company’s office, moving between buildings in the same development. The move feels administratively minor and is not. The licence record and the tenancy record have to agree, and the renewal is where any disagreement between them surfaces.
How to renew
| Channel | Notes |
|---|---|
| SMS to 6969 | Send your licence number; fees are generated automatically and a payment voucher is sent to your mobile |
| DED BUSINESS smart app | Full renewal from the phone |
| DED website | Renew from the Business Dashboard |
| Service centres | Attend, submit requirements, pay |
| Automatic renewal | A text arrives shortly before expiry; you pay the fees |
The SMS route is the one most owners have never used, and for a simple licence with a registered tenancy and no activity approvals outstanding, it is the fastest path from expiry notice to paid.
It works when the renewal is genuinely a fee transaction: tenancy registered and current, no activity requiring external approval, no amendment needed, contact details correct on the licence.
It does not help when any of those is untrue — and it will not tell you which one. The message simply will not produce what you expect, and you are back in the full process without knowing why.
So use it as a fast path for a clean renewal, not as a diagnostic. If it does not work first time, do not resend it. Open the Business Dashboard and find out what is actually blocking the renewal.
The online process, step by step
1. Start the renewal
On the Business Dashboard, under My Transactions, choose Renew License and enter the licence number.
2. Confirm the licence information
Business name in Arabic and English, licence number, current expiry and the expiry date after renewal. Check the activity list here rather than skimming it — this is the annual moment to notice an activity you no longer use and are still paying for.
3. Update contact details
Mobile, telephone, PO Box and email. A warning appears if these need updating — do it, because this is how the payment letter and future notices reach you.
4. Enter the RERA contract number
Then retrieve the rent amount from RERA so the market fee can be calculated. If this step fails, the tenancy registration is the problem, and no amount of retrying will change that.
5. Attach documents
Requirements differ according to business activity. The apply button only appears once everything required has been uploaded — which is a useful signal: if you cannot see the button, something is still outstanding rather than something being broken.
6. Review and payment letter
DED reviews the application. If external approvals are required it is sent to the relevant parties, and once approved DED issues the payment letter.
Everything before it is process. The letter is where the published fees, the activity fees and the three variable charges are finally added together against your specific licence.
Read it rather than paying it. Check the activity list, check that the rent the market fee was calculated from matches the contract you actually signed, and check that nothing appears for a premises or a partner that is no longer part of the business. Errors at this stage are far easier to raise than to unwind after payment.
Activity approvals: the other delay
Renewal is not only a fee transaction. It consists of ensuring the tenancy contract is valid and collecting activity-specific licensing approvals where the activity requires them.
Regulated activities route through external authorities before DED can issue the payment letter. Those authorities work to their own timelines, and there is no way to accelerate a third-party approval from the DED side.
| Activity area | Typically involves |
|---|---|
| Healthcare — clinics, pharmacies, medical services | Dubai Health Authority |
| Education and training | Knowledge and Human Development Authority |
| Food — restaurants, cafeterias, catering, food trading | Dubai Municipality food safety approvals |
| Construction and contracting | Dubai Municipality; Civil Defence for safety systems |
| Transport and logistics | Roads and Transport Authority |
| Financial services | Central Bank of the UAE; Securities and Commodities Authority, depending on activity |
| Tourism — travel agencies, tour operators, holiday homes | Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, tourism side |
| Security services | Dubai Police |
| Civil aviation activities | Dubai Civil Aviation Authority |
The table above indicates the general shape of external approvals by sector. It is not a substitute for checking your own licence: approval requirements attach to specific activity codes, not to broad sectors, and two companies that describe themselves the same way can carry different activities and therefore different approval paths.
Your payment letter and renewal flow will show whether an external approval is required. Where one is, confirm the requirement with that authority directly rather than assuming it matches a neighbouring business.
If your licence carries a regulated activity, start the renewal earlier than a company with a plain trading licence needs to. A month is comfortable; a week is not.
Why external approvals cannot be hurried
Worth understanding, because it changes how you plan rather than how you push.
DED cannot issue the payment letter while an external approval is outstanding, and DED cannot compel the external authority to move faster. The approval sits with a body that has its own inspection schedules, its own document requirements and its own queue.
There is genuinely nothing to escalate. The only variable you control is when you start — which is why the single most useful thing a business with a regulated activity can do is treat its renewal as a two-month process rather than a two-week one, permanently.
What else expires alongside it
The trade licence is one of several company registrations, and they do not share an expiry date.
| Registration | What it governs | What lapsing costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Trade licence | The right to trade | Everything downstream |
| Establishment card | Your immigration file — the ability to sponsor | No new visas, no renewals for staff |
| Work permit quota | Permitted headcount | Cannot issue work permits |
| Tenancy registration | Underpins the licence renewal | Blocks the renewal outright |
| Employee visas and permits | Individual staff | Individual consequences, staggered across the year |
The one owners forget is the establishment card — your company’s immigration file, which is what lets you sponsor anyone. A perfectly valid trade licence tells you nothing about whether you can still issue a visa. See our guide to the establishment card explained, and, on the labour side, increasing your company visa quota.
A licence with violations also has consequences beyond DED: MoHRE requires a valid trade licence free of violations as a condition of issuing work permits, so a lapsed or non-compliant licence stops hiring as well as trading. See UAE work permit types.
Tenancy registration → trade licence → establishment card → quota → work permit → residence visa.
Each link depends on the one before it. A failure at the front of the chain does not stay at the front — it works its way along, and it usually becomes visible several links down, at the point where someone’s residence visa will not process.
Which is why the diagnosis so often surprises people: the problem presenting itself is a visa problem, and the cause is a tenancy contract nobody registered eight months earlier.
A sensible renewal routine
| When | Do this |
|---|---|
| 60 days before expiry | Open the renewal, not 7 days before |
| First | Check the tenancy is RERA-registered and reflects the current contract |
| Then | Confirm the contact details on the licence are current |
| Then | Identify any regulated activity needing external approval, and start there |
| Same session | Check the establishment card expiry |
| At the payment letter | Read the activity list and the rent figure before paying |
| After | Keep the payment letter and the renewed licence together |
Amendments are not renewals
A distinction worth holding on to, because conflating the two costs money. Renewing extends the licence you already have. Amending it — adding an activity, changing the trade name, changing partners or legal form, moving premises — is a separate transaction with its own fees and its own approvals.
| Renewal | Amendment | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Extends the existing licence | Changes what the licence says |
| Timing | Annual, on expiry | Whenever the change occurs |
| Fees | Register, activity and variable charges | Its own fee schedule |
| Approvals | Those your existing activities require | May introduce new ones |
Two practical consequences. If you have moved premises, the address on the licence must be amended and the new tenancy registered — renewing against an old address is not an option, because the market fee is drawn from the registered contract. And if you plan to add an activity, doing it at renewal rather than separately usually saves a round of paperwork, but it may introduce an external approval that a plain renewal would not have needed.
A renewal that quietly turns into an amendment mid-process is where timelines slip — because the amendment brings requirements the renewal did not have, and they arrive after you have already started the clock.
If a change is needed, name it at the outset and plan for both transactions. Combining them can be efficient. Discovering the second one halfway through the first is not.
Keep the contact details current
DED’s renewal flow includes a contact details section and warns you when the information needs updating. It is easy to skip and it matters more than it looks.
The payment letter, the automatic renewal reminder before expiry, and any request for further documents all go to the number and email on the licence. A company that changed its PRO two years ago and never updated the record is a company that will not receive its own renewal notice — and the first sign of a problem will be a transaction failing somewhere else entirely.
Twice a year, open the licence and confirm four things: the expiry date, the registered address, the mobile and email on file, and whether the tenancy behind it is registered and current.
That five-minute habit prevents nearly every renewal emergency we are called about.
The stale-contact-details failure
It deserves naming, because it is the quietest of all the failures here and the one people find hardest to believe until it happens.
Nothing goes wrong. The licence approaches expiry. The automatic reminder is sent to a mobile number belonging to someone who left the company, or an email that bounces into an unmonitored inbox. Nobody sees it. The licence expires.
The business is not disorganised and has not ignored anything — it was simply never told, by a system that did exactly what it was supposed to do with the details it held. Updating those details is a two-minute task that most companies have not performed since incorporation.
Reading your own licence
Most owners look at their trade licence twice a year, both times to check the expiry date. Every other field on it is doing work, and each one connects to something that can stop a renewal.
| Field | What depends on it | What to check annually |
|---|---|---|
| Licence number | Every transaction, including the SMS route | Nothing — but keep it accessible to whoever handles renewals |
| Trade name (Arabic and English) | Whether the foreign trade name fee applies | That it still matches how you actually trade |
| Legal form | Ownership structure and the accommodation fee | That it reflects the current partners |
| Activities | Activity fees, external approvals, and which professions you can obtain quota for | That you use each one you pay for |
| Registered address | The tenancy registration and the market fee | That it matches where you actually operate |
| Owners and partners | The accommodation fee | That departures and additions are reflected |
| Expiry date | The renewal window | Diarised at 60 days |
It determines three separate things: what you pay in activity fees, whether an external approval is triggered, and which professions you can obtain work permit quota for.
That last one catches growing businesses constantly. A company starts doing work adjacent to its licensed activities, tries to hire someone for it, and discovers that the profession is not compatible with the licence — because the licence never caught up with the business.
Reading the activity list once a year, against what the company actually does now rather than what it did at incorporation, is a ten-minute exercise that prevents both an unnecessary annual fee and a blocked hire.
The gap between the licence and the business
It opens gradually and in both directions.
In one direction, activities accumulate: a licence set up with breadth to keep options open, carrying charges for lines of business that were never pursued. In the other, the business moves ahead of the licence: new services offered, new premises occupied, partners changed, and the record left as it was.
Neither causes a problem while nothing needs to be checked. Both cause problems the moment something does — at renewal, at a hire, at a bank, at a tender that asks for a licence copy.
Budgeting for the renewal
Since the exact total is not knowable in advance, the useful approach is to budget from what you know and identify what can move.
| Component | Predictability | What changes it |
|---|---|---|
| Register fee, trade name advertisements, service request form, Knowledge and Innovation Dirham | Fixed — AED 1,020 combined | Nothing, year to year |
| Activity fees | Fixed while activities are unchanged | An amendment adding or removing an activity |
| Foreign trade name fee | Fixed while the name stands | A trade name change |
| Market fee | Variable | Your registered rent — so, your last lease negotiation |
| Accommodation fee | Variable | Changes to registered owners and partners |
| General cleaning fees | Variable | Calculated at renewal |
| External approval costs | Variable | Set by the approving authority, not DED |
Start from last year’s payment letter. It is the most accurate predictor you have, because it was calculated against your actual licence.
Then adjust for the two things that genuinely move: whether your rent changed at the last lease renewal, and whether the owners or partners changed. Add anything an external approval will cost if your activity requires one.
That gets most businesses within a sensible margin. What it will not do is produce a precise figure, and any provider offering you one before the payment letter exists is estimating too — the honest ones say so.
Keeping the payment letter
Worth stating because so few businesses do it deliberately.
The payment letter is the only document that shows how your total was assembled — which activity fees applied, what the market fee was calculated from, what the accommodation fee came to. Kept year on year, it becomes a record that answers next year’s question about why the total moved, and it is the reference point for querying anything that looks wrong.
Discarded, as it usually is once paid, every renewal starts from nothing and every unexpected increase is unexplainable. Keep it with the renewed licence, in the same place, every year.
One further habit worth adopting alongside it. Note on the letter, in a single line, anything unusual about that year’s renewal — a rent increase, a partner change, an external approval that took longer than expected, a fee that appeared for the first time. Next year, that note will explain a difference you would otherwise spend an afternoon investigating from memory.
Free zone licences renew differently
Everything above concerns mainland licences issued by Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism. If your licence was issued by a free zone authority, the framework is different in ways that matter.
| Mainland (DET) | Free zone | |
|---|---|---|
| Who renews it | DET / DED channels | The free zone authority’s own portal |
| Tenancy dependency | RERA-registered contract required | Usually the facility lease with the zone itself |
| Market fee | Calculated from registered rent | Generally not applied in the same form |
| Fee structure | Published register, activity and variable fees | Set by the zone, often packaged |
| Visa allocation | MoHRE quota | Set by the zone, often tied to facility size |
The RERA blocker, the AED 600 register fee, the market fee calculation, the SMS 6969 route — none of these describe a free zone renewal.
Free zone renewals run through the zone’s own portal against the zone’s own schedule, and the equivalent dependency is usually your lease with the zone rather than a RERA registration. Confirm with your own authority. Applying this framework to a free zone entity will send you looking for a step that does not exist.
Scenarios
Your licence expires in two months and everything is straightforward
Confirm the tenancy registration is current, confirm the contact details on the licence, then use the SMS route or the app. For a clean licence with no regulated activity this is genuinely a short task, and doing it at 60 days rather than at expiry costs nothing.
Your licence carries a regulated activity
Start at the external approval, not at DED. Identify the authority, confirm what it needs this year — requirements do change — and submit there first. The DED renewal cannot complete until that approval lands, so the external body sets your timeline and everything else waits on it.
Your renewal will not proceed and you do not know why
Work the dependencies in order. Is the tenancy registered? Does the registration reflect the current contract and the current address? Is an external approval outstanding? Are the contact details correct?
Almost every stalled renewal resolves to one of those four. Resending the SMS or retrying the form will not identify which, because none of them presents as an explanatory error message.
Your licence has already expired
DED allows renewal online before or after expiry, so the route is the same — but penalties apply and the consequences extend beyond the fine. The detail is in DED trade licence late renewal fines.
The important point at this stage is not to compound it. Renew from where you are rather than waiting until the underlying problem feels fully solved, because the position does not improve while the licence sits expired.
Trade licence renewal questions
How do I renew a trade licence in Dubai?
Online through the DED website or the DED BUSINESS app, by SMS to 6969, or at a service centre. The licence can be renewed before or after its expiry date.
Why can I not renew my licence?
Most often because the tenancy contract for the business premises is not registered with RERA. Without the RERA contract number the market fee cannot be calculated, and DED states you will not be able to renew.
The other common causes are an outstanding external approval for a regulated activity, an address that no longer matches the registered tenancy, and contact details that are out of date.
What does renewal cost?
The licence register fee is AED 600, with trade name advertisements at AED 350, a service request form at AED 50, and Knowledge and Innovation Dirham fees at AED 10 each. Activity fees are added on top — AED 3,000 for general trading, investment or construction contracting, AED 5,000 for a business centre — plus variable market, accommodation and cleaning fees.
Why is my total different from another company’s?
The market fee is calculated from the rent on your registered premises, retrieved directly from RERA. Different rent, different total. The accommodation fee also varies with the owners and partners registered on the licence.
How long is a trade licence valid?
One year.
Can I renew after the licence has expired?
Yes, DED allows renewal online before or after expiry. Fines and penalties apply for renewing late, so confirm the current position for your licence before assuming the cost.
What is the SMS renewal service?
Send your licence number to 6969 and the renewal fees are generated automatically, with a payment voucher sent to your mobile number. It works well for a clean renewal and will not help where a tenancy registration or external approval is outstanding.
How early should I start?
Sixty days is comfortable, particularly if your activity requires external approvals or your tenancy needs registering. A plain licence with everything in order can be done far faster.
Did Dubai reduce licence fees in 2026?
Dubai approved two economic incentive packages in 2026 — AED 1 billion approved on 30 March and AED 1.5 billion approved on 21 May, totalling AED 2.5 billion.
Most measures affecting general licensing were deferrals rather than waivers. Targeted exemptions went to named categories, including a one-time full exemption from market fees, accommodation allowance fees, general cleaning service fees and foreign trade name fees for desert safari and camping operators, marina-related businesses, aviation-related activities, drone and fireworks companies, and event management companies.
Implementation timeframes were to be announced by each responsible government entity. Confirm the current position with DET before budgeting on any of it.
What is the difference between a deferral and an exemption?
A deferred fee is postponed and still owed. An exempt fee is not charged.
The first 2026 package deferred fees for three months from 1 April 2026, applicable to both new licences and renewals, and stated that businesses would be given an update at the end of that period. If your payment letter was lighter during that window, keep the cash against the liability rather than treating it as a saving.
Does my rent affect my licence fee?
Yes. The market fee is calculated from the rent on your registered premises, which DED retrieves from RERA. A rent increase at your lease renewal raises your licence renewal cost the following year.
Do I need Ejari to renew my trade licence?
The tenancy contract for your business premises must be registered so that DED can retrieve the rent and calculate the market fee. Without that registration the renewal cannot proceed.
Does renewing my trade licence renew my establishment card?
No. They are separate registrations on separate clocks. A valid trade licence tells you nothing about whether your establishment card is current, and it is the establishment card that lets you sponsor employees.
Can I remove an activity to reduce my renewal cost?
Removing an activity is an amendment, not part of a renewal, and it has its own process and consequences — you lose the ability to trade under that activity.
Renewal is nonetheless the right annual moment to review the activity list, since activity fees such as the AED 3,000 general trading fee recur every year for as long as the activity stands.
Does this apply to free zone companies?
No. Free zone licences renew through the issuing free zone authority under its own rules and fee structure. The RERA dependency, the published DET fees and the SMS route described here are mainland processes.
Licence, establishment card, quota and staff visas all run on separate clocks. Keeping them aligned is the everyday work of PRO services in Dubai, and licence renewal is one line among many — see the full PRO services cost reference for Dubai.
Official sources
- Dubai Economy — Request for Renewal of Trade License: fee schedule, requirements and process
- DED e-Services — Renew License: the online renewal flow, RERA contract number and market fee calculation
- Invest in Dubai platform — licence renewal service, app.invest.dubai.ae
- Government of Dubai Media Office, 30 March 2026 — Hamdan bin Mohammed approves AED1 billion in economic incentives during Dubai Executive Council meeting: the AED 1 billion package, implementation from 1 April 2026
- Government of Dubai Media Office, 2 April 2026 — Dubai economic measures boost hospitality and business growth: the specific fees deferred for three months from 1 April 2026, applicable to new licences and renewals
- Government of Dubai, 21 May 2026 — Hamdan bin Mohammed approves second, larger AED1.5 billion economic incentives package: 33 initiatives, the named exemptions from market, accommodation, cleaning and foreign trade name fees, and the KHDA measures
- The Official Portal of the UAE Government, u.ae — business licensing framework and Ejari registration requirement for mainland premises
Fees and process were verified against Dubai Economy in August 2026. The 2026 incentive measures are reported as announced, with the implementation windows stated in the announcements.
Please note. Fees vary by activity, legal form and premises, and are set by the licensing authority. Late renewal penalties apply and are not published as a single figure — confirm your own position with DED or ask us to check. The 2026 incentive measures were announced with defined windows and implementation timeframes set by each responsible government entity; confirm current applicability before relying on any of them. Free zone licences are governed by the issuing free zone authority. General information, not legal or financial advice.
