If you advertise a property in Dubai, whether on a portal, in an Instagram reel, in a Google ad or in a WhatsApp broadcast, you need a valid advertising permit from the Dubai Land Department's Trakheesi system before the ad goes live, and the permit number must appear on the ad itself. Skip it and you're exposed to fines that DLD-focused compliance guides put at AED 50,000 to start, with escalation for repeat offences up to licence suspension. Most brokers know this much. The trouble is almost never the headline rule. It's the details: which permit type applies, what the QR code requirement actually covers, what Form A needs to say, and what happens when a campaign keeps running after its permit expires.
We manage paid campaigns for Dubai real estate clients, and permit problems are the single most common reason a launch slips by a week. Here is what the rules say as of mid-2026, and where marketers get them wrong.
Which real estate ads in Dubai need a Trakheesi permit?
More than you'd like. RERA treats content as an advertisement whenever it promotes a specific property or project in a way intended to influence a buying or renting decision. Portal listings are the obvious case, and the major portals (Property Finder, Bayut, dubizzle) validate permit numbers against DLD records before a listing goes live, so non-compliance there mostly takes care of itself.
The channels that get people fined are the ones with no built-in gatekeeper. Instagram posts and reels. TikTok walkthroughs. Paid Meta campaigns. Google Search ads naming a tower or a community. SMS blasts, WhatsApp broadcasts, open houses, stands in malls. Compliance guides tracking RERA activity report stepped-up inspection of property portals and social media through 2024 and 2025, and DLD has publicly named and fined companies for advertising violations before.
The pattern we see most often: the portal listing has its permit, and the reel showing the same apartment carries no permit number anywhere. To an inspector, that reel is a separate, unpermitted advertisement. The permit doesn't attach to the property in the abstract. It attaches to the advertising.
One more habit worth killing: reposting another brokerage's listing to your own page to fish for buyers. You have no Form A, no permit, and no defence. I'd rather an agent post nothing all week than post someone else's stock.
The three permit types, and the April 2024 change
The system now separates permits into three classifications. Primary Project covers marketing an off-plan development as a whole. Primary Unit covers advertising individual off-plan units, and this is the one that changed: it used to ride along with the project permit, and now it's a separate application. Secondary covers resale and rental properties.
The paperwork differs by type. A resale listing needs Form A, the standardised marketing agreement signed by the owner, which fixes the price and the channels you're allowed to use. A rental listing needs the owner's authorisation or a leasing brokerage agreement. Off-plan advertising needs a no-objection certificate from the developer. A seller can appoint one brokerage exclusively or several on a non-exclusive basis, up to the limit RERA allows.
Most rejections are boring: a missing document, an expired permit being reused, or a price in the ad that doesn't match the price on the permit. That last one matters more than agents think, because it means you cannot quietly test a lower price in your ad creative. The ad must match the permit.
What does a permit cost?
DLD doesn't publish one simple all-in price, and fees vary by advertising category, so treat published figures as a guide and check the current schedule inside Trakheesi when you apply. Dubizzle's guide to the system lists most standard advertising categories at AED 1,020 per year or AED 84 per month, with project-launch events at AED 5,020 and exhibition participation priced higher again.
Against a media budget, this is a rounding error. A single secondary-market campaign in Dubai routinely spends more than a year's permit fee in two days of Meta ads. Nobody skips permits to save money; they skip them because the application sits with a different person than the one launching the campaign, and nobody owns the handover. Fix the workflow, not the fee.
Processing is quick when the file is clean, typically within one working day.
The QR code rule your reels are probably breaking
Since 24 April 2023, DLD's Madmoun service has required real estate companies to feature a scannable QR code on their print and audiovisual advertisements. Scanning it shows whether the ad is genuine, whether the property has already been sold or rented, and who is behind the advertisement. DLD's own guidance tells buyers to engage only with ads that carry the code.
(Abu Dhabi later launched a real estate system called Madhmoun, a government-backed MLS, in July 2025. Nearly identical name, different emirate, different system. This helps nobody, but you do need to know which one a client means.)
The practical implication for social and paid content: put the QR code and the permit number on the creative itself, not only in the caption. Captions get truncated, cropped and reposted. A permit number burned into the corner of the video survives all three.
Where paid campaigns go wrong
The permit rules were written with portals and print in mind, so applying them to Meta and Google takes some translation. Our working rules, from running these campaigns weekly: the permit number goes in the primary text and on the creative in every Meta ad; each campaign maps to one permit and one project, with the permit's expiry date saved next to the campaign's end date; and no generic "invest in Dubai property" ads that quietly funnel into a specific tower, because the ad is then promoting a property it isn't permitted for.
There's a commercial upside hiding in this. Because the ad must match the permit, compliant ads carry real prices and real details, and in our experience that honesty filters out bargain-hunters before they click. Fewer junk leads, better conversations on WhatsApp, which is where most Dubai property enquiries end up anyway. If you're running click-to-WhatsApp campaigns for listings, the same permit rules apply as for any other Meta ad; we covered the mechanics in our guide to click-to-WhatsApp ads in Dubai.
The 2026 wrinkle: the advertiser permit is a separate thing
A newer rule now sits alongside Trakheesi. Since 1 February 2026, the UAE Media Council requires an advertiser permit for individuals creating promotional content from within the UAE, under Federal Media Law No. 55 of 2023. Gulf News reports it applies to citizens, residents and visitors, paid or unpaid, with the permit free for residents for the first three years and fines for operating without one starting at AED 10,000.
So when a developer flies an influencer through a show apartment, two separate regimes apply: the influencer needs their Media Council advertiser permit, and the advertisement itself still needs its Trakheesi permit with the visible number. One video, two regulators. Brokerages commissioning creator content should be checking both, because the fine lands on whoever the inspector reaches first.
Rules in this space change often, and this article is a marketer's summary rather than legal advice. Check the current requirements in the Trakheesi system and with DLD before you rely on them.
Do this first
Pull every live piece of property advertising you're running today: portal listings, boosted posts, Meta campaigns, Google ads, reels still gathering views. Match each one against a valid permit number and its expiry date in a shared sheet. Unglamorous work, half a day at most, and it's the cheapest insurance in Dubai marketing.
If you'd rather have one team handle permits, creative and media buying together so campaigns launch compliant and on time, that's what our performance marketing service is built for. Talk to us about your next launch.