Do You Need a Holiday Home Permit in Dubai?

Yes — and the permit fee is AED 300 per bedroom per year, capped at AED 1,200 per unit. Here is the licence, the fee schedule, the eligibility rules and the penalties, sourced to the actual resolution rather than an aggregator's rounded guess.

Yes. Leasing out a Dubai residential unit for short-term stays — on Airbnb, Booking.com or any other channel — is a licensed activity under Decree No. 41 of 2013, with fees and fines set by Executive Council Resolution No. 49 of 2014 and executive regulations issued under Administrative Decision No. 1 of 2020. An individual owner can hold up to eight permits directly; beyond that, or to manage units on behalf of other owners, a company licence is required.

Most online guides quote a rounded "AED 500" or "a few hundred dirhams a year" for this. The actual fee schedule is more specific than that, and the gap between the real figures and the rounded ones is exactly where an unlicensed operator gets caught out.

Is DTCM the same as the Department of Economy and Tourism?

Yes. Dubai's holiday-home legislation was issued under the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) — the name still used in the 2014 resolution's text. DTCM has since become the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), which now administers the same Holiday Homes system, the same licence categories and the same fee schedule. Older contracts, PDFs and even some current guidance still say "DTCM"; it refers to the same authority.

What does a Dubai holiday home permit actually cost?

Three separate charges apply, and conflating them is the most common source of confusion:

• Company licence fees (operators only): AED 100 for initial approval, AED 500 to issue or renew the licence itself.
• The holiday-home permit (every unit, individual owners included): AED 300 per bedroom per year, capped at AED 1,200 per unit per year — so a studio or one-bedroom unit pays AED 300, while anything with four or more bedrooms still pays the AED 1,200 cap, not AED 300 per room uncapped.
• The Tourism Dirham (per guest stay, not per year — see below).

These figures come from Schedule 1 of Executive Council Resolution No. 49 of 2014 (Dubai Legislation Portal, verified 10 October 2026) — not from a property-management blog's estimate.

Who can apply — and what is the eight-permit rule?

Two routes exist. Operators — holiday-home companies and establishments — need a company licence: initial approval, a trade-name no-objection certificate, then the licence itself, with separate procedures for branches, suspensions, amendments and termination. Individual property owners can instead register directly in the Holiday Homes system and apply for a licence and permits themselves, without setting up a company.

The limit on that individual route is explicit: an owner may hold up to eight permits at one time. To manage more units — or to lease units on behalf of other owners — the owner needs a company licence or must hand the extra units to a licensed operator. This sits alongside the long-term rental licensing rules covered in who may legally manage property in Dubai: short-term and long-term management are licensed separately, and a Trakheesi leasing-and-management licence does not by itself authorise holiday-home operation.

Which units actually qualify?

Eligibility turns on the title deed, not just location:

• Apartments need a "Residential" title deed.
• Houses or villas in a closed complex need "Residential" or "commercial."
• Independent villas need a "commercial" deed, or a farm deed — and farms only qualify in the Hatta area.
• Not permitted at all: hotel rooms, hotel apartments, or any unit whose sale and purchase agreement specifically prohibits holiday-home use.

Whole-building operators submit a residential completion certificate plus a list of unit numbers and the electricity and water premise number for each unit — the permit is issued per unit, not per building.

What does the unit need physically — and who insures it?

Three technical requirements recur across every operator type: a SIRA-approved smart lock connected to the Keyless system; a comprehensive insurance policy from a Dubai-licensed insurer, covering guest-caused damage and valid for the entire licence term; and a QR code, issued after inspection and printed as a 5cm x 5cm laminated vinyl sticker placed beneath the DEWA premise plaque on the exterior door.

Units are classified Deluxe or Standard at inspection, against primary and secondary criteria, and must be empty of guests when inspected. A violation found after classification must be corrected within two weeks of the warning, and DET performs unannounced follow-up visits — this is not a one-time inspection that is then forgotten.

What is the Tourism Dirham, and who actually pays it?

The Tourism Dirham is charged per guest stay, not per year, and is calculated as nights x bedrooms x rate: AED 15 per bedroom per night for a Deluxe unit, AED 10 for Standard. Every bedroom counts, including a maid's room, regardless of how many guests actually occupy it. It applies to free promotional stays as well as paid ones, is capped at 30 consecutive nights for a single check-in, and must be shown as its own line — labelled "Tourism Dirham" — on the guest invoice. It is collected from the guest and remitted to DET by the 15th of the following month; late payment or failure to collect it carries a fine of 10% of the amount, minimum AED 1,000.

What happens if you skip the permit, or get caught cutting corners?

The penalty schedule in Executive Council Resolution No. 49 of 2014 is specific rather than token:

• Operating without a licence: AED 5,000.
• Operating while under a suspension order: AED 20,000.
• Obstructing DET staff during an inspection: AED 10,000.
• Providing false information or documents: AED 5,000.
• Leasing without prior DET approval, or no valid insurance, or charging guests extra for electricity or water: AED 2,000 each.
• Missing or mismatched notice board, or breaching licence/permit terms: AED 200–500.

A second violation of the same kind within one year doubles the fine, up to a ceiling of AED 100,000, and DET can separately issue a warning, suspend the activity for up to six months, or revoke the licence outright. These are not abstract maximums — they are the actual figures in Schedule 2 of the resolution.

What if a guest or a neighbour disputes something?

Disputes go to disputes@dubaidet.ae in the first instance; DET arranges a meeting and seeks an amicable settlement, with unresolved cases going to the courts. A licensee disputing a DET decision itself has 30 days to appeal in writing to cgc@dubaidet.ae, and DET must decide the appeal within a further 30 days — its decision is then final.

How PropertyPad handles holiday-home compliance

For owners who mix long-term and short-term units in one portfolio, PropertyPad tracks each unit's permit expiry and classification separately from its Ejari status, flags the Tourism Dirham due date alongside the monthly owner statement, and keeps the smart-lock and insurance renewal dates visible before DET's own unannounced inspections would catch a lapse first.

See what PropertyPad does across leasing, licensing, maintenance and owner reporting. For how a long-term management licence works by comparison, see who may legally manage property in Dubai.