Trade license Dubai: types and documents

Start with the activity. The Ministry of Economy and Tourism states: “The nature of the economic activity defines the legal form of the company and the type of license required.” The activity determines the licence category, legal form, external approvals and whether a qualification is assessed.

How many types of trade licence are there in the UAE?

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There are six federal categories. MoET lists them as occupational, tourism, industrial, commercial, agricultural and professional; the occupational category is also called crafts.

The right-hand column is a working description, not a legal definition; your activity code is what binds.

Emirate-level counts differ again, and this is where most of the confusion online comes from. Abu Dhabi publishes seven licence products (Abu Dhabi trader, dual, freelancer, Mobdea, small producers, standard, virtual). Invest in Dubai publishes eight (industrial, commercial, professional, eTrader, dual, instant, SME, Intelaq). Those are products sitting on top of the six federal categories, not extra categories.

Why the activity you choose drives everything else

MoET states that there are “more than 2,000 economic activities”, classified under ISIC Rev. 4, and that “economic licenses can include several economic activities”. You can browse the list through the National Economic Register.

No UAE government source we could find limits a licence to ten activities from a single group, so treat that rule as unconfirmed. Individual free zones may cap activities inside their packages; that is a term of that zone’s package, not UAE law.

The activity matters because three downstream things hang off it:

What your activity code decides

• Which of the six licence categories you fall into, and therefore which legal forms are open to you
• Whether an external regulator has to approve you, and at what stage
• Whether a qualification is assessed — which is where an attested degree certificate enters the process

The official licensing sequence

The ten stages in the timeline above are the Ministry of Economy and Tourism’s own published sequence. Two points about that order are worth noting.

Trade name registration comes before initial approval. Both MoET and u.ae place trade name registration at step three and initial approval at step four.

Step ten is Chamber of Commerce registration in your emirate of incorporation.

Initial approval is also not permission to trade. MoET’s wording: it means the government “does not have any objection to establishing the entity in the State… However, it does not constitute authorization to operate.”

Trade name rules that cause re-filings

u.ae sets out what the name must and must not do. The name must be followed by the acronym for the business structure (LLC, EST, PJSC, PrJSC); must not violate public morals or public order; must be compatible with the activity and the legal status; must not contain the name of any religion or of a governing authority, nor the names or logos of external bodies; and must not already be registered. Confirm the current rules with DET.

One distinction worth carrying with you: the local economic department registers the trade name; the Ministry of Economy and Tourism registers the trademark. Reserving a trade name does not give you trademark protection.

Which activities need an external approval, and from whom

Rows marked “(u.ae; confirm)” were not found on MoET’s approvals table and could not be re-checked on u.ae; confirm them with DET.

Two Dubai-specific ones confirmed separately. Food activities go through the Dubai Municipality Food Safety Department, and a food permit “requires the existence of an active license, and the permit must be applicable to the activities of the business license” — the licence comes first, the permit second. Education providers need KHDA, which issues the Educational Services Permit for private schools and TVET providers in Dubai.

Documents for a Dubai trade licence application

MoET’s step 8 lists the documents submitted for the licence: “Receipt of initial approval and copies of all previously submitted documents; Copy of lease contract; duly attested Memorandum/s of Association, as required; Approvals from other government entities, as required”.

‘Duly attested’ here means notarised before a UAE notary public or court (MoET step 5). Foreign records — a corporate shareholder’s documents, a POA signed abroad, or a degree for a regulated activity — may need issuing-country authentication, UAE mission and MoFA attestation.

The full checklist is on documents required for business setup. For the individual chains, see degree certificate attestation and power of attorney attestation.

Which activities need an attested degree certificate

A professional or consultancy licence covers qualification-dependent work — consultancies, law firms, audit offices and similar. No UAE government page publishes a definition of that category that we could quote directly, so treat that as a working description rather than an official one. Where a qualification is assessed, a degree issued abroad may need to be attested, and because the UAE is not a Hague Apostille Convention member, an apostille alone is not enough.

The main regulator gates where a qualification is assessed are:

• Ministry of Justice — legal activities and legal consultancy
• Local municipality — architectural and engineering affairs
• Local health authority (DHA, DoH Abu Dhabi or MOHAP) — all health-related activities
• Ministry of Economy and Tourism, Auditors Department — auditing
• Securities and Commodities Authority — financial consultation and investment advisory (u.ae; confirm)

There is no public master list of activities that require an attested degree. Check the exact activity code in Invest in Dubai before ordering attestation.

MoFA classifies educational documents as Individual Affairs documents at AED 150 per document, rather than the AED 2,000 commercial-document rate, and counts a certificate and its transcripts as two documents. See degree certificate attestation for the UAE for the route and documents required for UAE business setup for the wider checklist.

The instant licence

Decree No. (13) of 2024, issued in March 2024, established the Unified Digital Platform for establishing companies, made DET responsible for “operating, managing and developing the ‘Invest in Dubai’ platform”, and its measures expressly include “registration on the ‘Invest in Dubai’ digital platform, unified digital data registration, instant licensing, instant license renewal”.

Invest in Dubai distinguishes an instant licence from a normal licence.

Free zones and offshore work differently

A free zone licence is issued by the free zone authority under that zone’s own regulations, and each zone publishes its own document list. An offshore registration is not a licence at all; ask the registrar what it permits. See mainland company formation documents, free zone company setup documents and offshore company formation documents, and budget the document costs.