Letting your place as a holiday home
Short stays are licensed separately from long lets. This is what that licence involves. 11 steps in Abu Dhabi, and what proves each one happened.- 1Finding it5 steps
- 2Checks3 steps
- 3Agreeing1 step
- 5After2 steps
Hala's decision for you
Hala is reading the figures on this page…
Every step, and what proves it happened
- 1. DCT short-term rental permit
The permit that makes the listing legal. It expires, the renewal window is set by the issuing authority and differs between emirates, and an expired permit is a live listing that has quietly become an offence — so the expiry is tracked rather than remembered.
- 2. Record the grade you were licensed at
The Tourism Dirham is charged per occupied unit per night at a rate set by your grade. Until it is recorded here we cannot show a guest what the stay totals - the listing shows a nightly rate and says the rest is settled at the property, which loses you the booking to whoever could show a total.
- 3. Check whether you need a TRN
You charge the 5% and you issue the tax invoice for the stay, not us - so the registration is yours, not ours. We have not confirmed where the threshold sits or how short-stay income counts toward it, so ask the Federal Tax Authority before you assume you are under it. PropDirect charges VAT on its subscription only, never on your room.
- 4. Set up how you get paid
Guests pay you directly through Stripe — PropDirect never holds the money, and you issue the tax invoice for the stay. Your bank details go to Stripe, not to us.
- 5. Price the nights, weeks and months
A nightly rate alone prices a month at thirty times a night, which is not an offer anyone takes — hotel apartments here quote monthly. Set a weekly or monthly rate and long enquiries are quoted against it.
- 6. Listing live
Photographs, the nightly rate, and the permit number displayed on the listing itself.
- 7. Booking confirmed
The guest pays for the stay when they book, into your own Stripe account, and that payment confirms it. Dates, rate and the deposit. Tourism Dirham is charged per occupied unit per night and is collected from the guest, not absorbed.
- 8. Guest registration with ICA
Every guest's passport details within 24 hours of check-in. Federal and non-negotiable, and it repeats on every single booking rather than once per listing.
- 9. Return the Tourism Dirham you collected
Collected per occupied unit per night from the guest, and remitted monthly - by the 15th, for the month before. Dubai issues payment orders on the 11th. We show what is outstanding and keep your reference; the return itself is filed with the authority by you.
- 10. Review the stay
Only the guest who stayed can write one, once, and only after checkout. That is what makes the rating on a listing worth reading.
- 11. Checkout and turnaround
The stay ends, the unit is cleaned and the next booking begins. The permit and the guest registration are what carry forward — everything else resets.
How much of this we have checked
Regulator checked
This journey is 91% confirmed for Abu Dhabi — 10 of 11 steps checked against what Department of Municipalities and Transport · ADREC publishes. The rest is our best understanding, and the rows beside this say which is which.
10 confirmed · 1 not confirmed · 4 phases
Find a home — Every listing with its permit and its paperwork shown
The rules in Abu Dhabi — Permit, tenancy registration, regulator — answered from the record
How we check a listing — What is verified before a listing appears, and what is not
The steps are not the same in every emirate
What the specialists did on this page
2 ran · 0 stopped to ask · 0 did not run · each row opens its sources
Transaction & Document Intelligencetransaction.documentsThe journey the deal room runs, for Abu Dhabi11 steps, each with who owes it and what proves it—
Moves a sale from accepted offer to transfer: reads each document, says what is missing, and presses the next step - A3 holds at the MOU and the title.
Regulatory Intelligencetrust.regulatoryWhat Department of Municipalities and Transport · ADREC publishes10 of 11 steps confirmed—
The rules of each emirate, retrieved and cited: tenancy law, short-stay rules, cross-border rules for NRI buyers - marked where we have not confirmed them.
- Department of Municipalities and Transport · ADREC