What it costs to get started

The fees that are published

These come from the Dubai Land Department's own service page for issuing a real estate professional practice card, checked 3 September 2026, and they are the only figures on this page we are prepared to state.

For a real estate broker the page lists AED 500 for the card, AED 700 for the exam, an AED 10 knowledge fee, an AED 10 innovation fee and an AED 50 ERES fee. That comes to AED 1,270 in government fees.

The stated processing time for issuing the card is five minutes, and the listed requirements include a personal photo, an Emirates ID copy, and a certificate of good conduct from Dubai Police among the eligibility conditions.

Before budgeting for the exam, check whether an exemption applies to you. The DLD publishes exemptions from the broker exam including for applicants aged 55 and over and brokers with five consecutive years at the same office. Almost nothing published about the cost of entering this industry mentions that the category exists.

1. 01

   Practice card, AED 500

   The real estate broker card itself, issued by the Dubai Land Department.

2. 02

   Exam, AED 700

   The broker exam fee, where you are not exempt.

3. 03

   Knowledge and innovation fees, AED 20

   AED 10 each, applied alongside the card.

4. 04

   ERES fee, AED 50

   Listed on the same service page for the broker category.

Why every total you have seen is different

This is worth explaining properly, because it is the actual reason this question is hard to answer and the reason to distrust most of the answers.

The certified training is delivered by providers approved by the Dubai Land Department and priced by them, not by the regulator. It is a commercial price, it differs between providers, and it changes. There is no published government figure for it, so we are not going to print one.

On top of that, some published totals include VAT and some do not, and some fold the training fee and the government fees into a single number without saying which components are in it. The result is a spread of confidently stated totals that are not comparing the same things.

So when you are quoted a number, ask exactly what it contains: is it the government fees only, the training only, or both, and is VAT included. Two quotes are not comparable until you know. That question is more useful than any total, including one we could have written.

Ask your chosen provider for their current fee in writing before booking, and check the DLD service page for the current government fees rather than relying on this article, which will eventually be out of date like all the others.

The costs that are not on anyone's list

Getting licensed is the cheapest part of starting in this industry, and treating the entry fee as the cost of entry is how people arrive underfunded.

Residency, where you are arranging it yourself, carries its own costs and its own process, and that sits with the immigration authority rather than with us. It has its own piece in this section, which deliberately declines to advise on it.

Then the running costs, which begin immediately and continue whether or not you transact: transport across a city where viewings are not conveniently clustered, a phone that is a working tool, and, depending on the firm, portal credits, lead costs and listing marketing. Whether those last ones are yours or the firm's is a term you negotiate rather than a fact of the industry, and it is covered in the piece on the costs agents carry.

And the largest cost of all, which never appears in a list because it is not an invoice: the months between starting and being paid reliably. Commission arrives late and irregularly at the beginning, and a proportion of agreed transactions do not complete. The number that decides whether you make it through a first year is how many months of everything above you can fund with no commission at all.

What to budget against

Work it out in three parts rather than as one number, because they behave differently.

The fixed entry cost: the DLD fees above, plus the training fee your chosen provider quotes you in writing, plus VAT where it applies. This part is knowable in advance and is the smallest of the three.

The recurring cost of doing the job: transport, phone, and whichever of the portal, lead and marketing costs your contract makes yours. Establish this before signing, in writing, because it is a term rather than a constant and it varies enormously between firms.

And the runway: your living costs plus the recurring costs above, multiplied by the number of months you can sustain with no income. This is the figure that actually determines the outcome, and it is the one almost nobody calculates before starting.

If that last number is uncomfortably small, that is worth knowing now rather than in month five. It is also a legitimate reason to look for an arrangement with a base or a draw underneath the commission, and to ask directly which firms offer one.