Renewing your broker card

What does the renewal service ask for?

The Dubai Land Department runs renewal as an e-service. Its page for renewing a real estate professional practice card covers the broker card and twelve other card types, and lists one condition that matters to an agent: the applicant must have passed the annual test to practise the mediation profession.

A second condition on the same page reads "All sales personnel must be registered and their cards are issued". The page says nothing more about it, and your brokerage is the one to ask how it applies to the firm's own registration.

The Department's frequently asked questions describe renewal slightly differently. They list a certificate of a continuing education course among the documents, and do not mention the Emirates ID copy. The fees agree: AED 500 plus the two AED 10 fees is the AED 520 the answer gives.

Neither page says how many hours the education involves, who delivers the annual test, or how far ahead of your validity date to sit it, and we have not found a Department page that does. Prepare for both lists, and confirm the current condition with the Department rather than with a colleague's memory of last year.

What the entry exam involves, and who is exempt from it, is covered in the RERA exam piece. What the card and its BRN are, in the broker card piece. This page is about keeping the card once you hold it.

What does renewal cost?

The renewal service page lists AED 500 for renewing a real estate broker card, plus an AED 10 knowledge fee and an AED 10 innovation fee. That is AED 520 in Department fees, checked on 14 October 2026.

The renewal page lists no exam fee and no ERES fee, both of which appear on the page for issuing a first card. Payment is online by credit card, e-dirham or Noqodi, and the Department states a service time of five minutes, with the renewed card issued as an e-card you print from the system.

Who pays is a matter between you and your brokerage. The Department publishes the fee, not who carries it, so it belongs in your contract rather than in an assumption.

Who submits the renewal, you or your brokerage?

The Department's pages do not answer this in so many words. Its renewal, issuance and cancellation pages each give the applicant's residency status as "Company", and its Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide starts the card process with a real estate licence registered in Trakheesi, and card applications are made through Trakheesi after that.

So ask your firm who logs in, who holds the documents and who pays, and keep the date in your own calendar either way. If a renewal is missed, it is your practising time that stops, whoever was meant to submit it.

The same applies to the annual test. The renewal page makes it a condition without saying how it is booked, so find out in good time who arranges it and how you will receive the result you need at renewal.

Why does your firm's licence decide whether your card is valid?

Because the Department ties the two together. Its page for issuing a card carries the note "the validity of the card is linked to the validity of the trade license", and its frequently asked questions say the validity date of a broker card associates with the validity of the licence.

The licence meant is your brokerage's, not anything you hold personally. The Department's Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide sets out the order: a real estate licence is obtained first and registered in Trakheesi, and cards are applied for through Trakheesi after that. Asked how a brokerage office licence is renewed with the Department, the same frequently asked questions say licences issued by Dubai Economy are renewed automatically, while free zone licences are renewed through Trakheesi.

Two practical consequences follow. Your card's validity date is not entirely in your hands, so it is worth knowing the date your firm's licence renews as well as your own. And the Department pages we read state no fixed term for the card on its own, so take the validity date from your card record rather than from a rule of thumb.

What happens if your card lapses?

The Department's position is stated on its issuance page: "No person shall have the right to practice the activity registered in the license except after registering and obtaining the card designated for the type of activity."

The pages we read publish no grace period after a validity date and no separate fee for late renewal. That is not the same as there being none, so if a renewal has slipped, ask the Department directly rather than assuming a margin.

The practical defence is a calendar rather than a rule: your card's validity date, your firm's licence renewal date and the annual test, noted together and acted on well ahead of whichever comes first.

What the published record says about practising without a card, and the ways agents have lost their card, has its own piece in this section.

What changes when you move to another brokerage?

Because the card is tied to one firm's licence, moving runs through the Department's card services rather than around them. It publishes services to issue, renew, amend and cancel a card. None of them is described as a transfer between firms.

The order matters. For an expatriate, the cancellation service lists a copy of the employment visa cancellation among its documents, and states that the residency permit must be cancelled or the residency profession changed. So the card and the visa have to be planned together rather than one after the other in your head.

The issuance service lists its own fees and does not say whether an agent moving from one firm to another is charged as for a first card. Confirm how the card at the new firm is issued, and what it costs, with the Department when you plan the move. The negotiation around leaving, including deals in flight and the release only your old firm can start, is covered in the piece on leaving your brokerage.

1. 01

   At the firm you are leaving

   The card is cancelled through the Department's cancellation service. It is free, states a service time of eight hours, and ends with a notice of card revocation by email.

2. 02

   On the visa and employment side

   A separate process with its own authorities, and the one the expatriate card cancellation asks for evidence of. This guide names it and goes no further.

3. 03

   At the firm you are joining

   A card through the issuance service, once the firm's licence is registered in Trakheesi. Ask the Department which of the listed fees apply to an agent who already holds a card.