20 April 2026 · 5 min read
What UAE regulations actually require you to display on your business website, where to put it, and why most SMBs get this wrong or skip it entirely.
This question comes up more than you'd expect. Some businesses display their trade license prominently; others have nothing. Somewhere in between is what UAE regulations actually require — and the answer depends a bit on what kind of business you are and how you're selling.
UAE Consumer Protection Law and the e-commerce regulations under Cabinet Decision No. 31 of 2021 require that businesses conducting e-commerce display certain identifying information. For businesses selling products or services online, this includes:
This applies specifically to businesses transacting online — i.e., if customers can buy from your website, you should have this information visible. For informational-only websites (a restaurant website where you don't take orders, a clinic that only collects appointment inquiries), the requirement is less explicit, but displaying it is still strongly recommended.
The standard practice is the website footer. Two lines, small text, visible on every page. Something like:
Licensed by Dubai Economy & Tourism (DED) | Trade License No. [XXXXXX] | Registered in Dubai, UAE
Some businesses also include it on their About or Contact page. Both are fine. The footer covers every page automatically, which is the cleaner approach.
Don't make it the visual centrepiece of your footer — but don't bury it either. If someone is looking for it, they should be able to find it within a few seconds of scrolling to the bottom of any page.
The issuing authority depends on where your business is licensed:
If you're unsure of your exact authority name, it's on your trade license document.
Free zone businesses are a common setup in UAE, particularly for digital services and consultancies. A few things worth knowing:
Some free zone licenses restrict what commercial activities you can conduct on the UAE mainland. If your website serves mainland UAE customers directly (which it almost certainly does), check that your license activity codes cover your actual services. This is a compliance issue that predates the website — the website display is just making it visible.
When listing your issuing authority, use the full name of the free zone (e.g., "Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC)" not just "DMCC free zone").
If you're a clinic, a law firm, a consultancy, or any licensed professional service, you need to display two separate pieces of information:
Both should be in the footer or on your About/Contact page. Displaying only the trade license when you're operating under a professional license is incomplete.
For most SMBs, enforcement is complaint-triggered rather than proactive audit. The UAE Consumer Protection authority is more likely to investigate a business after a customer complaint than through routine inspection of websites.
That said, "enforcement is unlikely" is not the same as "it doesn't matter." There's a practical argument that goes beyond legal compliance:
Trust. UAE customers — particularly when buying from a brand they haven't used before — look for signals that a business is legitimate. A trade license number in the footer is one of those signals. It's the digital equivalent of a visible license certificate on the wall of a physical shop. Customers notice the absence more than the presence.
More businesses than you'd think have outdated license information on their website. Either the license number is wrong, the authority name changed, or the license expired and nobody updated the footer.
A quick check: log into your relevant authority portal (DED's portal is eservices.ded.ae), confirm your current license number and expiry date, and make sure what's on your website matches. Displaying an expired license is worse than displaying nothing — it's actively misleading.
This is a 10-minute website change. Two lines of text in your footer, updated whenever your license renews.
If you're building a new website, make it part of the initial brief. It should be in the footer template from day one, not retrofitted later.
If you're building a new business website in Dubai and want to make sure compliance basics are covered from the start, get in touch with us and we'll walk you through what your site specifically needs.
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