If my contract has no clause, am I approved?

No. Article 8 sets five conditions and the contract is one of them. The area has to be authorised for the activity, the unit type has to be on the Article 8 list, the unit has to meet the Guide's specifications, and you have to prove the right to dispose of it. A clean contract clears one gate.

Can my tenant register my apartment as a holiday home without me?

Article 8 lets the owner or the tenant apply, but only on proof of the right to dispose of the unit. A tenant without your written authority does not hold that proof, so a permit issued on that basis rests on a document that should not exist. Whether yours does is [a title and ownership check](/dubai-property-answers/verify-title-deed-dubai/).

Does any of this apply inside the free zones?

Yes. Decree No. (41) of 2013 Article 2 applies the Decree to everyone conducting the activity in Dubai, including in special development zones and free zones such as the DIFC. Whether you can get a permit at all in your specific area is the separate question I cover in [the holiday home permit page](/dubai-property-answers/holiday-home-permit-dubai/).

Answers · Returns, renting and running costs

Can my sale contract stop me renting the apartment as a holiday home?

Yes, and it stops you before you ever apply. Administrative Resolution No. (1) of 2020, Article 8, makes a holiday home permit conditional on the sale and purchase agreement containing no explicit provision precluding holiday home use. So the clause is a permit condition in the bylaw, not a developer preference you can negotiate around later.

Updated October 2026

What Article 8 actually requires

The implementing bylaw of Decree No. (41) of 2013 was issued on 7 January 2020 by the Director General of the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing. Its Article 8 sets five conditions for a permit on a specific unit, and a contract clause is one of them.

Article 8 condition	What it means for you
The unit sits in an area where the Department, with the competent entities, authorises the activity	Area eligibility is decided by the Department, not by you or the seller
The unit is an apartment in a designated building, an apartment in a residential building, a house or villa in a compound, or an independent villa	Unit type is a gate. A hotel room is not on the list
The unit meets the Guide’s technical specifications and classification fittings	A furnishing and fit out standard applies per unit
A valid passport or Emirates ID from the owner or the tenant, plus proof of the right to dispose of the unit	The applicant can be the owner or the tenant, on proof they hold that right
The sale and purchase agreement must not include any explicit provision that precludes using the unit as a holiday home	This is the clause, and it is checkable before you exchange

See, the order matters here. The permit is issued per unit under Article 9 after the Department reviews the application and may run a field visit, and it runs for one year under Article 10, renewable before expiry. So the contract clause is not something that surfaces in year three when you decide to change strategy. It governs whether the application succeeds at all, the first time.

What people don’t realise is that the bylaw does not define what counts as an explicit provision. It says explicit, so a clause that bars short term letting or holiday home use in those terms is clearly caught, and a general quiet enjoyment or nuisance clause is clearly not. The ground in between is not addressed anywhere I can find, and a lawyer reading your actual contract is the only way to settle it.

What it costs once the contract is clean

These are the published amounts, from Executive Council Resolution No. (49) of 2014, issued 7 December 2014.

Item	Amount (AED)
Initial approval for a new or renewed licence	100
New or renewed licence	500
Subscribing to the e-Programme	1,500
Issuing or renewing a holiday home permit	300 per bedroom, capped at 1,200 per home each year
Requesting an inspection, and a re-inspection	300 each per home
Classification certificate	50 per home
Fine, operating without a licence	5,000
Fine, leasing out without prior approval	2,000
Fine, leasing out in parts as separate rooms or bed spaces	500
Fine, failing to comply with the permit terms	500

A repeat of the same violation within one year doubles the fine under Article 3(b), with a ceiling of AED 100,000. Decree No. (41) of 2013 Article 11 sets the overall range at AED 200 to AED 20,000 and adds a warning, suspension of the activity for up to six months, and licence cancellation, with reinstatement only possible one year after cancellation.

So on a two bedroom apartment the permit itself is AED 600 a year. Here’s the issue: the permit is the cheap part, and the contract clause is the part that cannot be bought.

Can the building or the owners’ association block me instead?

This is where it goes the other way, and it surprised me. Article 17 of the same bylaw says that property developers, owners of jointly owned property, and property management and leasing firms and service providers must enable licensees to conduct the activity in accordance with the terms of their licences and permits. No no objection certificate from an association appears anywhere in the Article 8 required documents.

Which means an association deciding on its own that it would rather not have holiday homes in the building is standing against a positive duty in the bylaw. That is not the same as saying it cannot affect you. The area restriction in Article 8 still applies, the building’s own registered rules still exist, and Article 11 lets the Department suspend or revoke a permit where the unit stops meeting the permit or classification requirements. But the starting position in the bylaw is that these parties have to enable the activity rather than permit it, and almost nobody writes that down.

What to do if the clause is already in your contract

If you have not bought yet, this is a read before exchange, and it costs you nothing. Ask for the draft sale and purchase agreement, search it for holiday home, short term, short stay and transient occupancy, and get the answer in writing rather than in a sales room. If the clause is there, the unit cannot carry a permit while that contract governs it, whatever anybody tells you about how the building operates in practice. I go through this in the step by step off-plan process.

If you already own it, you are not applying for a permit on that unit. Long term letting is unaffected by any of this, and the trade between the two models is a separate question I have written up in short-term versus long-term rental.

My take

I’ll be honest with you, this is the single cheapest check in Dubai property and almost nobody runs it, because it sits in an implementing bylaw rather than in the brochure. Five minutes with the draft contract before you exchange decides whether an entire income strategy is available to you, and after you exchange it decides nothing because the answer is already fixed.

It suits anybody buying specifically to operate the unit as a holiday home, and it matters most on off-plan, where the contract is a developer template you are handed rather than a document you negotiate. It matters least if you were always going to let long term, in which case the yield comparison is your page and this one is not, so it really comes down to what you’re looking for from the unit before you ever reach the clause.

The honest limit is that a clean contract is necessary and not sufficient. Area eligibility, unit type and the fit out standard all sit alongside it in Article 8, and the Department’s own user guide carries further requirements I could not reach today, so I have deliberately left those out rather than quote them from memory.

Common questions

If my contract has no clause, am I approved?: No. Article 8 sets five conditions and the contract is one of them. The area has to be authorised for the activity, the unit type has to be on the Article 8 list, the unit has to meet the Guide’s specifications, and you have to prove the right to dispose of it. A clean contract clears one gate.
Can my tenant register my apartment as a holiday home without me?: Article 8 lets the owner or the tenant apply, but only on proof of the right to dispose of the unit. A tenant without your written authority does not hold that proof, so a permit issued on that basis rests on a document that should not exist. Whether yours does is a title and ownership check.
Does any of this apply inside the free zones?: Yes. Decree No. (41) of 2013 Article 2 applies the Decree to everyone conducting the activity in Dubai, including in special development zones and free zones such as the DIFC. Whether you can get a permit at all in your specific area is the separate question I cover in the holiday home permit page.

Sources

Send me the unit and the draft contract clause on WhatsApp and I will tell you what I read in it before you commit to anything.

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