Almost everything on a website can be claimed. One thing has to be checkable.
Reviews, awards, a polished homepage, a confident meeting: each is easy to present and hard to disprove. A trade licence is the exception. It is issued by a government authority, carries a recorded number, and sits with a named legal entity in records the firm does not control. That is why it is the one credential worth your attention before you pay.
Make the firm bring it to you. Ask three things, in writing.
You do not have to investigate anyone. The firm should put the proof in front of you, and a real one does so without flinching.
The number and the legal name
The trade licence number and the registered entity that holds it. Not the trading brand on the homepage.
AML registration
Confirmation the firm is a registered reporting entity (DNFBP), so it has formally accepted its compliance duties.
A copy of the licence
The document itself, so the number, legal name, and activity line up on one record.
Official channels confirm a number or registered name:
- Dubai Economy and Tourism at dubaidet.gov.ae.
- The UAE Government portal at u.ae.
The mechanics matter less than the response: a real firm gives a number that holds up, a front gives reasons it cannot.
How a firm answers is the answer.
A licensed firm treats the request as routine: the number sits on its own paperwork and it has nothing to hide. Watch for the soft refusals. None is proof of fraud alone. Together, they tell you how the rest of the relationship will go.
- A screenshot of a logo where a recorded number should be.
- A trading brand offered where a legal entity name belongs.
- A promise to "send it later" that never quite lands.
- Irritation that you asked the question at all.
You do not need to diagnose fraud. Just notice who answers cleanly and who does not. A firm that cannot or will not evidence the one credential that matters has told you enough.
A few minutes against many multiples of the fee.
Hand your fee and documents to an unlicensed operator and the downside is not just the money. A structure filed by someone who should never have touched it, or taken and then abandoned, leaves you paying for the repair:
- Closing the wrong entity.
- Deregistering.
- Rebuilding correctly.
- An abandoned trade licence can carry its own penalties rather than lapsing quietly.
AED 20,000+
A typical minimum to close a wrongly filed structure, deregister, and rebuild, on top of the original fee
We will not ask you to take our standing on trust. Here is the record to put to the official channels.
A number and a legal name you can verify exactly as you should with anyone. We are not claiming to be the only licensed firm in the market. We are showing you what a checkable answer looks like, so you can demand the same from anyone who asks for your money.
The about page sets out our credentials in full, and the five questions to ask before you pay put licence verification first.