What a Trakheesi Permit Number Tells You
Every property advert in Dubai carries one. It is the cheapest check available to a buyer and almost nobody makes it.
Published 27 August 2026
Scroll a Dubai property portal and every listing carries a permit number, usually set small at the bottom of the advert. It is there because the Dubai Land Department requires it, and it is the single cheapest piece of due diligence available to a buyer: it costs nothing and takes a minute.
What It Is
Trakheesi is the Land Department's advertising permit system. Before a property can be advertised, the advertiser applies for a permit tied to a specific registered project and a specific licensed broker or developer. The number that comes back is what has to appear on the advert.
That means a permit number is a claim with two parts, both checkable: this project is registered, and this advertiser is entitled to advertise it. An advert without one is not merely informal. It is an advert the regulator has not seen.
What It Does Not Tell You
It says nothing about whether the project will complete on time, whether the specification is any good, or whether the price is fair. A permit is a licence to advertise, not a quality mark, and reading it as reassurance about delivery is a mistake. For delivery you want the developer's completed projects by name, with the quarter each was promised for and the month the keys were handed over.
How to Use It
Two habits are worth forming. Check that a permit number is present at all before you make contact — its absence tells you something about who you are dealing with. And check that the number on the advert corresponds to the project being advertised, because a permit is issued against one project and an advert that reuses a number from another is a different problem entirely.
One practical note on this site. Our own permit numbers are not published here yet. The Land Department's validation page is behind a bot check that we are not going to work around, and we would rather say so openly than print a number we have not verified this quarter. When they are confirmed they will appear on each project page, where every other figure on this site lives.