What a UAE Company Website Should Show: Disclosures and Trust Signals

What a UAE company website has to show depends on three things: whether the site sells or only presents, whether you deal with consumers or only with companies, and whether your sector has its own advertising regulator. Below, we separate what the official texts say from what buyers expect, then combine both into one checklist.

First, work out which rules apply to your website

The e-commerce decree-law states in Article 2 that it does not apply to “data, platforms and smart applications used for purposes other than Modern Technology-Based Trade”, so a pure presentation site may sit outside it. It covers free zones when goods or services bought online are provided outside the zone, or when the zone has no legislation of its own on online trade (Federal Decree-Law No. 14 of 2023, Article 2). The data protection law excludes free-zone companies that have their own personal data protection legislation (Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021, Article 2).

If your site sells: what the e-commerce law asks you to publish

The 2023 decree-law calls a business that sells goods or services through modern technology a “digital trader”, and defines the consumer as “any natural or legal person” who acquires goods or services from one. So a company buying from your online store can also be a consumer. Article 5 sets requirements for online trade, and Article 6 lists the consumer’s rights. Together they point to what should be visible on the site.

• Prices, fees and terms. Article 5(5) requires the price of goods and services, logistics and digital payment fees, and the terms and conditions or digital contract to be made publicly available on the website, app or other technology.
• Licence data. Article 6(9) lists among the consumer’s rights that “the data available to the public regarding the digital trader license from the competent authority, its address, contact numbers, details of its physical address and its website” be made available.
• Contact and complaint channels. Article 6(8) refers to numbers and means of contacting the trader. Article 6(7) goes further for complaints: numbers and channels “always available without interruption with qualified staff”, a way to follow up a complaint and a clear address, updated periodically and easy to reach through the website or another channel.
• A place to rate the experience. Article 6(5) refers to a transparent field where anyone can evaluate dealing with the trader, its goods, payment and logistics.
• A choice about marketing. Article 6(4) gives consumers “the option to receive or refuse to receive promotional or marketing campaigns, whether through communications, emails or social media platforms.” The law does not prescribe a format; an unticked opt-in box on forms and a working unsubscribe route are a practical way to offer that choice.
• Accuracy. Article 5(7) requires refraining from misleading dealing or incorrect data that does not give the true description of the goods or service.

Article 5(2) also requires the approvals, permits and licences the competent authority sets for online trade.

The consumer protection law adds Arabic

Federal Law No. 15 of 2020 on Consumer Protection applies to goods and services in the UAE, including the free zones, and to e-commerce where the provider is registered in the UAE (Article 3). It also defines the consumer as “any natural or legal person” obtaining a good or service, so B2B sellers should not assume they fall outside it. Three articles bear directly on a website (Federal Law No. 15 of 2020):

• Article 25(1): e-commerce providers registered in the UAE must give consumers and authorities “their names, legal statuses, addresses, licensing authorities and sufficient information in Arabic on the provided commodity or service, and its specifications, terms of contracting, payment and warranty”, as the Executive Regulation sets out.
• Article 26: “The data, advertising and contracts related to the consumer must be in Arabic, and it shall be permitted to use other languages alongside Arabic.”
• Article 17: advertisers, providers and commercial agents may not describe a product or service with false data or advertise it in a misleading way.

If you sell to consumers through an English-only site, Article 26 is the line to raise with your lawyer first. Our guide to structuring Arabic and English websites covers the build.

If your site collects inquiries: data protection and advertising content

Almost every company site collects personal data through quotation forms, WhatsApp clicks or CV uploads. The UAE Personal Data Protection Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021) applies to controllers and processors in the UAE and to those abroad that process data of people in the UAE. Article 4 prohibits processing personal data without its owner’s consent, then lists exceptions, including processing needed to perform a contract or to take steps at the data subject’s request. Article 13 gives people the right to ask, without charge, what data is processed, why, who receives it, how long it is kept and how to complain, and Article 13(2) requires the controller to tell them the purpose, the recipients and any cross-border safeguards before processing starts.

The law does not use the term “privacy notice”, but a notice linked from each form is the practical way to give that information. Article 28 asked the Cabinet to issue Executive Regulations within six months, and Article 29 gives controllers six months from their issue to comply. We could not confirm on the official UAE Legislation portal or the UAE Government portal whether those regulations had been published by October 2026, so check the portal and ask your lawyer. In our view, a website is ready for Article 13 requests when it has:

• A privacy notice linked from every form, in plain language: what you collect, why, who receives it (including any CRM or hosting provider outside the UAE), how long you keep it and how to contact you about it.
• A separate, unticked box for marketing consent, so a quotation request is not quietly turned into a newsletter subscription.
• A named mailbox for data requests that someone reads.

If the site also sets advertising or analytics cookies, the banner and tag setup are covered in cookie consent and GA4 consent mode for GCC websites, and calls that follow up a form are covered in the UAE telemarketing rules.

Advertising content on your own pages

The Media Regulation decree-law applies its media content standards to advertising (Article 20(1)), and Article 20(2) requires advertisers to include in all advertising materials something that “explicitly and clearly indicates” the material is an advertisement (Federal Decree-Law No. 55 of 2023). The clearest case on a company website is sponsored or partner content; ask your lawyer how far the rule reaches your own promotional pages. If you pay creators to promote the brand, see what brands must check before paying a creator.

The decree-law does not say directly whether a company needs a media licence for content about its own business on its own website. Article 12(1) requires licences or permits for electronic and digital media activities that provide news, promotion or advertising services “on social media and other modern technical means”, and Article 12(5) lets the UAE Media Council exempt other platforms and sites. The text does not mention company websites. If your site runs a news section, publishes third-party advertising or behaves like a publication, ask the UAE Media Council before you launch.

Regulated sectors: real estate and healthcare

Real estate in Dubai

Dubai Land Department issues real estate advertising permits through the Trakheesi system. Since April 2023 its Madmoun service gives each permit a QR code that lets the public check the company, the advertisement details, its status and the property value on DLD’s website. In its December 2023 release, DLD stated that the QR code must appear on advertisements, that RERA inspections check the advertised data against the permit, and that each violation carries a fine of AED 50,000, enforced without prior warning once the grace period ended (Dubai Land Department, 26 December 2023). The release does not list the channels covered, so confirm with DLD how permits and QR codes should appear on your own listing pages; in other emirates, ask your real estate regulator.

Clinics and health facilities

In Dubai, the DHA’s Standards for Medical Advertisement Content on Social Media (version 1.1, effective 3 October 2022) require a facility’s official account to state its medical advertisement licence number, require the Medical Director to approve content when staff or influencers promote the facility, ban absolute claims such as “100%” or “has no side effects”, and require written consent before a patient’s image or statement is used (DHA standards). DHA issued a further circular on health advertising content on social media in August 2025 (DHA circular CIR-2025-00000149). These documents are written for social media, so ask your regulator (DHA, DOH in Abu Dhabi or the Ministry of Health and Prevention) which rules apply to your website. We would treat the same claim limits as a floor for every page.

The trust signals UAE buyers look for

For a B2B presentation site, the stronger reason to publish this information is commercial. The list below is our view of what buyers expect, not a legal requirement unless one of the laws above applies. Procurement teams compare your website with your trade licence, and any gap raises a question you are not there to answer.

• Exact legal name and trade name, spelled as on the licence, with the legal form (LLC, FZE, FZ-LLC, branch).
• Licence number and issuing authority: the emirate’s economic department or the named free zone. Buyers use this to tell a mainland company from a free-zone entity.
• A physical address that can be found, with building, area and emirate, and a map pin that matches it. A PO Box alone looks temporary.
• Legal pages that exist and are dated: privacy notice, terms of use and, if you sell, sales, delivery, return and warranty terms.
• Consistency between the website, the company profile, your Google Business Profile and the registration file you send. For contact routes, credentials, project pages and the rest of the build, use our B2B website checklist for the Gulf.

The checklist, page by page

Who should own this after launch

Most gaps appear after launch: a renewed licence, a new office, a campaign page without its permit number. Give one person ownership of the footer, contact page and legal pages, review them whenever the trade licence is renewed, and check new campaign pages against your sector’s rules before they are published.

When RX builds a corporate website, the client supplies the company and licence data and approves every page before it goes live. We recommend that the legal pages are written or reviewed by the client’s own UAE-qualified lawyer. See our website design service or examples in our website portfolio.