The Tourism Dirham is not a hotel tax but a fee charged to the guest for every occupied night: AED 7 to 20 by establishment category, holiday homes included. An amendment issued the same year capped it at thirty consecutive nights, and the 2020 rules explain when the night count resets. The establishment remits by the sixteenth of the following month, keeps records for five years — and its own records count as evidence against it.
Verified against official sources on 2026-09-16: the texts of Executive Council resolutions No. 2 and No. 10 of 2014 and administrative resolution No. 2 of 2020 come from the Dubai Legislation Portal (dlp.dubai.gov.ae), attribution to the Supreme Legislation Committee of the Emirate. Schedules 1 and 2 were checked line by line against the portal's PDF edition rather than paraphrased. The portal states that the English version is a translation and that the Arabic text prevails in case of conflict. The portal prints no "in force" status — confirm with the department before calculating. This is not legal advice.
We named this gap three times: in the timeshare analysis, then in hotel establishment fees and in the holiday homes cluster — "we have not read the tourism dirham." Now we have. And the first thing that emerges is that reading the base edition would not have been enough: its article 3 was replaced two months after issue.
Three documents, not one
| Document | What it does |
|---|---|
| Resolution No. 2 of 2014 | introduces the fee; schedule 1 — amounts, schedule 2 — 16 violations |
| Resolution No. 10 of 2014 | replaces article 3: a cap of thirty consecutive nights |
| Administrative resolution No. 2 of 2020 | calculation rules; sets no amounts of its own, refers to No. 2 |
The base resolution was issued on 24 January 2014 and came into force on 31 March 2014 (article 13). The amendment was issued on 27 March 2014 — four days before the base took effect. The thirty-night cap therefore applied from practically the first day, and the edition without it was almost never operative.
The 2020 rules were issued on 7 January 2020 by the department's director general — the same day and the same official as the holiday homes bylaw we analysed. They set no amounts and refer directly to resolution No. 2: that is the latest confirmation from documents that its schedule remains the money source.
How much: eleven categories
The fee is charged per occupied room per night:
| Establishment category | Fee per night |
|---|---|
| Hotel or resort 5★ and above | AED 20 |
| Hotel or resort 4★ | AED 15 |
| Hotel or resort 3★ | AED 10 |
| Hotel 2★ | AED 10 |
| Hotel 1★ or budget hotel | AED 7 |
| Hotel apartment, luxury | AED 20 |
| Hotel apartment, deluxe | AED 15 |
| Hotel apartment, standard | AED 10 |
| Guest house | AED 7 |
| Holiday home, luxury | AED 15 |
| Holiday home, standard | AED 10 |
The hotel apartment categories here are the same luxury / deluxe / standard set by article 7 of decree 17/2013. For holiday homes, however, the naming diverges between documents: this schedule reads "luxury" and "standard", while the 2020 bylaw classifies such properties as deluxe and standard. We give both spellings as they stand in their own documents and do not reconcile them — no such reconciliation exists in the sources we read.
The cap: thirty consecutive nights
Article 3, as replaced by the amendment, reads: for each night of occupancy a guest is charged the fee for a maximum of thirty consecutive nights. The 2020 rules confirm this and add the counting mechanics:
- a night begins when check-in completes and ends at the establishment's designated time or on checkout, whichever comes first;
- the count resets when the main guest checks out, even if accompanying guests remain;
- transferring rooms within the same establishment does not interrupt the stay;
- if the establishment's classification changes, the fee is recalculated against the current category, night by night.
The main guest occupying the room pays, regardless of who made the booking. The only exemptions are establishment employees working night shifts at that same property, and the establishment's owners.
What the establishment must do
Article 4 of the base resolution is short, but two of its points deserve a second reading:
- proceeds are remitted to the DCTCM before the sixteenth day of the month following collection;
- books and records of the fee are kept for at least five years, with department staff given access;
- the guest must be informed of the fee and it must be itemised on the invoice;
- a monthly statement of room occupancy and collected fee is submitted when the fee falls due;
- final accounts are audited and delivered to the department no later than six months after the financial year ends.
And paragraph (b) of the same article: the records and statements prepared by the establishment itself are deemed evidence against it. Reporting here is not a formality but the material of a future dispute.
Evasion is defined as a list
Article 6 leaves no room for interpretation: evasion covers failure to pay on time, failure to collect from guests, absence of accounting books, failure to submit audited accounts, manipulation of data, obstruction of inspections — and any other act deemed to be evasion.
Fines: a percentage, not a flat sum
| Violation | Fine |
|---|---|
| Failure to pay the fee within the time limit | 10% of the unpaid fee, minimum AED 1,000 |
| Failure to collect the fee from guests | 10% of the uncollected fee, minimum AED 1,000 |
| Manipulating accounting data, false information | AED 15,000 |
| Failure to submit audited accounts in time | AED 5,000 |
| Obstructing an audit, inspection or collection | AED 5,000 |
| Collecting amounts in excess of those prescribed | AED 5,000 plus transfer of the excess collected |
| Accounts audited by an unlicensed auditor | AED 3,000 |
| Failing to inform the guest or to itemise the fee | AED 1,000 |
| Delay in submitting the monthly statement | AED 1,000 |
The first two rows work differently from the rest: the fine is a share of the shortfall, and the AED 1,000 floor stops small-scale evasion from being cheaper than honesty.
Three regimes side by side: where the ceiling is lowest
With all three money instruments of the tourism block now read, the regulator's weighting becomes visible:
| Regime | Ceiling on repetition |
|---|---|
| Hotel establishments, 48/2014 | AED 500,000 |
| Holiday homes, 49/2014 | AED 100,000 |
| Tourism dirham, 2/2014 | AED 50,000 |
The tourism dirham carries the lowest ceiling of the three — which follows: the fee itself is small, and the penalty is proportionate to the shortfall rather than to turnover. Beyond the fine, the department may close the establishment or part of it for up to three months, or close it permanently.
Grievance: a written grievance to the director general within fifteen days of notification; a committee decides within thirty days, and the decision is final (article 9).
Where the fee applies even when it seems it should not
Article 2 extends the resolution to all hotel establishments in the Emirate, including special development zones and free zones — the DIFC among them. A free-zone address does not exempt anyone.
What we do not claim here
- Whether this is today's tariff. The portal prints neither a repeal notice nor an "in force" status. We have shown that the 2020 rules refer to it as the source of amounts, and we named the date of that reference. Confirm today's tariff with the department.
- How "luxury" and "deluxe" relate for holiday homes. The naming differs across two documents; no reconciliation exists in the sources, and we do not invent one.
- The municipal charge on establishments' sales (Regulation No. 2 of 2006, cited in the preamble) we have not read and do not describe here. That is the next gap, and we name it aloud.
- Who the regulator is now. The documents name DTCM and DCTCM. The Department of Economy and Tourism was established by Law No. 20 of 2021. We do not describe the succession — it is not in the sources we read.
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