Choosing a fit-out contractor in Dubai: the five checks that matter

Part two · HDi answers

The straight answer

Choose the contractor who passes five checks, in this order: a valid trade licence on the Department of Economy and Tourism register in exactly the name on the quotation and the bank account; registration with Dubai Municipality's contractor register and with the authority that governs your community; Contractor's All Risks and third-party insurance in date; a priced, measured scope with an exclusions page; and a payment schedule where every payment matches something you can see. A firm that fails any one of those is out, however good the price, and on what you have described, the AED 380,000 quotation already fails two.

That is a ten-minute exercise for the licence and an hour across a table for the rest. Below is how to do each check, what a fair payment schedule looks like, how to make three quotations comparable, and what protects you if a job stops.

Check one: the licence, in ten minutes

Every company trading on the Dubai mainland holds a trade licence from the Department of Economy and Tourism, known as DET and formerly the DED. You can look any of them up yourself. On the DET website, open the e-services and choose the licence information search. Search by the company name in English or Arabic, or by the licence number printed on its quotation.

The result shows the licence status, its expiry date, its legal form, the registered activities and the address. Read four things:

• Status and expiry. Active, and not expiring in the middle of your job.
• The activities. They should cover what you are buying. Interior design, fit-out contracting, joinery manufacture and electromechanical work are separate activities. A company licensed only for trading or for interior decoration is not licensed to rebuild your bathrooms.
• The legal name. It must match the quotation, the contract and the bank account word for word. A sister company, a personal account or a different trade name is the clearest warning sign in this whole business.
• The address. A real premises you could drive to. A flexi-desk is not proof of anything wrong, but a company with a factory should be able to show you the factory.

A free zone company is licensed by its zone's authority, not DET. The question is the same: is this licence for this work, in this name?

Check two: registered with the people who approve your job

This is the check that has changed. Dubai Law No. 7 of 2025 on contracting activities came into force on 8 January 2026. It sets up a single contractor register run by Dubai Municipality and says a contractor may not carry out or market contracting work without both a valid licence and that registration. Contractors are graded by technical, financial and administrative capacity, new firms start in the lowest grade, and existing firms have a transition period to regularise, which commercial guides put at January 2027. Fines under the law run from AED 1,000 to AED 100,000, and up to AED 200,000 for repeat offences.

Alongside that, the authority that governs your home has its own list. Jumeirah Park is on the Nakheel side, where approvals go to Trakhees, and both the consultant and the contractor submitting the drawings have to be accredited there. Business Bay and the TECOM districts work through the Dubai Development Authority, with its own registration. A contractor who is not registered where your drawings must go cannot submit them, and approvals are where most renovation programmes in Dubai are won or lost. Our guide to renovation approvals in Dubai sets out who governs which community.

Ask each contractor three things, and expect the answer without anyone checking a phone: which authority governs your plot, whether they are registered with it, and which jobs they have taken through that authority this year.

Check three: insurance you have actually read

Ask for the policy, not a sentence in the quotation saying the company is insured. You are looking for:

• Contractor's All Risks, which covers the works themselves during construction, so a flood from a burst pipe in week six is the insurer's problem, not yours.
• Third-party liability, which covers damage to the neighbour's wall, the community's road or a person hurt on your site. Communities and building managers usually ask for it before they will let anyone through the gate.
• Dates and the named site. A policy that expired last month protects nobody.

Then the longer protection, which the law gives you whatever the contract says. Under the UAE Civil Code, a contractor and the designing architect carry what is called decennial liability: ten years from handover for a collapse, partial or total, or a defect that threatens the stability of the building. It cannot be contracted out of. It matters most where walls come out and beams go in, which is one more reason the structural design and the build should have names on them you can find in ten years.

Check four: a scope you can measure

Now the three quotations. They are almost certainly not three prices for the same job. They are three different jobs, and the scope is how you find out.

A two-page quotation is not cheaper. It has deferred the argument to the day the work is in your house. The usual pattern is a low headline, tiny allowances for tiles and sanitaryware that you then have to top up, and approvals, protection and debris removal left out altogether. Put the three side by side line by line and the AED 230,000 gap usually closes to a few per cent once the missing lines are priced in. Our guide on why one quotation is higher than another walks through that comparison.

Check five: a payment schedule that tracks the work

There is no single correct deposit, and anyone who gives you one number for every job is oversimplifying. What is correct is that each payment should match something you can see, and you should never be far ahead of the work.

• Advances should match real commitments. Bespoke joinery is the clearest case: the board, the hardware and the factory time are bought for your house and cannot be sold to anybody else, so a substantial payment on order is normal. A site-works advance should match mobilisation, protection and approvals, not half the contract.
• Stage payments against visible stages. Strip-out complete. First fix complete and inspected. Waterproofing passed its flood test. Joinery delivered. Practical completion. You can stand in the room and see each of those.
• Retention at the end. In UAE construction a common arrangement is 10 per cent retained, half released at handover and half at the end of the defects period. On a home renovation, a final payment held until snagging is closed does the same job. It is your strongest lever at the end.
• Variations priced and signed before the work, never after.

What should stop you: a large deposit before a single drawing exists, a payment to any account other than the licensed company, a schedule tied to calendar dates instead of progress, and pressure to pay now to "hold the start date".

Who actually does the work

"We do everything in-house" means different things to different companies, and you are entitled to ask exactly what it means. Most firms in Dubai are one of three shapes:

The managing contractor

Wins the job, then subcontracts the trades: a joinery workshop, an MEP firm, a tiling gang, a gypsum team. A good one coordinates well. You pay each trade's margin plus the main contractor's on top, and when a junction between two trades fails, each points at the other.

The specialist

One trade done properly: joinery only, or MEP only. Ideal when that trade is the whole job. On a villa renovation like yours, somebody still has to coordinate everything else, and that somebody is often you.

The design-and-build company with its own trades

Designs, gets approvals, makes and installs under one contract with its own people. One programme and one name answering for all of it. The test is simple: ask to visit the factory and the people, not the showroom.

Questions that separate the shapes in five minutes: Who makes the kitchen, and can I visit where it is made? Are your installers on your payroll? Who does the electrical and plumbing first fix? If a hinge drops in eighteen months, who comes? Your "partner factory" answer was a perfectly honest description of a managing contractor. It is just not the company that told you it does everything in-house.

See a live site, then ring a past client

A showroom shows you what a company can display. A site in the middle of a job shows you how it works. Ask to visit one, and look for:

• Protection on floors, stairs and anything finished. Cheap to do, and it tells you whose problem damage will be.
• First fix. Conduits and pipework straight, clipped and labelled, or threaded wherever was quickest. What you can see behind an open wall is what you will have behind a closed one.
• Waterproofing turned up the walls in the bathrooms, with corners taped.
• A site lead who can tell you what happens tomorrow.

Then ask for two clients from the last eighteen months, one finished and one who has lived with the work for a year. Ask the second one a single question: when something went wrong after handover, how long did it take them to come back?

What the contract must say

1. The parties, with the licensed company's exact legal name and licence number.
2. The scope, by reference to the drawings, the bill of quantities and the finishes schedule, plus the exclusions.
3. The programme, with start and completion dates, and what happens if either slips.
4. The payment schedule, tied to stages, with retention or a final payment held to snagging.
5. Variations: written, priced and signed before the work.
6. Approvals: who submits, who pays, and that no work starts before the community NOC and the permit.
7. Insurance: policy types, limits and dates.
8. Warranty and defects period: how long, what is covered, and what is excluded. A joinery warranty that excludes hinges and runners is a short warranty.
9. Termination: what happens to your money, your materials and your drawings if either side walks away.

Your friend in The Springs had no clause nine. If a contractor stops halfway, a written contract, stage payments that never ran far ahead and retention still held are what let you bring in somebody else to finish without paying twice.

Your questions, answered one by one

How do I check the licence?

DET website, licence information search, by name or number. Check status, expiry, activities and that the legal name matches the quotation and the bank account. Then ask for proof of Dubai Municipality contractor registration and accreditation with your authority.

How much should we pay up front?

What matches the contractor's real commitment to your job at that moment, and no more, and only after drawings and a contract exist. Then stage payments you can verify, with a final sum held until snags are closed. Fifty per cent of a whole villa renovation before anything is drawn, into an account in another name, is a no.

Which quotation is honest?

The one you can measure. On your description it is probably the AED 520,000 one, but you will only know by pricing the missing lines in the others. Ask the cheapest one for a bill of quantities with sizes. If one does not arrive, you have your answer.

What protects us if it goes wrong?

In order: a contract with the exact legal entity; stage payments that never ran ahead; retention; Contractor's All Risks and third-party insurance; and, for anything structural, the ten-year liability in the Civil Code.

How HDi measures against the same checks

Use this list on us too. Our trade licence is 1298938 with the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, licensed for design, fit-out and manufacturing, and every project carries Contractor's All Risks insurance including third-party liability. Our team prepares the drawings and submissions for Emaar, Nakheel, Trakhees and the DDA and follows them through to approval.

We have been designing and building since 1992, when the company was established in Cape Town, and in Dubai since 2010. More than 80 designers, joiners, sprayers, fitters and our own MEP crew are on the HDI payroll, working from one building in Dubai Production City with our 14,000 sq ft factory and offices. Kitchens, wardrobes and vanities are made there and fitted by our own installers, so the people who made your joinery are the people who come back to it.

You receive an itemised quotation for the agreed design: every cabinet, finish, appliance and trade. Before work starts you receive your schedule from our portal, with approvals, design, samples, strip-out, factory production, installation and handover, and when each payment falls due. During the job you get site photos and videos every day. At the end there is a joint snagging walk and everything is put right before handover. After it, one year on the fit-out and three to five years on our handmade cabinetry depending on the finishes, with the manufacturers' warranties on appliances, worktops and hardware handled by us.

Holding three quotations and not sure which to trust? Book a consultation or call 050 578 1086. Bring the other quotations and we will show you, line by line, what each one includes, and you are welcome to walk through our factory before you decide.