How Much Does AML Compliance Cost for a UAE Real Estate Broker?

This guide is for brokers on the mainland and in commercial free zones, who are supervised by the Ministry of Economy and Tourism (MoET). It lists the work AML compliance involves, what each way of covering it costs in money and time, what to ask an AML service provider, and what a gap costs when an inspector finds it. Brokers in ADGM and DIFC have their own regulators and are outside its scope.

What AML compliance consists of for a broker

You are a DNFBP when you conclude purchase or sale transactions of real estate for a customer, with no minimum deal size (Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025, art. 3(2)). Your duties come from Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025 and CR 134/2025, and our guide to AML for real estate agents explains each of them. If you are not sure the rules apply to you, start with What is a DNFBP in the UAE.

To price the work, split it into what you set up once and what runs for as long as you trade:

The setup items take effort at the start. The cost that lasts is in the rows marked “every customer” and “whenever a deal triggers one”, because it grows with your deal flow.

Is there a government fee for goAML registration?

Neither the FIU nor MoET lists a fee for goAML registration. What registration costs you is time: preparing the documents and the authorisation letter, waiting for two MoET approvals, and fixing a rejection if one comes back. If your documents are ready, your own part takes about an hour. The steps are in our goAML registration guide.

When a provider quotes a price for goAML registration, it is charging for that preparation and guidance. The Compliance Officer still has to complete the steps that need their own phone and login.

Option 1: the owner or manager does it

In most small brokerages the owner or the manager becomes the Compliance Officer. CR 134/2025 asks for someone appointed at management level, with independence in decision-making and appropriate competence and experience (art. 22). An owner-manager already has the seniority and the independence, so the cost is the hours it takes to build the competence.

Where the time goes:

• Learning the rules: the decree-law, CR 134/2025, MoET’s guidance for DNFBPs and its Supplemental Guidance for Real Estate Agents & Brokers (March 2026), MoET Circular 05/2022 on the REAR and the FIU’s goAML guides.
• Writing the documents: a policy, a risk assessment and KYC forms that fit your business, and updates when the rules change.
• Working each customer and deal: collecting and verifying documents, screening, rating the risk, writing the file note and preparing any report.

You will also need a screening tool. MoET’s broker guidance tells brokers to screen customers and transactions regularly against, at a minimum, the UAE terrorist lists and the UN Security Council consolidated list. You can check those published lists by hand, but PEP and adverse media checks are the usual reason to buy AML compliance software. Prices depend on the vendor and on how many checks you run, so compare quotes on the same monthly volume.

This path costs the least money and the most of your own time. It can work for a brokerage with a handful of sales a year and an owner willing to learn the rules. The usual weak point is a busy month, when files go incomplete and screening gets skipped.

Option 2: hire a compliance specialist

A dedicated hire takes the daily work off the owner. You pay a salary and the usual employment costs, and you still need screening software and a set of documents. We found no official UAE salary figure for AML compliance officers, so this guide gives none. Price the role against current offers for the experience you need.

Two points shape what you are hiring. The Compliance Officer has to sit at management level and decide independently (CR 134/2025, art. 22), so the role cannot go to a junior assistant. And if that person leaves, the role is empty until you appoint a new Compliance Officer.

A full-time hire makes sense when your volume of customers and deals fills most of a working week. For a brokerage closing a few deals a month, much of the salary pays for waiting time.

Option 3: outsource the preparation, keep the decisions

The third path keeps your own Compliance Officer and hands the preparation to a specialist. CR 134/2025 provides for it. A business may use outsourcing or agency services to carry out customer due diligence on its behalf, where the work follows its internal policies and stays under its supervision and control, and the regulation treats this separately from relying on a third party’s checks (art. 20(3)). The decision on whether to notify the FIU stays with your Compliance Officer (art. 22(2)), and your business stays responsible for its compliance.

In practice the provider screens customers, checks deals, keeps the files and drafts reports in goAML. Your Compliance Officer reviews and submits them, and senior management signs off the policy.

When we reviewed the market, most AML service providers in Dubai did not publish a price and quoted after a call. The monthly packages we could price worked out at roughly AED 18,000 to AED 21,000 a year. Before you sign with any provider, ask:

• how many customer screenings and FIU reports are included, and the price of each one above that;
• who submits the reports in goAML;
• whether the documents are a standard set or drafted for you;
• what happens to your files and your goAML account if you leave;
• whether there is a refund period.

How the three paths compare

The same build-or-buy question comes up for bookkeeping, and the trade-offs are similar: see outsourced accounting vs in-house.

What our subscription costs, and what it leaves out

Our AML Compliance Subscription is the third path, for real estate brokers and agents on the mainland and in commercial free zones. The price is published, and it is the same whether or not you are already registered on goAML.

Both plans include goAML and EOCN registration, a standard AML documentation set written for real estate brokerage, screening of up to 100 customers a year, deal checks, ongoing monitoring with re-screening when sanctions lists change, up to 10 FIU reports prepared in goAML and one personal manager. There is no limit on deal checks; each party screened counts toward the 100 screenings. We screen a customer, check a deal or prepare a report within 2 business days of receiving complete details.

The subscription does not include acting as your Compliance Officer, watching your bank accounts (we check the deals you send us), AML staff training, the MoET annual risk questionnaire, or legal advice outside AML. If you need those, budget for them separately. You appoint a Compliance Officer from your own staff with an Emirates ID and a UAE mobile number, and that person reviews and submits every report we prepare.

There is a money-back guarantee. Tell us in writing within 10 business days of your first payment and we refund 100% of it, for any reason. After a refund you may not use the documents we delivered, and after the 10 business days payments are non-refundable. The full terms are in the public offer linked from the subscription page.

What does non-compliance cost?

Under FDL 10/2025, MoET can fine a broker AED 10,000 to AED 5,000,000 for each violation (art. 17(1)(b)). Each gap an inspector finds counts on its own, so a missing screening record, a file without a source of funds and an outdated policy are three violations, each with its own fine. The fine can be increased if the same violation recurs within a year of the previous one, and MoET can publish the penalties it imposes (art. 17(3) and (4)). The other measures go up to suspending the activity and revoking the licence.

Running a DNFBP business without the required licence or registration is a crime: imprisonment and a fine of AED 200,000 to AED 10,000,000, or either of the two (art. 32). In the first half of 2025, MoET recorded 495 violations at real estate brokerages, with penalties totalling AED 18.5 million. The full list of sanctions is in AML fines in the UAE.

What we can do for you

Some of the work stays with you whichever path you pick: appointing your Compliance Officer, meeting your customers and deciding whether a deal is suspicious. We do the preparation around it: goAML and EOCN registration, the documentation set, screening, deal checks, monitoring and FIU reports ready for your Compliance Officer to submit. One manager runs it for the whole year at a price you can see before you call.

See what’s included and the price →

This guide is general information, not legal advice.

What this means for you

Every path to AML compliance costs a broker something, and the responsibility stays with your business on all of them. Three points to weigh: