Five checks that take about ten minutes, using the UAE government's own registers.

Anyone can build a website featuring a desert safari. In Dubai, not everyone can legally sell you one.

Tour operators, travel agencies, and tour guides in Dubai are licensed by the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), and their license details are available in public registers you can search yourself. Most travellers never look.

The ones who get stung by a "company" that took a deposit and stopped answering messages could usually have found out in 10 minutes before paying.

Here is how to check, in the order that actually matters.

1. Get the license number before you pay anything

A licensed Dubai company has a trade license number. Ask for it directly: "What's your trade license number?"

A real operator answers immediately, usually with the number already printed in the email footer, on the invoice, and on the website.

Hesitation, a change of subject, or a screenshot of a certificate instead of a number is your answer.

Then verify the number yourself. Do not accept a PDF of a license as proof, a PDF proves nothing. Two official routes:

• Invest in Dubai (app.invest.dubai.ae/search-license) is the Dubai government's license lookup. You can search by license number, Dubai Unified License (DUL) number, or the business name in English or Arabic.

• The National Economic Register (growth.gov.ae/G2C/) the UAE federal platform for checking economic licenses, activities, and trade names across all seven emirates.

If the name they trade under doesn't match the name on the license record, ask why before you book.

Trading names and legal names differ legitimately all the time, but you want to hear the explanation from them, not discover it afterward.

2. Check the license covers tourism, not just "trading"

This is the check almost nobody does, and it's the one that separates a licensed company from a licensed tour operator.

A company can hold a perfectly valid Dubai trade license for general trading, marketing, or events, and still have no authorisation to sell tours.

The license record lists the approved business activities. You are looking for a tourism activity travel agency, inbound tour operator, or tour operator, not a general commercial license with a travel-looking website attached.

Valid license, wrong activity, is a real and common situation. It means no tourism regulator is standing behind your booking.

3. If they're handling your visa, ask for the GDRFA number too

Visa handling is separate from selling tours.

UAE visit visas are processed through official government channels, the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security (ICP), and the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) in Dubai.

An inbound tour operator that arranges visas for its guests holds a GDRFA establishment number to do it.

Ask for that number. An operator that genuinely processes visas will have it. One that quietly forwards your passport to a third agency usually won't, and you will find out only when something goes wrong with the application, and nobody can tell you where your file is.

No legitimate agency will guarantee visa approval. Approval is the government authority's decision, not the agency's, and anyone claiming otherwise is telling you something useful about themselves.

4. Look for the badge on your guide

Dubai's tour guide rules are unusually specific, and they work in your favour.

Under the Dubai bylaw regulating the tour guide profession, a licensed guide must complete the Tour Guide program, hold a valid license badge, renewed annually, and wear and prominently display it on the chest while on duty. Tourist establishments may only employ guides who hold a current, valid badge.

So on the day, look at your guide's chest. No badge means either the guide isn't licensed or the operator is using unlicensed staff. Either way, you now know something about the company you booked with that no review page would have told you.

5. Pay the company, never a person

The last check costs nothing and prevents the most damage.

Pay a business account in the company's name, or use a payment link that resolves to the company.

A request to transfer cash to an individual's personal account or to a payment app in the hotel lobby is the clearest warning sign in this industry.

Legitimate Dubai operators issue invoices, and their invoices carry the license number.

Keep that invoice. If a dispute arises, the license number is what allows a regulator to identify the company.

What a complete set of credentials looks like

For reference, a fully documented Dubai inbound operator shows it all together. Our own records, for example: Only Tourism L.L.C., DET license 690148, GDRFA establishment number 2/1/231425, classified as an inbound tour operator, trading from a registered address in Al Mankhool.

You can take those numbers right now and run them through the registers above. That is the point, a licensed operator's numbers are checkable, and publishing them costs nothing to a company that has them.

If something goes wrong

Dubai has a consumer complaints process run by DET. Complaints against Dubai-licensed businesses can be submitted through the government's consumer rights portal (consumerrights.gov.ae), and DET publishes its own complaints channel on dubaidet.gov.ae.

Both need the company's details, which is the practical reason to collect the license number before you pay rather than after.

One more thing worth knowing: licenses are issued per emirate. A Dubai license is issued by DET, Abu Dhabi businesses are checked by TAMM, Sharjah businesses by the Department of Economic Development, and so on.

An operator licensed in one emirate is not automatically licensed to operate as a tour company in another.

If a tour is sold to you in Abu Dhabi or Ras Al Khaimah, check the license that covers that emirate.

Ten minutes of checking before the deposit leaves your account. It is the cheapest travel insurance there is.

About the author

Adam Xaniar is CEO and Founder of Only Tourism L.L.C, a Dubai-based inbound tour operator licensed by the Department of Economy and Tourism (license 690148), operating from Al Mankhool since 2013.