Desk research against primary sources. Figures are traced to the issuing UAE authority and linked on the page.
Ejari is not simply paperwork sitting behind the lease — it’s the record other government systems actually check against, which is why a lease that exists only on paper functions as if it doesn’t exist for DEWA, sponsorship or school enrolment. The AED 220 registration fee plus the AED 10 knowledge and innovation charge is trivial next to the cost of discovering, months later, that nobody actually filed it.
Because registration is quick and cheap, tenants tend to assume whoever handles the lease has handled Ejari too, but the incentive sits with the tenant, not the landlord — a landlord who has already been paid has no urgency to register anything. Ask for the Ejari certificate itself, not just a receipt or a promise that it is “in progress”, before relying on the tenancy for a DEWA connection or any other downstream application.