The United Arab Emirates starts charging its new music-use fee in December, and the Ministry of Economy and Tourism's statement puts concerts inside its scope. The published fee matrix has no box for them.
What happened
The UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism published the ‘Collective Management in Music Guide’ on 11 August 2026, under Ministerial Resolution No. 136 of 2026. Reed Smith identifies it as version 1.1, effective from 1 December; the Ministry places the start of charging in early that month.
The scope the statement lists is broad: restaurants and cafés, shopping malls, sports centres, hotels and floating hotels, airlines, radio stations, television channels, and "concerts and similar events held in the UAE". The right itself isn't new: the guide draws on the 2021 federal copyright decree-law and its 2022 implementing regulation. Two entities authorised by the Ministry collect it, Emirates Music Rights Association and Music Nation, and the licence is granted for one renewable year. Educational institutions, government entities, national occasions and non-commercial personal celebrations are excluded.
The categories are set according to the nature of the use and the scale of the activity. These are the bands published by Gulf News and by Hamdan Al Shamsi:
| Category | Published annual fee (AED) |
|---|---|
| Restaurants and cafés with recorded music | 1,500 up to 50 capacity; 2,700 for 51 to 100; 4,800 for 101 to 200; 20 per head above, capped at 6,000 |
| Restaurants and cafés with a DJ, and nightclubs | 2,500 up to 50 capacity; 3,500 for 51 to 100; 6,500 for 101 to 200; 20 per head above, capped at 8,000 |
| Shopping malls (common areas) | 625 for the first 100 m² and 50 for every further 25 m², capped at 50,000 |
| Hotels | 50 to 150 per room depending on category, capped at 25,000 |
| Airlines | 5,000 up to 50 capacity; 10,000 for 51 to 300; 30,000 for 301 to 500; 45,000 above 500 |
| Concerts and similar events | Included in the statement, with no amount in the published breakdowns |
Why it matters
Coverage has treated this as a levy on cafés and shopping malls. For anyone putting on a concert, the problem is different: the statement includes it and no published breakdown sets a fee. It isn't an exemption: it's a gap.
There are two reasons not to infer the figure from the row next door. The first is that the bands are calculated by seated capacity, and a standing club or a festival don't have that metric. The second is that the guide doesn't say who pays, the promoter or the venue, and the statement speaks of "entities and establishments" without dividing it up.
The oversight side is clear enough: the Ministry carries out on-site inspections, reviews records and systems, and handles complaints, and it can change the terms of a licence already in force. 10% of what's collected funds a cultural music fund.
It isn't the only countdown running in the UAE: the e-invoicing deadline is set by a different ministry, Finance, and falls earlier. And until there's a box for live events, the only actionable step is to ask the venue whether its licence covers the event and which of the two entities it holds it with, the same way you'd check permits and VAT before selling the first ticket.