Federal Law No. 15 of 2020 · UAE Federal
Replaces the 2006 consumer law: guarantees consumers safety, accurate information, privacy and compensation, imposes labelling, pricing, invoicing, warranty and repair-replace-refund duties on suppliers, advertisers and agents including UAE-registered e-commerce sellers, creates a Supreme Committee for Consumer Protection and punishes breaches with up to two years' imprisonment and fines of AED 10,000 to 2,000,000.
Federal Law No. 15 of 2020 is the UAE's consumer protection statute. It repealed Federal Law No. 24 of 2006 (Article 37) and came into force on the day after its publication (Article 38), which the portal records as 11 November 2020. Providers, commercial agents and advertisers had one year from that date to bring themselves into line (Article 33). The portal lists the law as in force and the index records an amendment by Federal Decree-Law No. 5 of 2023; the text available for download is the original 2020 version without amendment marks.
Article 3 applies the law to every commodity and service supplied in the State, including the free zones, and to the related operations of providers, advertisers and commercial agents; e-commerce is covered where the provider is registered in the State. Article 4 lists the consumer's rights: a safe environment, accurate information, choice, privacy and data security (consumer data may not be used for marketing), quick dispute settlement and fair compensation. Article 5 creates a Supreme Committee for Consumer Protection chaired by the Minister of Economy.
The obligations on providers are concrete. Goods must carry labels, instructions and risk warnings (Article 7). Prices must be clearly displayed and not advertised misleadingly, and the provider must issue a detailed invoice showing its trade name, address, the item, price and quantity; the invoice must be in Arabic, with other languages optional (Article 8). Article 26 extends the Arabic requirement to consumer data, advertising and contracts. Providers must honour warranties, supply spare parts and after-sales service and replace or refund (Article 10), with warranty periods set by the Minister (Article 14). On discovering a defect or risk the provider must notify the authority immediately and withdraw the item from the market (Article 11). A flawed item must be repaired, replaced or taken back with a refund, and a flawed service re-performed free; where the same flaw recurs three times in the first year and materially affects function, replacement or refund is required (Articles 12 and 13). Commercial agents must honour the manufacturer's warranty and lend a similar item if repairs take more than seven days (Article 16). Misleading advertising is prohibited (Article 17), promotions need a prior licence (Article 18) and any contract term that exempts the provider from its obligations is void (Article 21).
Article 29 punishes breaches of the labelling, pricing, invoicing, warranty, defect, agency, advertising and unfair-terms rules with imprisonment of up to two years and/or a fine of AED 10,000 to AED 2,000,000, doubled on repetition; Article 30 punishes breaches of the promotion, monopoly, standards and Arabic-language rules with up to six months and/or AED 3,000 to AED 200,000. The court may order confiscation, closure for up to three months and publication (Article 31). Appeals against administrative decisions go to the Minister or competent authority within 15 working days (Article 35).
Providers of commodities and services in the UAE, including the free zones, their commercial agents and advertisers, and e-commerce sellers registered in the State; and every consumer who buys goods or services for personal use. The Ministry of Economy and the local economic departments enforce it.
English official text in 38 articles. Open the full text or jump to a provision:
| Article 3 | Applies the law to all commodities and services in the State, including the free zones, to the related operations of providers, advertisers and commercial agents, and to e-commerce where the provider is registered in the State. |
| Article 4 | Guarantees consumers a safe environment, accurate information, awareness, choice, privacy and data security with a bar on using their data for marketing, respect for religious values, quick dispute settlement and fair compensation. |
| Article 7 | Goods must carry labelling on the cover, package or a visible place, with usage and installation instructions and clear warnings where use carries risk. |
| Article 8 | Prices must be clearly displayed and not advertised misleadingly; the provider must issue a detailed invoice with its trade name, address, item, price and quantity, and the invoice must be in Arabic with other languages optional. |
| Articles 10 and 14 | Providers must honour warranties, supply spare parts, maintain after-sales service and replace or refund; services must be free of defects for a suitable period, and the Minister sets warranty periods and after-sales prices by resolution. |
| Article 11 | On discovering a defect or risk in a product or service the provider must immediately notify the Ministry or competent authority, explain how to avoid harm and withdraw the item from the market. |
| Articles 12–13 | A flawed item must be repaired, replaced or taken back with a refund of its price, and a flawed service re-performed free of charge; if the same flaw recurs three times in the first year and materially affects use, the provider must replace or refund. |
| Article 16 | Commercial agents must honour the manufacturer's warranty and, where warranty work takes more than seven days, provide a similar item free of charge until it is completed. |
| Article 17 | Advertisers, providers and commercial agents may not describe goods or services with false data or advertise them in a misleading way. |
| Article 21 | Terms that harm the consumer are prohibited, and any term in a contract, invoice or other document that exempts the provider from its obligations under the law is void. |
| Article 26 | Consumer data, advertising and contracts must be in Arabic; other languages may be added. |
| Articles 29–31 | Up to two years' imprisonment and/or a fine of AED 10,000 to AED 2,000,000 for breaching the labelling, pricing, invoicing, warranty, defect, agency, advertising and unfair-terms rules, doubled on repetition; up to six months and/or AED 3,000 to AED 200,000 for the promotion, monopoly, standards and Arabic-language rules; confiscation, closure for up to three months and publication. |
Article 29: imprisonment of up to two years and/or a fine of AED 10,000 to AED 2,000,000 for breaching Articles 7, 8(1) to (3), 10 to 12, 15 to 17 and 21, doubled on repetition. Article 30: imprisonment of up to six months and/or a fine of AED 3,000 to AED 200,000 for breaching Articles 8(4), 18 to 20 and 26, doubled on repetition. Article 31: confiscation or destruction of goods and tools, closure of the premises for up to three months and publication of the judgment. Article 32: up to two months' imprisonment and/or a fine of twice the market value for disposing of seized goods.
Every client that sells to UAE consumers, and especially every e-commerce business we license, gets this law in its onboarding pack. The practical points are the Arabic invoice and contract requirement in Articles 8 and 26, which catches platforms built on English-only templates, the void exemption clauses in Article 21, which undo the limitation-of-liability wording most founders import from abroad, and the repair, replace and refund sequence in Articles 12 and 13, which has to be reflected in the returns policy before the site goes live. We also brief clients on the Article 11 duty to notify the authority and pull a defective product, because the two-year prison term in Article 29 attaches to the manager named on the licence. For distribution clients acting as commercial agents, Article 16's seven-day replacement rule changes how much stock they need to hold.
| Amended by | Federal Decree-Law No. 5 of 2023 |
| Repeals | Federal Law No. 24 of 2006 |
| Cites | Civil Transactions Law 1985 (repealed) |
| Cited by | Competition Law · Commercial Transactions Law |
“Cites” and “Cited by” are built automatically from references in the full texts held in this library; they cover only instruments in the library.
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