Commercial hire
Commercial van rental in Dubai
Renting in your company’s name works differently from renting in your own. Different documents, a different invoice, and a different answer to who pays when a fine arrives. This page is about that side of it — not which van, which you can pick from the fleet once the paperwork is straight.
From AED 180 per day
Up to 3.4 m load length
Car licence is enough
Free delivery in Dubai
The difference
What changes when a business rents, not a person
The van is identical. Everything around it is not.
The hire is in the company’s name
Not the manager’s, not the driver’s. The agreement, the invoice and the liability all sit with the business, which is what lets you put the cost through the books and what stops a departing employee taking a rental agreement with them.
Every driver has to be named
A company hire is authorised driver by driver, in writing. Anyone not on that letter is not covered, and “he only moved it across the yard” is exactly the sentence insurers refuse claims over. Adding a driver takes one message.
The invoice is the point
On a trade licence you are invoiced monthly rather than paying per hire, with 5% VAT shown separately. That is the difference between a stack of receipts and one line your accountant can actually reconcile.
Fines and Salik follow the driver
They are charged at cost with no handling fee and passed to the business, not absorbed by us and not quietly marked up. Because drivers are named, you can see whose round a fine came from instead of guessing.
The paperwork
What we need from a company
Short list, and it is the same whether you take one van for a week or two for a year.
- Valid trade licence — current, and matching the name the hire goes in
- A letter authorising each named driver, on your letterhead
- Each driver’s UAE licence and Emirates ID
- The dates and the route — so we can confirm mileage and delivery before you commit
We verify documents before the van moves, and we will decline a booking if they cannot be verified — including after a deposit is paid. That sounds unfriendly written down; in practice it is the reason our vans are where we say they are. The full position is in our rental terms.
The money
How a business is billed
Four arrangements, and the right one is decided by how many days a month the van actually moves.
Short hires
Paid in advance, with a refundable deposit held against the vehicle. Suits a one-off job, a cover van while yours is in the workshop, or a busy fortnight.
Monthly, on a trade licence
Invoiced monthly instead of paid per hire, from AED 2,500 a month. This is where most businesses land once the van is needed more days than not — see monthly van rental.
Three months or longer
No deposit on three-month terms, and the rate per day drops again. If you are weighing this against buying, the arithmetic is on rent or buy a van in Dubai.
Three vans or more
At that point it stops being a hire and becomes a contract: one invoice, vans held in reserve for you, and terms priced across the whole fleet. That is corporate fleet rental.
In every case the rate already includes comprehensive insurance, registration, servicing, 24/7 roadside assistance and a replacement vehicle. Fuel, Salik, fines, kilometres beyond the allowance and 5% VAT are charged separately — the full breakdown is on the rates page.
One Toyota Hiace, one month, three ways of paying for it
The van moves 5 days that month
The van moves 12 days that month
The van moves 22 days that month
Figures are the Toyota Hiace from our published rate card — AED 180 a day, AED 1,050 a week, AED 3,000 a month — buying whole weeks to cover the days needed. The shape barely changes down the fleet: the weekly rate overtakes the daily at about six days, and the monthly overtakes both from about a fortnight. Past that point the cheapest way to have the van is simply to keep it, even on the days it does not move.
The vehicle
Which van a commercial hire usually takes
Deliberately brief. The vehicle pages carry the load figures, and repeating them here would only make both harder to find.
Deliveries and daily rounds
A high-roof Hiace or Urvan. Most commercial hires start here. Sizes and load figures are on delivery and cargo van rental.
Trade, site and materials
A 1-ton pickup for anything loaded over the side, or a Ford Transit when it has to stay dry and locked.
Food, pharma and cold chain
A chiller van from 1 to 3 tonnes, or a refrigerated truck at 5 or 10. Temperature bands and what runs at each are on those pages.
Bulk, fit-out and exhibitions
A 5 or 10-tonne truck. Worth checking the licence category before you book — where the line falls.
The letter
The authorising letter, and why it is the document that matters
Of everything a company sends us, this is the one that decides what happens after an incident rather than before it.
The letter is short. On your letterhead, it names the company, names each person authorised to drive, and is signed by someone who can bind the business. That is all it has to do, and it is the document that connects a person behind the wheel to an agreement in a company’s name.
Its whole purpose is the moment something goes wrong. A driver who is not on it is not an authorised driver, and an unauthorised driver is the standard reason an insurer declines a claim. The van does not care who is driving it; the policy does, and so does the agreement you signed.
This is why “he only moved it across the yard” is the sentence to be afraid of. Short movements by unnamed people are how most companies discover the rule, because the incident that finally happens is never the long journey somebody planned for.
Keep it current rather than accurate on the day it was written. Staff leave, cover drivers appear for a fortnight, a manager moves a vehicle at the weekend. Adding a name takes one message and no charge; discovering after the fact that a name was missing takes considerably longer.
If you run vehicles from more than one site or department, put the whole list on one letter and re-issue it when it changes, rather than sending a new note per driver. One current document is far easier for both of us to rely on than six months of amendments.
Verification
What gets a commercial booking declined
We check documents before a vehicle moves, and occasionally that means saying no. These are the reasons, so that none of them surprise you.
An expired trade licence is the most common. Licences are renewed annually and the renewal frequently sits with somebody who is not the person booking the van, so the copy on file is often the one from last year. Check the expiry date before you send it.
A name that does not match is the second. The hire goes in the name on the licence, so a booking made under a trading name, an abbreviation or a group company that is not the licensed entity has to be corrected before it can proceed. It is administrative rather than difficult, but it cannot be skipped.
Then the driver documents: a UAE licence that has expired, an Emirates ID that has, or a licence category that does not cover the vehicle booked. The last one matters most on anything built to carry more than two tonnes, and it is worth reading the licence guide before booking a chiller van or a truck for staff who have only ever driven the small vans.
We will decline a booking whose documents cannot be verified, and that holds even after a deposit has been paid. Written down that reads unfriendly. In practice it is the reason the van we promised you is the van that arrives, and the reason a vehicle hired in your company’s name stays connected to your company. The full position is in our rental terms.
If anything is close to expiry, tell us at the quote stage rather than the morning of delivery. Almost every problem on this list is solvable with a day’s notice and almost none of them are solvable with an hour’s.
Reconciling
Reading the monthly invoice without losing a day to it
A company hire produces a few recurring charges that are not the rate. Handled once, they take minutes a month; ignored, they become an audit.
The rate covers the vehicle. Fuel, Salik, traffic fines, any kilometres past the allowance and 5% VAT arrive separately, at cost and without a handling fee added. None of that is complicated, but it does mean the invoice total moves month to month even when nothing about the hire changed.
Salik is the predictable one. It follows the route, so a van crossing the same gates every morning produces roughly the same figure every month, and a sudden jump usually means the route changed rather than the billing did.
Fines are the one that needs a person. Because your drivers are named, a charge can be attributed to whoever had the vehicle, but only if somebody keeps a note of which driver had which van on which day. A simple shared sheet, filled in at handover, turns an unattributable line on an invoice into a two-minute conversation.
Mileage is worth a glance rather than a system. Read the odometer at the start and end of the month, compare it with the allowance on your agreement, and if the route has genuinely outgrown the figure, tell us. We would rather rebuild the allowance into the rate than send an overage line every month for a year.
If your accounts team needs anything presented differently, a purchase order reference on the invoice or a cost code per vehicle, ask at the start. It is easy to set up before the first invoice and tedious to apply retrospectively.
Second time round
Setting up once so the next hire takes minutes
Most of the effort on a company hire happens once. It is worth doing it properly so that it never has to happen again.
Once your trade licence, your authorising letter and your drivers’ documents are verified and on file, the next booking is the dates, the vehicle and where you want it. That is the practical reason to send a complete set at the start rather than the minimum needed to get one van out of the yard.
Give us one contact for the paperwork and one for operations, even if they are the same person today. When a van is needed at short notice, the booking moves at the speed of whoever can confirm it, and a single named contact is the difference between an hour and an afternoon.
Tell us the renewal month of your trade licence and we will ask you for the new copy before it lapses rather than after. It is a small courtesy that stops the most common cause of a declined booking from ever reaching you.
And if the pattern of use changes, say so early. Businesses usually start with occasional daily hires and drift into needing a van most weeks without ever revisiting how they buy it. At that point the arrangement, not the vehicle, is the thing costing money, and monthly hire or a fleet contract is a better answer than a longer stack of receipts.
Commercial hire questions
Can I rent a van in my company’s name in Dubai?
Yes. Send a valid trade licence and a letter authorising each driver, along with their UAE licence and Emirates ID. The agreement and the invoice are then in the company’s name.
Do you invoice monthly, or do I pay each time?
Monthly contract customers on a trade licence are invoiced monthly. Short hires are payable in advance with a refundable deposit.
Is VAT included in the rate?
No — 5% VAT is charged separately and shown on the invoice, along with fuel, Salik and any fines. The rate itself covers insurance, registration, servicing, roadside assistance and a replacement vehicle.
Who pays traffic fines and Salik on a company hire?
The business does. Both are passed through at cost with no handling fee, and because every driver is named you can see which round a charge came from.
Can more than one of my drivers use the van?
Yes, as long as each is named in the authorising letter. Anyone not on it is not covered. Adding a driver takes one message.
Do I need a deposit?
On short hires, yes, and it is refundable. On three-month terms and longer there is no deposit.
What if I need three or more vans?
Then a fleet contract is cheaper and easier to run than three separate hires — one invoice, and vehicles held back for you rather than sold to whoever calls first. See corporate fleet rental.
Send the trade licence and we will quote
One message with the trade licence, the van you want and how long you need it. If you are not sure which van, tell us the load instead and we will name the size.