Dubai Launches UAE's First Escrow-Backed Marketplace for Multi-Million Dirham Number Plates

Dubai’s premium vehicle plate market, where individual plates can reach Dh55 million ($15m), is welcoming the UAE’s first escrow-backed online marketplace. The Mazal app will hold buyers’ funds until ownership transfer is confirmed, providing security to a second-hand market that has traditionally relied on social media, independent brokers, and manual processes.

The platform aligns with Roads and Transport Authority regulations, offering a secure marketplace with verified buyers and increasing confidence in high-value auctions. Dubai’s private number plate market is growing by approximately 20 per cent annually, with single-digit and special-number plates commanding high values. In the past three years, Dubai’s status-symbol vehicle plate market has seen Dh1.7 billion ($463 million) in transactions, according to Mazal app data analysts. Mazal will manage these high-value transactions, aiming to set a new digital standard for the city's growing collectables sector.

Abdulla AlMeer, chairman of Mazal Dubai’s executive board and a 21-year government employee, has long sought to develop a legal, secure secondary market. “Number plates have been associated with Dubai since the beginning, as the leadership awarded number plates to big executives,” he said. “That has developed to where number plates have become a lifestyle in Dubai. I have seen the market surge for number plates sold through apps like Instagram and other social media channels. But there has never been an escrow system where you can transact the plate securely between two people. Mazal is the first system in the UAE where you can auction number plates like this.”

Mazal aims to bring more structure and efficiency to a market that has traditionally relied on informal transactions. Under its transaction framework, Mazal securely holds buyers’ funds from the moment a deal is agreed and releases them only once the official ownership transfer is confirmed. As an added layer of security, Mazal has partnered with Transguard to facilitate large cash transactions. Users can initiate the sale or purchase of a number plate using a unique QR code before transaction fees are held in escrow, with Mazal charging a 5 per cent brokerage fee on each sale.

“Number plates are like gold, so we have categorised them as 18, 21, or 24 carat. The highest value is mithali, which means perfect or the pinnacle in Arabic,” said Mr AlMeer. Ahmad Al Nasser, co-founder and chief executive of Mazal, noted that Dubai’s premium number plate market has become a sophisticated trading environment, with plates increasingly recognised for their scarcity, value, and long-term potential.

Dubai’s record number plate, P7, sold at auction for Dh55m in 2023, while in Abu Dhabi, the number one sold for Dh52.2m in 2008 by Emirati businessman Saeed Abdul Ghaffar Khouri. Other high-value plates sold at Emirates Auction include AA9 (Dubai), which sold for Dh38 million at a 2021 charity auction, and DD6, which sold for Dh37 million in March 2026 at the Armani Hotel in the Burj Khalifa. Other valuable Dubai plates include AA8 (Dh35 million), DD5 (Dh35 million), and D5, purchased for Dh33 million by Indian businessman Balwinder Sahani in 2016.