DARB for company and rental vehicles: registration and charges

DARB for company vehicles: who must register

DARB is Abu Dhabi’s road toll system. It works without kiosks or barriers, and there is no tag to buy for the windscreen: the system identifies a vehicle by its plate. Q Mobility runs DARB. The Department of Municipalities and Transport supervises it through the Integrated Transport Centre (Abu Dhabi Mobility). Abu Dhabi Mobility also announces changes to the rules. The legal basis is Law No. (17) of 2017 on Road Tolls in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

A Dubai plate does not take a vehicle out of the system. Q Mobility’s DARB FAQ says owners of vehicles registered in Abu Dhabi and in other emirates must register in the toll gate system and register their vehicles as well. DARB registration for company vehicles has two parts: one account for the company, and a registration for each vehicle that may pass a gate. You do both at darb.qmobility.ae or in the Darb app.

Automatic exemptions on Abu Dhabi Mobility’s DARB page cover ambulances, armed forces, civil defence and police vehicles, public and school buses, passenger buses with 26 seats or more, motorcycles, authorised Abu Dhabi taxis and trailers. Rental cars and company vehicles are not among them or among the exemptions granted on application. Registration is compulsory for exempt categories too.

For Dubai’s own toll gates, see Salik for company cars and rental fleets.

What happens at a DARB gate

Three things decide what happens to each crossing: whether the vehicle is registered, whether its wallet has enough balance, and whether the car was on a rental at that moment. Set the three switches and send a car through a gate.

A crossing ends in one of four ways:

• unregistered vehicle: the owner gets 10 working days from the crossing to register it
• insufficient balance: the toll stays pending; the owner has 5 working days to top up, then the fine is AED 50 per transaction
• company pays: AED 4 leaves the company wallet and stays a company cost
• renter’s bill: AED 4 leaves the company wallet, and the company bills it back to the renter under the rental agreement

The first two follow from the state of the DARB account. The last two depend on your own rental records: in the records we work with, a crossing carries a plate and a time, and no renter. Here and below we mean vehicles with plates from other emirates, Dubai included: the charge at each crossing and the fine for a short balance are the rules for them.

DARB company account: what you need

Q Mobility says “establishment account”, not “DARB corporate account” or “DARB business account”.

The operator’s FAQ gives one list of requirements for an individual and for a company:

• the traffic file number (traffic code) of the company
• the Emirates ID of the account holder
• an email address: for an establishment account Q Mobility prefers the company’s email
• the mobile number registered with the traffic file number

The traffic file number is on the vehicle registration card (Mulkiya): 10 digits for most emirates, 8 digits for Dubai.

The Emirates ID belongs to one person, the account holder. Agree on who that is before you start, and make sure the company still controls the mobile number registered with the traffic file.

A company with several traffic codes does not need a second account. You add another code with the Add Traffic Code feature, from the dashboard screen on the website or the profile screen in the app, provided you own that traffic code.

Neither the operator’s pages nor the authority’s list any other company documents.

Setting up the company itself is a separate guide: how to start a car rental business in Dubai.

How to register a company vehicle in DARB

Q Mobility’s FAQ describes the steps for the app and for sign-in with UAE Pass. Its English pages have no separate walkthrough for an establishment account.

1. Create the account with the four items above (first time only), or sign in at darb.qmobility.ae or in the Darb app
2. Open the Vehicles menu. DARB is connected to the federal vehicle licensing system, and a new vehicle you own is added to the account on its own; if it is missing, use the route below
3. Select a vehicle marked as unregistered and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the registration

Registration costs AED 100 per vehicle: AED 50 is the fee, and AED 50 goes to the wallet as balance for the gates.

A vehicle that shows up in the list is not registered yet. It stays unregistered until someone completes step 3.

Several vehicles at once: the English FAQ does not answer this. On 10 October 2026 its answer to the question repeated a neighbouring one. The Arabic version says an establishment account can select several vehicles on the vehicles page and register them together. We read it ourselves and a native speaker has not checked the translation, so confirm with the contact centre, 8003009.

How to add a vehicle in DARB when it is not in the list

If a vehicle the company owns has not appeared, the FAQ gives a manual route:

1. Open Vehicles and select Add Vehicle
2. Enter the plate number
3. Select “I own the vehicle”

DARB checks the ownership against government records. If it finds a discrepancy, the request goes to manual verification, and DARB notifies you of the result. The operator does not say how long that takes.

A vehicle the company does not own is a different case. The FAQ says DARB deducts a toll only from the account of the vehicle’s owner, and wallet sharing applies only to parking fees. If a car is leased and the leasing company is its registered owner, the public pages do not say whose account pays the toll: they do not mention leased vehicles at all. Ask Q Mobility on 8003009.

When a vehicle leaves the fleet: after a sale you do nothing in DARB. Q Mobility says the system removes the vehicle from your account within a few hours of the ownership transfer. If the plate number changes under the same owner, the registration remains valid, but you must submit a request to re-register. Q Mobility advises topping up the wallet and clearing outstanding fees well before you register or sell a vehicle.

DARB company account login

Q Mobility’s FAQ names two places to log in to DARB: darb.qmobility.ae and the Darb app. Abu Dhabi Mobility’s DARB page still gives an older address, darb.itc.gov.ae. On 10 October 2026 it redirected to the same site.

The FAQ describes sign-in in three places, and the three differ:

• in the app: sign-in is through UAE Pass, with no username or password
• in another answer: “Log in using UAE Pass or your existing account credentials”
• on the website: “Log in using your registered account”

None of the public pages describes a separate DARB login for a company. Before you decide who in the company holds the login, ask Q Mobility’s contact centre on 8003009 two things: whose UAE Pass an establishment account uses and whether several employees can sign in.

DARB wallet and top-up

For vehicles registered outside Abu Dhabi, DARB collects the toll from the vehicle’s wallet at each pass under a gate, provided the vehicle is registered and the wallet holds enough balance.

To top up, Q Mobility says, open Wallet, choose Top Up, add a credit or debit card and enter the amount. After a top-up, pending fees can take up to an hour to clear.

An account with many vehicles can split them across wallets:

• an account can have several wallets, but no more than it has registered vehicles
• each vehicle is assigned to one wallet, and one wallet can serve several vehicles
• a vehicle’s charges come only from its own wallet: if that wallet is short, the fee stays pending and is not taken from any other wallet

One wallet for the whole fleet means one balance to top up. But if it runs short, the fee of every vehicle assigned to it stays pending.

Q Mobility’s FAQ describes Auto Top-Up in the Darb app: the wallet refills when the balance falls below a threshold you choose. That answer does not mention establishment accounts, so check that it works for yours before you rely on it.

Parking draws on the same wallet. In June 2026 Q Mobility announced that parking fees at Mushrif Mall are deducted from the user’s DARB wallet on exit, so a balance can fall without a gate crossing.

You get money back from the wallet only by closing the account. The refund, per the FAQ, goes to your bank account and can take up to 45 working days. All vehicles on the account become unregistered, you cannot create a new account until the refund arrives, and then you pay the registration fees again. You cannot transfer a wallet balance to another customer’s account.

DARB toll charges: how much and when

A crossing through a paid DARB gate costs AED 4; the bridge gates charge only at peak hours. In the words of Abu Dhabi Mobility’s release of 15 August 2025, the fee is “charged every time a vehicle passes through a toll gate in the emirate”. Neither the authority nor the operator lists a separate tariff for company vehicles.

Q Mobility lists six gates. Four stand on bridges, and older articles call them by the bridge names.

Peak hours at the four bridge gates are 07:00–09:00 and 15:00–19:00. The evening window has applied since 1 September 2025. Sundays and official public holidays are free at these gates. Mark two crossings on the grid to see what they cost.

Al Qurm and Ghantoot have operated since 4 May 2026, per Abu Dhabi Mobility’s release of 23 April 2026, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at AED 4 per crossing. The authority names alternative routes: Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Street or Arabian Gulf Street for Al Qurm, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Street for Ghantoot. On 10 October 2026 the authority’s main DARB page did not list these two gates.

Public holidays: according to media reports of Q Mobility’s announcements, two holiday exemptions in 2026 covered the bridge gates only. Khaleej Times wrote before Eid Al Adha that Al Qurm and Ghantoot would continue to charge AED 4 per crossing, and Aletihad reported that both would operate during the Hijri New Year holiday.

Ramadan: Q Mobility says Ramadan peak times are announced through official channels, so check before each Ramadan. For 2026, Gulf News reported peaks of 08:00–10:00 and 14:00–18:00. The two 24-hour gates are not affected.

Caps: the authority names no daily or monthly caps today. The ones it removed on 1 September 2025 applied to private vehicles: AED 16 a day, and AED 200, AED 150 and AED 100 a month for the first, second, and third and any further vehicles. On 10 October 2026 Q Mobility’s policy page still showed them.

DARB fines

The fines below are from Abu Dhabi Mobility’s DARB page and Q Mobility’s FAQ:

The fine for an unregistered vehicle counts days, not crossings: Q Mobility’s FAQ applies AED 100 for the first day “regardless of the number of crossings on the same day”. Abu Dhabi Mobility’s English page says first, second and third “time”; its Arabic page counts days, as the operator does.

Fines on one vehicle cannot exceed AED 25,000 in the year from the date of the first violation.

DARB reports a violation by SMS to the vehicle owner’s phone number. You pay a fine from the DARB wallet or by credit card. If a fine or a toll transaction is wrong, you can file a grievance; the operator names no deadline for it.

Neither of the first two fines in the table depends on how the driver behaves: both come from the state of the owner’s account, its registrations and its balance.

DARB on a rental car: who pays

The public pages of the authority and the operator say nothing about rental cars. On 10 October 2026 we searched them in English and Arabic for rented and leased vehicles and found no mention.

The operator does not say this outright, but its general rules point one way. This is our reading:

• A renter cannot put a rental car under their own DARB account for tolls: DARB deducts a toll only from the account of the vehicle’s owner, so the AED 4 leaves the company’s wallet
• The violation SMS goes to the owner’s phone number: the company gets it, and the driver does not

So the company pays first and recovers the toll from the renter under its rental agreement. For that you need:

• A clause the renter signs at handover: the handover document states that the company bills DARB tolls incurred during the rental back to the renter
• Exact handover and return times: you find the renter through the rental that contains the time of the crossing
• A registered vehicle and a funded wallet before the car leaves: without them a crossing can end as a pending fee or, after the grace period, a violation on the company’s account

The rental contract itself is a separate job: see how rental contracts are registered in TARS.

Charges that arrive after the return

A crossing can reach your records after the car is back. Neither the operator nor the authority publishes an interval between a crossing and its appearance in the DARB account. Don’t build the process on “within an hour” or “the next day”.

Tie each crossing to a rental by the crossing’s own time. It belongs to the rental whose window, from key handover to actual return, contains that time, whatever day it reached your records. The system we built for ALVI works this way; what it does and does not do is in the section below.

Check the car’s crossings against the rental window before you issue the final invoice. Then check closed rentals again on a date you fix in advance.

How ALVI’s system handles DARB

ALVI is a car rental company in Dubai. The system is our case: we built it for ALVI, and it is live. More in the ALVI case.

• One feed, filled on a schedule: the system collects DARB crossings several times a day and shows them next to Salik, parking and fines. The manager can refresh the data in between
• Each crossing shows its details: time, plate number, amount and gate
• Charges land on the right rental on their own: a crossing goes to the rental whose window contains its time, even when it shows up after the return
• One limit of the system as it stands: DARB does not go into the final invoice on its own. In Charges the manager gets the crossings as one feed, by vehicle, by customer, as a summary for a period and as an Excel export. The renter sees them in their own account
• The bill-back clause is printed in the handover form: the renter sees it when taking the keys, before any charge exists
• The DARB wallet is on screen: its balance, an estimate of how many days it will last, and a flag when the balance is low

Choosing a system for a fleet? See how to choose car rental software in the UAE.

Before a renter drives to Abu Dhabi

• The DARB account marks the vehicle as registered: being in the list is not enough
• The wallet the vehicle is assigned to has balance
• Auto Top-Up is on, if it works for your account
• The handover document carries the clause on billing DARB tolls back to the renter
• Handover and return times are on record: you match a crossing by plate and time
• The renter knows that Al Qurm and Ghantoot charge at any hour
• Someone watches the vehicle owner’s phone number: DARB sends violation notices to it by SMS

The same checks fit on one page in the PDF checklist.