Tadawul, DFM and ADX: what a trade actually costs, and who takes each slice

This completes a set. We have already looked at what it costs to trade Boursa Kuwait and what Qatar Stock Exchange brokers charge. This page covers the three largest Gulf markets.

What the exchanges themselves publish

Less than you would expect.

ADX publishes a fee schedule that gives a cash market trading fee of 0.020% of trade value for listed companies and ETFs. That is the exchange’s own slice. The document does not break out how a customer’s total commission is divided, and it carries no effective date in the body.

DFM publishes a fees list under Circular No. 03/2023, effective 8 March 2023. It covers membership, trading operations, information technology services, and initial and annual listing fees. There is no retail commission table in it at all.

Saudi Exchange publishes fee information through its knowledge centre, and the Tadawul Group companies publish their own schedules for exchange, clearing and depository services.

So for two of the three, the exchange’s own documentation will not tell an individual investor what a trade costs. That is not evasive — exchanges bill members, not customers — but it does mean the honest source for retail costs is the broker.

What a broker actually charges

Emirates NBD Securities publishes a schedule of exchange commission fees with the components broken out, which is the clearest published breakdown we found. These are its rates, not a market average.

DFM costs about twice ADX for the same trade

Put a AED 50,000 trade through each, before VAT:

• ADX: 0.15% of AED 50,000 = AED 75.
• DFM: 0.275% of AED 50,000 = AED 137.50, plus the AED 10.50 transaction fee = AED 148.

Same broker, same country, same size of trade, roughly double the cost. The difference is not the broker’s commission — that is 0.125% on both. It is everything stacked around it: DFM carries a market fee, a regulator fee, a central depository fee and a flat transaction charge that ADX’s schedule does not show in the same form.

The flat AED 10.50 also means the gap is proportionally worse on small trades. On a AED 5,000 trade, DFM’s percentage cost is AED 13.75 and the flat fee adds another AED 10.50 on top — it nearly doubles the bill again. Anyone drip-feeding small amounts into DFM-listed shares should size that fee against the trade rather than ignore it.

What the Saudi components look like

Sahm Capital publishes the Saudi breakdown in full, which is useful because the Emirates NBD schedule gives Tadawul as a single number.

Two things stand out. The regulatory and market layer in Saudi Arabia is 0.050% in total, and the largest single piece of it is the CMA’s own fee at 0.030% — larger than the exchange, the depository and the clearing house combined. And the broker’s commission is roughly two thirds of the all-in cost, which means the broker is the variable worth shopping in this market.

VAT in Saudi Arabia is 15%, applied to the commission and the market fees, against 5% in the UAE. On the headline rates above, Tadawul is the cheapest of the three before tax and the tax rate is three times higher, which narrows the gap considerably. We are not going to compute a single all-in figure for you, because VAT treatment can vary by investor category and we could only find one source on the exceptions — not enough to publish.

One caveat on all of the above: these are one broker’s rates. NBK Brokerage publishes a regional card covering eight markets, and its numbers for the same exchanges are different again — Tadawul at 0.155%, the Dubai Financial Market at 0.30%, and Abu Dhabi at 0.225% with a minimum of AED 65. We set that card out in what it costs to trade Boursa Kuwait. The market and regulatory layers are identical whoever you use; the spread between those two cards is the broker’s own commission, which is the whole argument for asking for the schedule with the components separated.

One thing to watch on any UAE fee schedule

The Emirates NBD schedule labels the UAE regulatory component “SCA Commission”. The Securities and Commodities Authority became the Capital Market Authority on 1 January 2026.

The fee itself is unaffected — 0.05% is 0.05% whatever the regulator is called. But it is a useful marker for how current a document is, and it is worth knowing if you go looking for the regulator’s own register and cannot find it under the old name. We cover the regulatory picture in where your GCC broker is actually regulated.

What this changes

The exchange you trade on is a cost decision, not just an access decision. Most people choose a market because of the shares listed on it. Fair enough — but if a similar exposure is available on both, the cost difference between DFM and ADX is not a rounding error.

Flat fees matter more than percentages on small trades. The AED 10.50 on DFM and the USD 12.15 on Nasdaq Dubai are invisible on a large trade and material on a small one. If you are investing monthly, this is an argument for larger, less frequent trades — which is the same conclusion we reached from a different direction in monthly versus quarterly transfers.

Compare brokers on the component they control. The market and regulatory layers are the same for every broker on a given exchange. The broker commission is not, and in Saudi Arabia it is the majority of the bill.

EW+ View

Break any Gulf trading cost into its components and the same picture appears: a small exchange slice, a small clearing and depository slice, a regulator slice, and a broker commission that is usually the largest single element and the only one you can negotiate by choosing differently.

The headline percentage hides all of that, which is why two markets in the same country can differ by a factor of two without anyone appearing to charge very much. If you take one thing from this page, make it the habit of asking a broker for the schedule with the components separated. Every figure here came from a broker willing to publish theirs that way, and that willingness is itself informative.

Common questions

Next steps

1. Ask your broker for its schedule of fees with the components separated, rather than a single headline percentage.
2. Before choosing between a DFM and an ADX listing for similar exposure, run your typical trade size through both cost structures.
3. If you invest small amounts monthly, size the flat transaction fee against the trade and consider whether fewer, larger trades fit your pattern.
4. In the Saudi market, compare brokers on commission specifically, since the market and regulatory layer of 0.050% is identical whoever you use.
5. Check the date on any fee schedule, and treat a reference to the SCA rather than the CMA as a sign the document predates January 2026.

Further reading on ExpatWealthPlus

• What it costs to trade Boursa Kuwait
• What Qatar Stock Exchange brokers charge
• Where your GCC broker is actually regulated
• Emirates NBD Securities review
• Monthly or quarterly transfers: the real maths

Official sources

Every figure in this article is checked against the primary source. These are the places to verify the current position for yourself, since rates, rules and product terms change.

• Emirates NBD Securities — schedule of fees →The component breakdown for ADX, DFM, Nasdaq Dubai and Tadawul quoted above
• ADX — fee schedule →The 0.020% cash market trading fee; the exchange's own slice rather than the retail total
• DFM — fees list →Circular No. 03/2023, effective 8 March 2023; membership, listing and technology fees, with no retail commission table
• Sahm Capital — Saudi stock fees schedule →The CMA, exchange, Edaa and Muqassa components published individually
• Saudi Exchange — fees →The exchange's own fee information for the Saudi market