How to get your restaurant on Talabat, Deliveroo, Keeta and Noon Food in the UAE

You are opening a restaurant or a cloud kitchen in the UAE, and you want to be on the delivery apps from day one. Where do you start?

Signing up is the easy part: each app has a sales team whose job is to bring you in. The part nobody does for you is the storefront itself. And the page you have on the day you go live is the page your first customers judge.

Step 1: which papers do you need?

Each app has a partner sign-up page. You leave your details, and someone from the app contacts you with a contract and a list of documents.

The list changes from one app to another and over time, so ask each app for its current list in writing before you start. Guides for restaurants in the UAE usually mention the same family of papers:

• the trade licence of the business, with a food activity on it,
• the food permit from your municipality,
• the ID of the owner or the signatory,
• bank details for the payouts,
• your menu with prices.

Check one thing early: the name and the activity on your licence must match the restaurant you are listing. It is easier to correct before the contract than after.

Step 2: what should you check in the contract?

Three lines decide how much you keep. Find them before you sign.

The commission, and what it is calculated on. On the invoices we read for one restaurant group in Dubai in October 2026, the apps took between about 27% and 35% per order, VAT included. On several of them, commission was taken on the menu price, before the discount. The worked example is in Talabat commission in the UAE: what you really keep per order.

Exclusivity. Some offers come with a lower rate if you stay on one app only. Work out what you give up before you accept.

The opening offers. New restaurants are often asked to launch with a discount. Know who funds it, on which dishes, and when it ends.

Step 3: how do you build the storefront before go-live?

This is where most new restaurants lose their first month. The app's team uploads the menu you send. If you send a PDF made for the dining room, you get a dining-room menu on a phone screen.

Prepare these five things yourself:

1. A short menu, in the right order. Twelve categories or fewer, named in plain words. Your profitable best sellers first. Not everything you can cook: what travels well and what you want to sell.

2. Dish names customers search for. "Chicken shawarma wrap", not "The Classic". The method is in Naming dishes so customers can find them.

3. A photo on every dish of the first categories. Real photos of your real dishes, in the format each app asks for. See Menu photos that get the tap.

4. Honest hours and preparation time. Promise what the kitchen does on a busy Friday, not on a quiet Tuesday. Late orders in your first weeks become your first reviews.

5. Delivery prices you have calculated. Fill the "what you keep" table with your commission and your food cost for your ten main dishes. Decide your delivery prices from that, not from the dining-room menu.

Step 4: which app first?

You do not need to open everywhere on the same day. Each app is one more tablet, one more menu to keep up to date and one more invoice to read.

Most restaurants in Dubai start with the apps their customers already use, then add one at a time when the kitchen keeps up. We go through the order in Which delivery apps should a UAE restaurant be on?.

What should you do in your first two weeks online?

• Order from yourself once on each app. Check the photos, the options, the packaging and the real delivery time.
• Answer every review. Fix the complaint that comes back.
• Switch off a dish the moment you run out, and switch it back on.
• Look at three numbers every week: who saw you, who opened the menu, who ordered.
• Do not add a second offer because the first days are slow. Give the page two weeks.

Questions owners ask us

How long does it take to go live? It depends on the app and on how fast your documents and your menu are ready. Ask the sales contact for a date in writing, and have your photos and menu finished before you sign, so the wait is only on their side.

Can a cloud kitchen or a home business be listed? Each app decides which licences it accepts. Ask before you pay for a licence or a kitchen, not after.

Should I let the app build my menu? The app's team types in what you send. They do not choose your order of dishes, rewrite your names or decide your prices. That work stays with you, or with someone you hire for it.

Where we come in

We build delivery app storefronts for restaurants in the UAE before they go live, and rebuild the ones that are already online: menu order, dish names, dish images, banners and prices checked against what you keep. Then we follow the numbers with you every two weeks.

Already live, even for a few days? Send us the link to your storefront. Your score out of 100 lands in your inbox in minutes, then we go through it with you, with no upfront investment.

Sources: invoices of one restaurant group in Dubai, three sites, October 2026, read with the owner. Document lists are set by each app and change: ask Talabat, Deliveroo, Keeta and Noon Food for their current list before you apply.