Is Dubai property a good investment? Dubai against 19 other markets, with the 2026 numbers

Is Dubai property a good investment?

Dubai property is cheap to buy and to hold, but prices are falling and a large supply of new homes is due.

The main number for: a buyer pays about 6.2% to 6.5% in costs, with no tax on rent or gains for individuals. The main number against: about 344,000 homes are scheduled for 2026 to 2028. One price index also fell 10.2% from February to August 2026. Sales in the third quarter of 2026 were 37% lower by number than a year earlier.

This page is information. It is not legal, tax or financial advice. It gives both sides with numbers, so that you can make your own checks.

More data on this site

• Dubai price index 2008 to 2026: every rise and fall, month by month.
• Which investments worked from 2020 to 2026: results by area and by type of home.
• Investor board: what a budget buys, and 5-year cases for a purchase.

Sources: Real Estate Club Dubai, UAE buying fees (27 April 2026); ValuStrat index, August 2026 (16 September 2026); fam Properties third-quarter report (6 October 2026); Cavendish Maxwell delivery data (31 July 2026); Global Property Guide (second quarter of 2026).

Dubai property market in 2026: what happened

Dubai prices peaked in February 2026, fell sharply in March and have drifted lower since.

A regional war began on 28 February 2026. Missiles and drones were fired at the UAE. Buyers stopped almost at once. In the first 12 days of March, UAE deal volumes fell 37% year on year and 49% month on month. These are Goldman Sachs figures. The war was the trigger. The deeper issue is supply, which the rating agencies flagged in 2025.

Dubai price indexes in 2026, with dates

The sources measure different things. ValuStrat values a fixed basket of homes each month, so it reacted first. Averages of sale prices move later. New off-plan launches sold at list price hold those averages up.

A fair summary is a peak in February 2026, a sharp drop in March, then a slow drift down. Most measures show prices 5% to 10% below the peak. The fall is larger in prime towers.

The founder of Emaar, Alabbar, said a 5% to 10% adjustment is possible. He expects "a nice balance" in 2027. That is the view of a developer. No independent body has made that forecast.

Dubai property prices since 2020

• The low point was April 2020, at AED 866 per sq ft. That was almost 30% below the September 2014 peak and 10.4% above the April 2009 low.
• July 2025: AED 1,625 per sq ft, which was 31.7% above the 2014 peak. August 2025: AED 1,664 per sq ft.
• August 2026: AED 1,636 per sq ft. That is about 89% above the April 2020 low.
• One news report says prices rose "more than 70% since 2020" before the war. A second says about 60% between 2022 and early 2025.
• Older freehold villas are 187% above their level after the pandemic and 75% above the 2014 peak (ValuStrat, August 2026).
• Older freehold apartments are 68% above their level after the pandemic. They are still 9% below the 2014 peak.

The full series is on the Dubai price index 2008 to 2026 page. The scorecard shows which investments worked from 2020 to 2026.

DLD transactions by year, and sales by quarter in 2026

"All registered transactions" includes sales, mortgages and gifts. Check which measure a report uses before you compare two years.

• First quarter. A record AED 252 billion, up 31%. Most of it was booked before the war.
• March. Residential sales fell nearly 20% to AED 37 billion. That was the steepest monthly fall since the pandemic.
• April. Sales were still about 20% below April 2025.
• First half. The first half of 2025 was AED 431 billion. The first half of 2026 was about 2.6% lower in value, despite the record first quarter.
• Third quarter. Sales fell 37% by number and 46% by value against the third quarter of 2025 (our arithmetic).
• Third quarter, second count. Springfield Properties counts AED 90.62 billion across 36,738 deals. It says 84% of deals were below AED 3 million.
• August. There were 3,038 sales of ready homes, down 20.6% year on year. There were 8,016 off-plan registrations, down 40.4% year on year.
• Rental contracts. Freehold areas recorded 298,984 contracts from January to September 2026, up 6.8%.

Off-plan share of sales

• 2025: off-plan was 69% of sales by number and 65% by value. That was 149,290 deals worth AED 448.1 billion.
• March 2026: 78% of transactions. August 2026: 73%.
• Third quarter of 2026: 69% of residential deals by number and 57% by value (our arithmetic from broker data).
• In August 2026 one developer, Azizi, took 22.6% of off-plan sales. Emaar took 10.0%, Damac 7.6%, Binghatti 5.6%, Imtiaz 4.6% and Sobha 4.2%.

Rental yield in Dubai

• Global Property Guide puts the average gross yield at 5.53% in the second quarter of 2026.
• The UAE average fell from 5.45% at the end of 2025 to 4.94%.
• Cavendish Maxwell puts the Dubai yield at about 6.34% in August 2026.
• UBS says it takes 16 years of rent to buy a 60 sq m city flat. That is about 6.25% gross.
• Service charges take 15% to 25% of rent. After them, net yields in the main towers run about 4% to 7%. That range is a broker estimate.
• Net yields are typically 1.5 to 2 points below gross yields.

What the rating agencies say

• S&P, 7 October 2026. Its base case is that disruption lasts into 2027. Deliveries in 2027 and 2028 "could accelerate the price correction, particularly in investor-driven apartment segments".
• Fitch, June 2026. It "now expects a larger correction" than the 15% it forecast in May 2025. It has published no new figure in the reports read for this page.
• Moody's, 7 May 2026. A slowdown or reversal in the number of people moving to Dubai would make it harder to fill new homes.
• UBS, 22 September 2026. Dubai scores 1.16 on its bubble index, 4th of 23 cities, in the "elevated risk" group.

The full list of warnings, with dates, is in the next section. To test a purchase against these numbers, use the Investor board.

Sources: Dubai Land Department, first quarter of 2026 (9 April 2026); Government of Dubai Media Office, 2025 results (12 January 2026); ValuStrat index, August 2026 (16 September 2026); Fortune (1 June 2026); S&P assessment (7 October 2026).

Dubai property supply: homes due in 2026, 2027 and 2028

About 344,000 homes are scheduled for 2026 to 2028, but only 43% of the homes due in early 2026 arrived on time.

How many homes are delivered on time

In the first quarter of 2026, 30,300 homes were due. Only 12,900 were delivered, which is 43%. More than half of the scheduled homes slipped. A June 2026 report counts 65,000 apartments and 12,500 villas due by the end of 2026. It expects many to slip into 2027.

Late delivery softens the supply number. It also means a buyer of an off-plan home should plan for a delay.

Supply against demand

About 266,000 homes are scheduled for 2027 and 2028. Dubai added about 63,000 households in 2025. The segment most exposed is apartments bought by investors in new districts.

• Population at the end of 2025: 4,580,300. That was up about 332,000, or 7.5%, in the year.
• Population on 28 September 2026: 4,807,185. That is up 226,885 since 1 January 2026, or about 5% in 9 months.
• Households in 2025: 858,000, up 7.9%.
• The growth runs against forecasts made during the war. Citi expected 1% growth in 2026.
• Older reports put the 2025 population at about 4.0 million. The statistics office now uses live administrative records. Check which series a source uses.

The warnings, with dates

Sources: Cavendish Maxwell delivery data (31 July 2026); Gulf News, population (29 September 2026); Moody's (10 September 2025); Fitch (29 May 2025); S&P assessment (7 October 2026).

Will Dubai property crash? Past falls against other cities

Dubai prices have fallen deeply twice since 2008, and the fall since February 2026 is about 10% so far on one index.

No source on this page can say how far prices will fall. The record of past falls shows what has happened before.

• Dubai has had two deep falls in 18 years. The second was shallower than the first.
• A fall in Dubai is a fall in US dollars, because of the currency peg.
• London and Mumbai lost similar amounts in dollars over 10 years. The cause was currency, and local prices did not crash.
• Older freehold apartments bought at the 2014 peak are still 9% below that peak, 12 years later.
• Older freehold villas are 75% above the 2014 peak.

What protects a buyer now

• Off-plan payments go to a project escrow account. The money is released as construction reaches set stages. Moody's names this as a safeguard.
• Developers carry less debt. Moody's puts their average debt ratio at 1.4 times in 2025, against 4.8 times in 2020.
• Most purchases are cash, so forced selling by banks is limited.
• Property and construction were 14% of UAE bank lending at 30 September 2025, down from 20% in 2021.
• The population is still growing by about 5% a year.
• Residents were 56.6% of buyers in 2025.

What exposes a buyer now

• Agent groups report distress adverts at 10% to 50% below the original price in new districts. These reports are anecdotal.
• Emaar says requests to delay payments rose from about 850 to 1,050 during the war, out of 40,000 customers. They later fell to about 750. That is the developer's own figure.
• If a buyer defaults on an off-plan contract, the developer may keep a share of the price. The law sets the share by construction progress (check).
• Dubai has no income tax, so there is no tax relief on a loss.

Sources: ValuStrat index, August 2026 (16 September 2026); Cavendish Maxwell, 2020 low (spring 2020); Moody's (10 September 2025); S&P on cash buyers and bank lending (early 2026); Deutsche Bank, Mapping the World's Prices 2026 (13 July 2026).

Invest in Dubai or elsewhere: Dubai against 19 other property markets

Dubai is one of only four markets in this table with no tax on foreign buyers, on rent or on gains.

The other three are Abu Dhabi, Ras Al Khaimah and Tbilisi. Georgia has low taxes, and they are above zero. Of the four, only Dubai has both a deep resale market and bank loans for non-residents.

Ownership and the cost of buying

Annual tax, tax on rent, tax on gains and gross yield

Loans for non-residents, time to title and residency

Sources: GOV.UK stamp duty rates (30 September 2026); Saudi Press Agency (22 January 2026); Global Property Guide, UAE yields (second quarter of 2026); King & Spalding on the Saudi law (13 February 2026); Real Estate Club Dubai, UAE buying fees (27 April 2026).

Dubai property prices against other cities: what USD 1 million buys

USD 1 million buys 62.2 sq m of prime property in Dubai, against 32.9 sq m in London.

It buys 16.0 sq m in Monaco. Five years earlier the same sum bought 182.8 sq m in Dubai. Prime prices in dollars almost tripled. These prime figures are for the end of 2025. They come before the February 2026 peak and the fall since.

Prime property: square metres for USD 1 million

• The square metres come from the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2026. The prices per sq m and per sq ft are our arithmetic.
• Knight Frank's prime index put Dubai at +25.1% in 2025. Only Tokyo was higher, at +58.5%. The global average was +3.2%.
• Savills measured Dubai prime at +11.2% in 2025. It gave no 2026 forecast for Dubai.
• Savills warned of a "two-tier market", because of the pipeline of mainstream homes.

Mid-market: price of a city-centre apartment by city

• These figures are crowd-sourced data compiled by Deutsche Bank in July 2026. Treat them as a ranking. They are not valuations.
• The prices per sq ft are our arithmetic, at 1 sq m to 10.764 sq ft.
• Dubai's own data gives a lower citywide number: AED 1,636 per sq ft in August 2026. That is USD 445 per sq ft, or about USD 4,795 per sq m.
• The gap exists because Deutsche Bank measures the city centre only.
• Dubai averages per sq ft in the third quarter of 2026: apartments AED 1,794, villas AED 2,216 and townhouses AED 1,341. This is broker data.

Asking price of a one-bedroom home

Global Property Guide gives asking prices for cities that the Deutsche Bank report leaves out.

To see what your own budget buys in Dubai, use the Investor board.

Sources: Knight Frank Wealth Report 2026 coverage (23 April 2026); Deutsche Bank, Mapping the World's Prices 2026 (13 July 2026); Savills prime forecasts (26 February 2026); Cavendish Maxwell average, August 2026 (8 September 2026); Global Property Guide (second quarter of 2026).

Why invest in Dubai real estate, and why not: what is easier and what is harder

Dubai is cheaper, faster and less taxed than most rival cities, and it carries more supply, off-plan and price risk.

What is easier in Dubai

• Cost to buy. About 6.2% to 6.5% all in. An overseas investor pays 11.4% in London and 13% to 15% in Sydney. The cost is 61% to 66% in Singapore and 9% to 10% in Lisbon.
• No surcharge for being foreign. All nationalities pay the same fees.
• No annual property tax, no tax on rent, no capital gains tax for individuals. Your home country may still tax you. See the verdicts below.
• Speed. A cash resale can transfer in 2 to 4 weeks. The transfer and the new title deed are issued on the same day at a trustee office (check).
• No lawyer or notary needed. The trustee office and the land department do the transfer. A lawyer is optional. Spain, Portugal, Greece and Türkiye require a notary or a sworn translator.
• Money can come from anywhere. No rule says the funds must be sent from abroad. Thailand has such a rule.
• Residency. A 2-year visa has no minimum price since April 2026. A 10-year visa starts at AED 2 million. Portugal and Spain have closed their property routes. Greece now asks EUR 400,000 to 800,000.
• Yield. 5.5% to 6.3% gross. That is above prime London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Lisbon and Mumbai.
• Affordability. 5 years of a skilled worker's income buys a 60 sq m flat. The figure is 11 years in London and 15 in Hong Kong (UBS).

What is harder or riskier in Dubai

• Off-plan share. About 7 in 10 deals are for homes that are still to be built. Delay is normal: 43% of the units scheduled for early 2026 were delivered.
• Supply. About 344,000 units are scheduled for 2026 to 2028.
• Price swings. Three falls since 2008: about 50% to 60%, about 30%, and 10% so far.
• No title insurance as standard. The land department register is the proof of title. Title insurance of the US kind is outside a normal purchase (check).
• Agent quality. About 39,776 licensed brokers shared 215,736 sales in 2025. That is about 5 sales per broker per year.
• Agent incentives. Brokers earned at least AED 13.74 billion in commission on 2025 sales. Developers pay the commission on new launches, usually 2% to 5%. This pushes agents toward off-plan.
• Currency. The dirham is pegged to the dollar. You take dollar risk against your home currency.
• Residency is tied to the asset. If you sell the property, the visa ends. A Golden Visa needs AED 2 million of value. There is no path to citizenship.
• Service charges. AED 8 to 35 per sq ft a year, and up to AED 62.50 in branded towers. They take 15% to 28% of rent (broker estimate).
• Freehold is limited to some areas. Foreigners can own only in designated areas. Outside them, rights are long leases or usufruct. Check the title type on the deed (check).
• Loans for non-residents. A typical loan is 50% to 65% of value. The minimum loan is about AED 1 million. The minimum income is about AED 25,000 a month. Off-plan loans are often capped near 50%.
• Cash needed at the start. Since 1 February 2025 banks cannot lend the 4% fee or the agent's fee. A resident needs about 26% of the price in cash. A non-resident needs 41% to 56%.
• Enforcement abroad. A dispute is heard in Dubai. A judgment against a developer has to be enforced in the UAE. A UAE judgment against you may be enforced at home, depending on treaties (check).
• Geopolitics. The 2026 war showed that buyers can stop overnight. Deal volumes fell 49% in 12 days.
• Rental rules. Rents fell 6.7% in early 2026. Landlords also face a regulated rent index when a lease renews (check).

Sources: Real Estate Club Dubai, UAE buying fees (27 April 2026); The National, banks stop financing fees (25 January 2025); AGBI, property visa minimum removed (April 2026); Khaleej Times, brokers (9 February 2026); The National, UBS index (24 September 2026).

Dubai property investors: what other countries closed or tightened in 2025 and 2026

Australia, Canada, Portugal and Spain have shut or narrowed the door for foreign buyers, while Saudi Arabia opened in January 2026.

Singapore set its 60% extra stamp duty for foreigners earlier, on 27 April 2023. It is the highest entry cost in the table.

These changes leave fewer large cities open to a foreign buyer at a low cost. They do not change the risks inside Dubai: supply, off-plan delay and falling prices.

Sources: Saudi Press Agency (22 January 2026); Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer on the Australian ban (2025); BLG on the Canadian ban (July 2026); Vicox Legal on Spain (2 October 2026); IMTcalc.pt on Portugal (August 2026).

Invest in Dubai from the UK, Europe or India: the dirham peg and your currency

The dirham is fixed to the US dollar, so a buyer from a non-dollar country takes dollar risk twice.

The risk applies once when buying and once when selling. The rate has been AED 3.6725 to USD 1 since 1997. The peg has held for 29 years. No source read for this page reports pressure on it. If the peg ever moved, every figure on this page would move with it.

Worked example: a flat of AED 2,000,000

The costs in this table are our arithmetic from the rates above.

Sterling buyers

Sterling has moved between 3.92 and 5.08 dirhams in 5 years. That is a range of 28%. Take a buyer who paid in September 2022 and sold in October 2026. That buyer has a currency loss of about 19%, before any change in the price. Sterling weakened through 2026. It was down 1.82% to May and has been lower since.

Euro buyers

The pattern is the same as for sterling. The euro lost 4.61% against the dirham in 2026, up to 9 October. Dubai became dearer for Europeans even as prices in dirhams fell.

Rupee buyers

The rupee has fallen in each of the 5 years. An Indian owner has gained about 28% in rupees from currency alone since October 2021. That is about 5% a year. It is the main reason Indians are the largest group of foreign buyers.

The cost is on the way in. Entry is 28% dearer than 5 years ago. India also caps money sent abroad at USD 250,000 per person per year.

Dollar and Gulf buyers

A US buyer has no currency risk. The Saudi riyal, Qatari riyal, Omani rial and Bahraini dinar are also pegged to the dollar. Buyers who earn in those currencies have no currency risk either.

Sources: Exchange-rates.org, GBP to AED 2026 (read 11 October 2026); Exchange-rates.org, GBP to AED 2022 (2022); Exchange-rates.org, EUR to AED 2026 (to 9 October 2026); Exchange-rates.org, AED to INR (2 October 2026); Exchange-rates.org, AED to INR 2021 (2021).

Dubai property investors: who is buying, residents or non-residents

UAE residents were 56.6% of investors in 2025, and Indian and British buyers lead most broker lists of foreign buyers.

Official figures from the Dubai Land Department

Top nationalities of buyers

Investors against people who buy to live in

• Anarock, 2025: 38% bought for their own use. 28% bought for rental income, 21% for a Golden Visa and 13% to preserve capital.
• So about 62% bought for investment reasons.
• The land department says the average renter takes 4.8 years to become an owner.
• In the third quarter of 2026, 84% of deals were below AED 3 million and 40% were below AED 1 million.

Cash against mortgage

Sources disagree on the share of buyers who use a mortgage. The figures are below, with the source of each.

A working summary: about one-third of resale purchases use a mortgage. Almost no off-plan purchases do. About three-quarters of total sales value is cash or a developer payment plan.

Fitch says corporate property loans are 13% of UAE bank loans. Retail mortgages are about 10%.

Sources: Government of Dubai Media Office, 2025 results (12 January 2026); Dubai Land Department, first quarter of 2026 (9 April 2026); Government of Dubai Media Office, 2023 results (7 February 2024); Khaleej Times, Anarock data (19 July 2026); Gulf News, Betterhomes data (24 June 2026).

Real estate investing advice by buyer type: 3 reasons for Dubai and 3 against

The case for and against Dubai depends on where you pay tax, which currency you earn and how much cash you hold.

The table gives facts for 6 types of buyer. It is information only. Tax rules marked "check" are general rules, so take advice in your own country.

Use the Investor board to test a budget, and the scorecard to see which past purchases worked.

Sources: GOV.UK stamp duty rates (30 September 2026); Global Property Guide, UAE yields (second quarter of 2026); UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index (25 September 2026); The National, banks stop financing fees (25 January 2025); S&P assessment (7 October 2026).

Questions about investing in Dubai property

These short answers use the same figures, sources and dates as the sections above.

Sources: Government of Dubai Media Office, 2025 results (12 January 2026); Emirates 24/7, first half of 2026 (20 July 2026); AGBI, property visa minimum removed (April 2026); Global Property Guide, UAE yields (second quarter of 2026); ValuStrat index, August 2026 (16 September 2026).

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