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- 2025
- Schofer Properties.
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Foreigners can purchase both residential and commercial real estate in certain zones of the Emirate of Dubai, the so-called freehold areas. These include, for example, Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, The Palm Jumeirah, Arabian Ranches1-3, Business Bay and many more. Any natural person, regardless of their nationality, can purchase real estate in Dubai.
The purchase of a property alone does not entitle you as the owner to settle permanently in the United Arab Emirates. Instead, you must apply for a permanent residence permit (residence visa) in a separate procedure. The value of the property and the availability of financing are decisive factors in determining whether you, as the owner of the property, are entitled to apply for a residence visa and what options are available to you.
When you purchase a property, you have the option of applying for a residence visa for yourself and your family members for 2/5/10 years, depending on the amount of your investment.
CUBE is the responsible office in the Dubai Land Department that processes these investor visas.
Freehold is the most comprehensive right to a property. The holder of a freehold property is its unrestricted owner and can sell, lend or otherwise dispose of the property, provided this does not violate the rights of third parties or public order. Freehold ownership is unlimited in time, whereas a long-term leasehold is a long-term lease with a term of up to 99 years.
In addition to the purchase price, a broker's commission of 2% of the purchase price is usually charged. The Dubai Land Department, which maintains the land register, usually charges a transfer fee of 4% of the purchase price, which is borne equally by the buyer and the seller, unless the parties have agreed on a different cost allocation. In addition, there are fees of at least AED 2,000 for the Real Estate Trustee Office, which is responsible for processing the property purchase, as well as fees for issuing the title deed, which amount to around AED 300. Further costs may be incurred for applying for No Objection Certificates (NOC), which are required by project developers, for example.
If you buy a property that is not yet completed, you will be entered in the provisional property register maintained by the Dubai Land Department. Proof of this registration is called Oqood. If the property is already completed or if you are buying an existing property, you will be registered as a buyer in the real estate register. On the basis of this registration, you will receive a title deed. With the Oqood or title deed, you can prove your right to a property as a person named on it.
To rent an apartment in Dubai, you usually need a valid residence visa and a valid Emirates ID card. Exceptions may occur when renting hotel apartments or vacation homes (Airbnb). For these rental properties, it is generally not necessary to present the above-mentioned identification documents. A valid passport is then sufficient.
As a rule, a tenancy agreement in the Emirate of Dubai must be concluded using the EJARI Tenancy Contract. The EJARI Tenancy Contract is a standardized contract that is very general and leaves little room for individually agreed clauses. You should therefore always conclude an additional agreement (Additional Terms) alongside the EJARI Tenancy Contract. In this you can regulate various aspects such as the handover of the rental property, the deposit, repairs, old damage and termination.
A landlord can only increase the rent if he is legally entitled to do so. This is the case if, firstly, the landlord has notified the tenant of the rent increase request within a period of at least 90 days, unless the tenancy agreement provides for a different period, and secondly, the current rent is above the average. The latter is the case if the rent is at least 11% below the average rent paid in the same district. Depending on how high the deviation from this average rent is, the landlord may increase the rent by a maximum of 20 %. Whether and to what extent the landlord is entitled to increase the rent is determined using the Rental Index Calculator, which is available on the Dubai Land Department website.
The rental deposit required by landlords in Dubai is usually 5% of the annual rent for unfurnished apartments and 10% for furnished apartments. The rental deposit must be paid at the beginning of the tenancy and is refunded to the tenant in full or in part when they move out. The law does not contain any provisions on the deadline for repayment or on deductible items. In any case, the deposit may only be used for repairs when the tenant moves out, but not for renovation work during the tenancy.
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