Yes. Since 2002 foreign nationals have been able to own property outright in designated freehold areas of Dubai — you hold the title deed in your own name, with no local partner and no time limit on ownership. Most of the areas people know by name (Downtown, Dubai Marina, Palm Jumeirah, Dubai Hills, Business Bay, Dubai Creek Harbour) are freehold. Outside those zones, ownership is leasehold, typically for a long fixed term rather than in perpetuity. The distinction matters more than almost anything else on this page, so confirm which one applies before you pay a deposit.

SourceDubai Land Department

Neither is required to own. Non-residents buy regularly, and much of the paperwork can be handled remotely or through a power of attorney. What changes if you're not resident is financing — mortgage terms for non-residents are tighter than for residents, and some banks won't lend to non-residents at all. If you intend to borrow rather than pay cash, settle the financing question first, because it determines your real budget.

SourceCentral Bank of the UAE

Freehold means you own the property and the land it sits on indefinitely, can sell or lease it as you wish, and can pass it on. Leasehold means you hold rights for a fixed term — commonly 30 to 99 years — after which the property reverts to the freeholder. Leasehold units are often cheaper for the same specification, and that discount is the market pricing the difference. If a deal looks unusually good for the building, check which of the two you're being offered.

SourceDubai Land Department

Budget for transfer and registration fees to the Dubai Land Department, a trustee office fee for processing the transfer, agency commission, and — if you're borrowing — mortgage registration and bank arrangement fees. There are also small title deed and admin charges. The DLD publishes an official fee calculator, and I'd rather send you to it than quote a percentage here that could be out of date by the time you read this: rates and who bears them do change, and the calculator is authoritative. As a planning rule, ask for a written breakdown of every line before you commit, and treat any agent who won't produce one as a warning.

SourceDLD Procedure Fee CalculatorDLD title transfer

There is no annual property tax and no capital gains tax on residential property in Dubai. That is genuinely one of the market's structural advantages and it is not a loophole. What you do pay annually is service charges to the building or community, billed per square foot. Those are a real, recurring cost that people routinely leave out of their yield maths — see the next answer.

SourceUAE Government portal

Service charges cover maintenance of shared areas, security, cleaning, chillers in some buildings, and the reserve fund for major works. They're charged per square foot per year and vary enormously between buildings — a tower with extensive amenities costs far more to run than a simple block. The Dubai Land Department publishes a Service Charge Index showing approved rates by project, so you can check a building's charge before you buy rather than discover it afterwards. On a high-service-charge tower, this single line can be the difference between a good yield and a mediocre one.

SourceDLD Service Charge Index

This is the question worth asking, and the protection is real but specific. Under Dubai's escrow law, money paid by off-plan buyers must go into a project-specific escrow account rather than to the developer directly, and it can only be released against verified construction progress. A portion of the total is retained in that account for a year after completion as a defect guarantee. That structure exists precisely because projects have failed before. It does not eliminate risk — it constrains how your money can be misused. What it cannot protect you from is a project that stalls, so the developer's track record of delivering on time still matters more than the brochure.

SourceDLD on escrow accounts

Oqood is the Dubai Land Department's registration system for off-plan sales. Registering your purchase there records your interest in the unit with the DLD before the building exists and before a title deed can be issued. An unregistered off-plan purchase is a much weaker position than a registered one. Ask for confirmation that your unit has been registered, and keep the record.

SourceDubai Land Department

Delays are common enough that you should plan for one rather than be surprised by it. Your position depends almost entirely on what your sale and purchase agreement says about delay — whether there's a grace period, whether compensation is defined, and what triggers your right to withdraw. Most buyers never read those clauses until they need them. Read them before signing, and if the contract is silent on delay, treat that as information about the developer.

SourceDubai Land Department

Usually yes, but not unilaterally. Reselling an off-plan unit before completion generally needs the developer's consent and a No Objection Certificate, and many developers set a minimum percentage you must have paid before they'll allow it. Some charge a fee for the transfer. If your plan depends on exiting before handover, confirm those conditions in writing before you buy, because they vary by developer and by project.

SourceDubai Land Department

Mortgages are available to residents and, from a narrower set of lenders, to non-residents. The Central Bank of the UAE sets maximum loan-to-value caps, and where you land within them depends on your residency status, whether it's your first property here, the purchase price, and whether the property is ready or off-plan. Because those caps are set by regulation and revised periodically, the sensible move is to get a decision in principle from a lender before you shortlist properties — it converts a guess about your budget into a number. This is the part of a purchase I spend most of my time on, because financing arranged alongside the purchase rather than after it changes what you can actually buy.

SourceCentral Bank of the UAE

Sometimes, and on different terms to a ready property. Many developers offer their own payment plans instead, spreading instalments across construction and sometimes past handover. A developer plan and a mortgage are not the same product: one is an instalment schedule with the developer, the other is regulated lending secured on the property. Compare the total cost of each rather than the headline monthly figure, and be clear which one you're being sold.

SourceCentral Bank of the UAE

It can. Property investors owning real estate valued at AED 2 million or more can apply for the ten-year renewable Golden Visa, which also allows sponsoring a spouse, children and parents. The application runs through the Dubai Land Department and the federal identity and residency authorities rather than through any agent, and the criteria are published by them. Verify the current requirements directly at the links below before making a purchase decision that depends on residency — this is exactly the kind of threshold that gets adjusted.

SourceDLD Golden Visa (investor)UAE Government — Golden visaICP — Golden Residency

It can, provided the required amount has actually been paid — the authorities will look for a bank letter evidencing the paid-up amount rather than the headline purchase price. The precise evidence required is set by the residency authority, so check their current guidance rather than relying on what was true last year.

SourceGDRFA — golden residence (investors)

I won't give you a number to put in a spreadsheet, because the honest answer is that it depends on the building, the unit, the service charge and what you paid. What I will tell you is how to sanity-check any yield you're quoted: ask whether it's gross or net, whether it deducts service charges, and whether the rent assumed is what comparable units in that building are actually achieving today rather than a projection. Transaction and rental data for Dubai is published openly, so a quoted yield can be checked rather than believed. If someone quotes you a guaranteed return, ask who is guaranteeing it and what happens if they can't.

SourceDubai Pulse — open property dataDubai Land Department

Liquidity varies far more than headline market statistics suggest. Well-located ready property in established communities tends to move; unusual layouts, high floors in oversupplied towers, and units in projects with a poor completion record can sit for months. When buying, it's worth asking what the resale market for that specific building has looked like, not the emirate as a whole. Ask the question before you buy, not when you want out.

SourceDubai Pulse — open property data

There are no exchange controls on moving funds in or out of the UAE, and the dirham is pegged to the US dollar, which removes a layer of currency risk for dollar-denominated buyers. Your own bank and country will still apply their own reporting and anti-money-laundering requirements to a transfer of this size, so tell them what's coming before it arrives rather than after.

SourceCentral Bank of the UAE

Possibly, and I'm not the person to answer it. The UAE not taxing rental income or capital gains says nothing about what your country of tax residence will do — many tax residents on worldwide income regardless of where the asset sits. Get advice from a qualified tax adviser in your own jurisdiction before you buy, not after you've filed. Any agent who tells you a Dubai purchase is definitely tax-free for you personally is answering a question they aren't qualified to answer.

Buyers pay agency commission on a purchase, which is disclosed and agreed in writing before you commit to anything. On the financing side I work through Huspy, which means the mortgage is arranged alongside the purchase rather than bolted on afterwards. If a fee is ever unclear, ask me to put it in writing — a fee you have to chase is a bad sign in any market.

Regularly. The quickest way to lose a client permanently is to put them into something that underperforms, and the second quickest is to be unreachable when it does. If what you want doesn't exist at your budget, or the building you've fallen for has a service charge that ruins the maths, I'd rather tell you that on the first call.