Tools · Dubai
DLD fee calculator
Every Dubai sale pays the Land Department 4% of the price, and a short list of fees beside it that the listing never mentions. Put in a price, say which side of the sale you are on, and whether there is a mortgage, and the calculator itemises what the department charges, what its trustee office charges, and what the market adds by convention — each line with the page it was read from and the date.
The sale
What the buyer pays · AED 1,500,000
DLD transfer fee
AED 60,000
4% of AED 1,500,000
The department’s schedule writes 2% on the seller and 2% on the buyer; every contract in the market puts the whole 4% on the buyer, and no bank lends it.
Regulation · DLD · Property sale registration · read 15 September 2026
Title deed and map
AED 500
AED 250 certificate + AED 250 map of an apartment or villa
Itemised on the department’s page. The market quotes AED 580 for the deed with the two fees below; budget the larger and let the receipt settle it. A plot’s map is AED 225 inside Dubai Municipality’s area, AED 100 outside.
Regulation · DLD · Property sale registration · read 15 September 2026
Knowledge and innovation fees
AED 20
AED 10 each
Two fixed government fees on every registration the department makes.
Regulation · DLD · Property sale registration · read 15 September 2026
Registration trustee office
AED 4,200
AED 4,000 + 5% VAT, at or over AED 500,000
The private, department-licensed office where the transfer is done. Its fee is fixed by the department and the same at every office; VAT is charged on it. Paid by the buyer, by convention.
Regulation · DLD · Property sale registration · read 15 September 2026
Agency commission
AED 31,500
2% of the price + 5% VAT on the commission
Convention, not law: 2% of the price to the agent who brought you the home, with 5% VAT charged on the commission rather than the price, so 2.1% all in. Paid on completion, by manager’s cheque like the rest.
Convention · What every contract in the market says
AED 96,220
Fees on top of the price
6.41% of the price, in cash, on the day. None of it can be borrowed.
This price is AED 500,000 under the Golden Visa’s AED 2,000,000 line; one home or several added together can cross it. A sole owner qualifies for the two-year investor visa at any price since April 2026; joint owners need a registered share of AED 400,000 each.
If the seller has a mortgage, the department registers the sale against it first, a separate act at AED 1,020; the contract says who pays it, and it is commonly the buyer.
The department’s figures were read from its own service pages on 15 Sept 2026 and are its to change; the trustee’s receipt on the day is the figure. Commission is the market’s convention, and the developer’s certificate is the developer’s to price.
The fees
Every fee on a Dubai sale, and who pays it
The department’s figures are regulation and the same at every office; the rest is what the market does. Read from the Dubai Land Department’s own service pages on 15 Sept 2026.
- DLD transfer fee
- 4% of the price, paid to the Dubai Land Department when the sale is registered. The department’s schedule writes it as 2% from the seller and 2% from the buyer; every contract in the Dubai market puts the whole 4% on the buyer, so the site says 4% and so will every sale agreement you are shown. It is the same on a completed home, registered at a trustee office, and an off-plan one, registered on Oqood by the developer. No bank lends it.
- Title deed and map
- AED 250 for the certificate and AED 250 for an apartment’s or villa’s map, plus AED 10 each for the knowledge and innovation fees: AED 520, itemised on the department’s sale page. The figure quoted across Dubai, and on this site’s cost-of-buying page, is AED 580; the department’s page is the smaller, and the receipt settles it. A plot’s map is AED 225 inside Dubai Municipality’s area and AED 100 outside.
- Registration trustee office
- AED 4,000 + VAT on a price of AED 500,000 or more, AED 2,000 + VAT below it — the fee of the private, department-licensed office where the transfer is actually done. Fixed by the department and identical at every office on its list; paid by the buyer, by convention. Charged once for a sale and a mortgage registered on the same morning.
- Agency commission
- Convention, not law: 2% of the price to the agent who brought the buyer the home, with 5% VAT charged on the commission rather than on the price, so 2.1% all in. A seller with their own agent conventionally pays the same to that agent; where one agent has both sides, it is whatever the two contracts say. A buyer from the developer usually pays none — the developer pays the agent.
- Mortgage registration
- 0.25% of the loan, plus AED 250 for the certificate and the two AED 10 fees, to register the bank’s charge on the title: the market’s AED 290 against the department’s itemised AED 270. Regulation, and the borrower’s. The bank’s own valuation and arrangement fees sit beside it and vary by lender; the mortgage calculator carries illustrative figures for both.
- The seller’s mortgage
- Where the seller has a loan, the department registers the sale against it first, AED 1,000 plus the two small fees, and once the bank has issued its release letter charges AED 1,290 to release the charge from the title, with AED 315 to the trustee. The release is the seller’s by convention; the first act is the contract’s to assign, and commonly the buyer’s.
- Developer’s no-objection certificate
- Set by the developer, commonly AED 500 to AED 5,000, and paid by the seller by convention. It confirms the service charges are settled and the developer has no claim on the home; the trustee office will not transfer without it, and obtaining it is the step that most often decides the date.
- VAT
- None on the department’s own fees. 5% on the trustee office’s fee, on the agent’s commission and on the bank’s charges, and the calculator adds it where it applies. The price of a home carries no VAT of its own.
The day
When and where it is paid
A completed home changes hands at a registration trustee office — a private office the department licenses to do its registration work — on one morning. The buyer arrives with manager’s cheques: to the seller for the price, to the department for the 4%, and to each broker for the commission; the office takes its own fee and the deed fees at the desk. The registrar checks each side against the original Emirates ID or passport, reads the developer’s no-objection certificate from the system, enters the transaction, and both sides sign the department’s contract. The department’s auditors approve the file remotely and the electronic title deed goes to the buyer by email the same afternoon. The department times the desk at twenty-five minutes; the morning is longer.
Most resales take longer, because one side or the other has a loan. A seller’s mortgage makes it two acts: the sale is first registered against the loan, with the buyer’s cheques split between the bank for the debt and the seller for the balance, and once the bank has issued its release letter the parties return and the trustee releases the old charge, completes the sale and registers the buyer’s new mortgage where there is one. The gap between the two visits is the bank’s — days rather than hours, and sometimes a fortnight.
An off-plan home is registered without a trustee. The developer registers the buyer on Oqood, the department’s interim register, through its own portal, and the 4% is paid with the booking; the deed issues at handover. Some developers advertise the 4% waived, which means the developer is paying the department on the buyer’s behalf — a discount by another name, and worth pricing as one.
The whole morning, worked fee by fee on a two-million-dirham home, is in the cost of buying; what the deed is and how it issues is in the title deed; the interim register an off-plan home sits on until handover is Oqood, and how the two purchases differ is in off-plan or resale.
The exceptions
A gift, a foreign buyer, and the visas
A transfer between first-degree relatives — a spouse, a parent, a child — for no price is registered as a gift at 0.125% of the department’s valuation, with a minimum of AED 2,000, against the sale’s 4%: on a home valued at AED 1,500,000, the minimum, against AED 60,000 as a sale. The deed and map fees are the same; the trustee office’s fee on a gift steps up at AED 2,000,000 rather than AED 500,000. A transfer to anyone outside that circle — a sibling, a grandchild, a friend — is a sale at 4%, whatever the family calls it.
The fees are the same for everyone at the counter: a foreign buyer pays the same 4% and the same fixed fees as a UAE national, and nothing recurs after them — Dubai has no annual property tax, and the one public charge on a home, the municipality’s housing fee, is 5% of a rent and paid by whoever lives there.
What a price can carry beside the deed is a visa. Two million dirhams of property in the applicant’s name — one home or several added together — is the Golden Visa’s line, ten years of residence without a sponsor. The two-year investor visa, which the department applies for on the owner’s behalf, has had no minimum for a sole owner since April 2026; joint owners need a registered share of AED 400,000 each. Both are the department’s desk rules rather than a decree’s, and the two explainers carry them with the day they were read.
The ten-year visa and its two-million line are in the Golden Visa through property; the two-year one, its fees and the April 2026 change are in the investor visa. Who can buy, where, and the steps from an offer to the deed are in buying property in Dubai as a foreigner.
Sources
The department’s pages, read on 15 Sept 2026
Every figure on this page is the Dubai Land Department’s own, read from the service pages below. The schedule is the department’s to change; the trustee’s receipt on the day is the figure.
- Property sale registrationdubailand.gov.ae/en/eservices/property-sale-registration/
- Registering the sale of a mortgaged propertydubailand.gov.ae/en/eservices/registering-the-sale-of-a-mortgaged-property/
- Mortgage registrationdubailand.gov.ae/en/eservices/request-for-mortgage-registration/
- Property gift registrationdubailand.gov.ae/en/eservices/property-gift-registration/
- Initial sale registration (off-plan, Oqood)dubailand.gov.ae/en/eservices/request-to-register-the-initial-sale/
Questions
What people ask about DLD fees
How much is the DLD fee?
4% of the purchase price, paid to the Dubai Land Department when the sale is registered, plus AED 520 of fixed fees for the title deed, the map and the two small government fees, and the registration trustee office’s AED 4,000 + VAT (AED 2,000 + VAT under AED 500,000). On AED 1,500,000 that is AED 60,000, AED 520 and AED 4,200: AED 64,720 before the agent’s commission. The calculator above itemises it for any price.
Who pays the DLD fee, the buyer or the seller?
The buyer, in practice. The department’s own schedule writes 2% on each side, but every sale contract in the Dubai market puts the whole 4% on the buyer, and the department takes it from whoever presents the cheque. The seller’s costs are different: the developer’s no-objection certificate, the release of any mortgage on the home, and their own agent’s commission where they have one.
How much is the property transfer fee in Dubai?
4% of the price — the DLD transfer fee and the Dubai property transfer fee are the same thing. Beside it: the deed and map at AED 520, the trustee office at AED 4,200 with VAT on a price over AED 500,000, and, if you are borrowing, 0.25% of the loan to register the mortgage. On AED 1,500,000 the fees on the day come to 4.3% of the price before commission and 6.4% with it; the fixed fees do not scale, so a cheaper home pays a higher share.
What is the DLD fee on a mortgage?
0.25% of the loan, plus AED 250 for the certificate and AED 10 each for the knowledge and innovation fees — AED 270, which the market rounds to AED 290 — paid by the borrower to register the bank’s charge on the title. On an AED 1,200,000 loan that is AED 3,000 plus AED 270. Registered on the same morning as the sale, the trustee’s fee is charged once; the department’s page says a mortgage registered the next day carries its own AED 4,000 + VAT. Releasing a mortgage when you sell is AED 1,290 to the department and AED 315 to the trustee.
Is there VAT on the DLD fee?
No. The department’s fees carry no VAT. VAT of 5% is charged on the trustee office’s fee, on the agent’s commission and on the bank’s fees, and the calculator adds it where it applies. The price of a home is not itself subject to VAT.
Can the DLD fee be added to the mortgage?
No. The 4%, the deed fees, the trustee’s fee and the commission are paid in cash on the day, on top of the deposit; a lender cannot finance them. Some developers pay the 4% on an off-plan purchase as an incentive — a discount by another name, and worth pricing as one.
Is the DLD fee the same for foreigners?
Yes. The schedule does not ask for a passport: a foreign buyer pays the same 4% and the same fixed fees as a UAE national, at the same office. There is no annual property tax after it; the one recurring public charge on a home is the municipality’s housing fee, 5% of a rent, paid by whoever lives there.
What is on the market today is on Buy, and every sale listing opens this calculator with its own price. If you are borrowing, the mortgage calculator adds the repayment and the bank’s own fees to the same day, and mortgage brokers in Dubai has the weeks before it. If the question is still whether to buy at all, these fees are the reason a short stay rarely pays, and the rent vs buy calculator says how many years it takes. And the same morning from the other chair is on sell property in Dubai.