For buyers · Dubai
Mortgage brokers in Dubai
27,191 residential mortgages were registered with the Dubai Land Department in the year to 31 Aug 2026, and the register that records every sale records every one of them too. This page is what a mortgage broker does between a pre-approval and transfer day, what the Central Bank lets you borrow, how a buyer with no UAE visa borrows, and — from the register, district by district — what buyers here actually borrowed and how much of Dubai buys with a bank at all.
Read this first
What a mortgage broker actually does
A financed purchase in Dubai is a sequence of eight steps, most of them the bank’s, and the two on transfer day involve two banks, a trustee office and the Land Department in one morning. In the order they happen.
- Pre-approval
- Before a viewing is worth the drive: salary certificate or trade licence, six months of bank statements, passport, visa and Emirates ID, the credit report, and the answer comes back as a sum you may borrow and a rate for the fixed period. It is conventionally good for around sixty days. A broker runs the file past several lenders at once, which is the whole point of one — the banks price the same borrower differently, and the difference is worth more than the fee.
- The offer and the MOU
- Once a price is agreed the buyer and seller sign the Land Department’s Form F — the memorandum of understanding — and the buyer conventionally lodges a 10% deposit cheque with the agent, held and not cashed. The RERA forms explainer has the set. A financed buyer’s MOU should say the sale depends on the loan; a broker makes sure it does.
- Valuation
- The bank sends its own valuer, and lends on the lower of the price and the valuation. In a district where the asking prices have run ahead of what the register records, the valuation comes in under the price and the gap is cash — the moment a buyer discovers what a recorded-sales report is for.
- The final offer letter
- The loan as it will actually be: the sum, the fixed rate and how long it holds, the margin over EIBOR after it, the term, the fees and the insurance the bank requires. Read the reversion rate as carefully as the fixed one; the fixed period is the honeymoon, the reversion is the marriage.
- The seller’s mortgage
- Many ready homes that are sold carry a mortgage of their own. The seller’s bank issues a liability letter for the balance; the buyer’s bank settles it and the seller’s mortgage is released before the transfer — a sequence the two banks, the trustee office and a developer NOC have to agree on the same day. This is the week a broker earns the fee.
- Transfer day
- At a registration trustee office: the buyer’s bank’s manager’s cheque for the loan, the buyer’s own for the rest, the 4% DLD transfer fee, the title deed fee, the trustee’s charge and the commission — all in cash or manager’s cheque, none of it lendable. The cost of buying explainer works the whole day’s total on a worked price.
- Registering the mortgage
- The bank’s charge goes on the title deed at the Land Department for 0.25% of the loan plus a small fixed fee, set by regulation and the same at every lender. That registration is the row the register on this page counts: every figure below is one of these.
- When the fixed period ends
- The rate reverts to the margin over EIBOR, and a buyer who does nothing pays it. Refinancing to another lender is ordinary in Dubai, and the register files it as a registration like any other; the early settlement fee on the old loan is capped by the Central Bank at 1% of the balance or AED 10,000, whichever is lower. A broker who is still answering the phone five years on is the one to use.
What buyers actually borrowed
The loan your district records, and how much of it borrows at all
Every mortgage the Land Department registered on a completed apartment or villa in the year, in the twenty busiest areas: how many, the median sum, and the same area’s completed-home sales beside them.
The twenty areas below held 20,937 of the year’s 27,191 registrations. The median loan runs from AED 750,000 in Arjan to AED 3,000,000 on Palm Jumeirah; Jumeirah Village Circle alone registered 2,833, more than any other district, at a median of AED 840,000. The last column is the one to read twice: registrations for every hundred completed-home sales. It is lowest where the money is — Downtown Dubai 55, Meydan and Mohammed Bin Rashid City 57, Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai Harbour and Bluewaters 57 — and highest in the end-user districts, Arabian Ranches 3, Villanova, Dubai Land, Dubai Land Residence Complex and Athlon by Aldar 99, Dubai South (Dubai World Central) and Expo City 82, Al Furjan, Discovery Gardens, Jebel Ali and Wasl Gate 79.
Where the figure passes a hundred — Mudon 144, Town Square 130, Arabian Ranches 2, Serena, Rukan, Reportage Village and Dubai Land 115 — a district registered more loans than resales. That is not a puzzle: an off-plan buyer’s bank lends on handover, so a district that handed over a great many homes in the year registers a mortgage for each one and a resale for none of them. The same reason puts the median loan above the median resale in those rows — the loans are on the new villas, the resales are the older flats — so read the two medians as two different sets of homes, not as a loan-to-value.
| Area | Mortgages | Median loan | Ready sales | Median sale | Loans per 100 sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jumeirah Village CircleAl Barsha South Fourth | 2,833 | AED 840,000 | 4,484 | AED 980,000 | 63 |
| Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai Harbour and BluewatersMarsa Dubai | 1,549 | AED 1,680,000 | 2,730 | AED 2,450,000 | 57 |
| Al Furjan, Discovery Gardens, Jebel Ali and Wasl GateJabal Ali First | 1,511 | AED 1,000,000 | 1,907 | AED 849,000 | 79 |
| Business BayBusiness Bay | 1,433 | AED 1,240,000 | 2,449 | AED 1,540,000 | 59 |
| Town SquareAl Yelayiss 2 | 1,309 | AED 1,120,000 | 1,007 | AED 1,400,000 | 130 |
| Arabian Ranches 3, Villanova, Dubai Land, Dubai Land Residence Complex and Athlon by AldarWadi Al Safa 5 | 1,140 | AED 2,080,000 | 1,146 | AED 1,050,000 | 99 |
| Meydan and Mohammed Bin Rashid CityAl Merkadh | 1,128 | AED 1,113,000 | 1,969 | AED 1,288,793 | 57 |
| Dubai Sports City and Tilal Al GhafAl Hebiah Fourth | 1,061 | AED 828,450 | 1,423 | AED 710,000 | 75 |
| Dubai South (Dubai World Central) and Expo CityMadinat Al Mataar | 1,049 | AED 1,600,000 | 1,285 | AED 1,050,000 | 82 |
| ArjanAl Barshaa South Third | 927 | AED 750,000 | 1,315 | AED 830,000 | 70 |
| Dubai Hills Estate and Mohammed Bin Rashid CityHadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid | 923 | AED 1,740,000 | 1,192 | AED 2,187,500 | 77 |
| Al Barari, Living Legends, Majan and Mohammed Bin Rashid CityWadi Al Safa 3 | 868 | AED 997,432 | 1,377 | AED 1,050,000 | 63 |
| Downtown DubaiBurj Khalifa | 809 | AED 1,890,000 | 1,470 | AED 2,950,000 | 55 |
| Dubai Creek Harbour (The Lagoons)Al Khairan First | 792 | AED 1,750,000 | 1,249 | AED 2,500,000 | 63 |
| Dubai Production City (IMPZ) and Jumeirah Golf EstatesMe'Aisem First | 747 | AED 840,000 | 991 | AED 690,000 | 75 |
| Jumeirah Lake Towers, Jumeirah Islands and Jumeirah ParkAl Thanyah Fifth | 662 | AED 1,160,000 | 947 | AED 1,360,000 | 70 |
| Motor CityAl Hebiah First | 581 | AED 910,000 | 939 | AED 1,050,000 | 62 |
| Arabian Ranches 2, Serena, Rukan, Reportage Village and Dubai LandWadi Al Safa 7 | 577 | AED 1,655,000 | 500 | AED 1,732,500 | 115 |
| MudonAl Hebiah Sixth | 573 | AED 2,720,000 | 397 | AED 3,700,000 | 144 |
| Palm JumeirahPalm Jumeirah | 465 | AED 3,000,000 | 702 | AED 4,400,000 | 66 |
The Land Department files a mortgage under its area, and one area can serve several communities: Marsa Dubai is Dubai Marina, JBR, Dubai Harbour and Bluewaters together. The row names the area and the communities inside it. Mortgages are new registrations on completed apartments and villas (the register’s Mortgage Registration and Delayed Mortgage procedures; variations, developer and portfolio finance and lease-to-own are left out) in the twelve months to 31 Aug 2026; the sum is what the bank registered, which is the loan. Ready sales are the same register’s completed-home sales in the same months, with the implausible rows every report on this site excludes. A registration is not tied to a sale — some are refinances, some are handover loans on homes bought off-plan years before — so the last column is a reading of how financed a district is, not the share of its buyers who borrowed.
By layout
The smaller the home, the more of it is borrowed
The median loan registered on an apartment of each layout, beside the median price a completed apartment of that layout sold for in the same year.
A studio loan was a median AED 456,000 against a median studio sale of AED 560,000 — 81% of it. A three-bedroom loan was AED 2,021,500 against AED 3,520,000, 57%. A villa, AED 2,640,000 against AED 3,800,000, 69%. The Central Bank’s cap is the same at every size under five million; the buyers are not. The first-time buyer of a studio borrows to the cap, and the buyer of a family home arrives with equity from the last one.
| Layout | Mortgages | Median loan | Ready sales | Median sale | Loan as a share of price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 2,367 | AED 456,000 | 8,033 | AED 560,000 | 81% |
| 1 bedroom | 8,375 | AED 810,000 | 14,848 | AED 1,050,000 | 77% |
| 2 bedroom | 6,894 | AED 1,312,000 | 9,299 | AED 1,952,000 | 67% |
| 3 bedroom | 2,214 | AED 2,021,500 | 2,561 | AED 3,520,000 | 57% |
| 4 bedroom | 196 | AED 3,790,000 | 338 | AED 7,455,720 | 51% |
| Villas and townhouses | 7,107 | AED 2,640,000 | 5,297 | AED 3,800,000 | 69% |
Apartments only in the layout rows, city-wide, completed homes, the twelve months to 31 Aug 2026. The last column divides one median by the other and is not any buyer’s loan-to-value: the homes that were mortgaged and the homes that were sold are overlapping sets, not the same one. It says how the typical loan sits against the typical price, which is the question a buyer sizing a deposit is asking.
The rules
What the Central Bank fixes, and what the market has settled on
A Dubai mortgage is sized by the UAE Central Bank’s mortgage regulations before it is sized by the bank. What those fix is stated as regulation; what they leave to the lender, and Dubai has settled by habit, is stated as convention.
- The depositRegulation
- For a first home under AED 5,000,000 an expatriate resident needs 20% down and a UAE national 15%; above five million, 30% and 25%. A second or investment property needs 35% from anyone, and an off-plan purchase 50%. These are the Central Bank’s loan-to-value caps; a lender may ask for more and may not accept less.
- How much of your incomeRegulation
- The repayment, together with every other loan and card you hold, may not take more than half of your monthly income — the debt-burden ratio. Most buyers meet this ceiling before the loan-to-value one, and it is the rule that actually sizes the loan.
- The termRegulation
- Twenty-five years at most, and the loan has to be repaid by age 65 for the employed and 70 for the self-employed. A buyer of forty-five is looking at twenty years.
- RegistrationRegulation
- 0.25% of the loan plus a small fixed fee, paid to the Land Department to put the bank’s charge on the title. The same at every lender.
- Early settlementRegulation
- Capped by the Central Bank at 1% of the outstanding balance or AED 10,000, whichever is lower. Overpaying during a fixed period may carry the same fee; ask before you sign.
- The rateConvention
- Most Dubai mortgages open with a fixed period of one to five years and then revert to a margin over EIBOR, the interbank rate. The rate you are quoted is for the fixed period only, and it depends on the lender, your profile and the day — which is why this page does not print one. Our desk will tell you what it is today.
- The broker’s feeConvention
- Some brokers are paid by the lender, some charge the borrower a fee — a fixed sum or a fraction of a percent of the loan — and some do both. Ask how the broker is paid before the file goes anywhere, and get it in writing; a broker paid only by one bank is that bank’s salesperson.
- Pre-approvalConvention
- Commonly valid for around sixty days, and renewable. A buyer who views without one is negotiating against buyers who have it.
- The MOU depositConvention
- 10% of the price, as a cheque held by the agent and not cashed, lodged when the Form F is signed. Returned if the sale falls through for a reason the MOU allows — the loan being refused, if the MOU says so — and forfeited if the buyer simply walks.
Checked 14 Sept 2026. Caps, fees and age limits are what the Central Bank and the Land Department can change; the mortgage calculator applies the same rules to a price of your choosing, and the cost of buying explainer carries every fee on the day.
From abroad
Mortgages for non-residents
A buyer with no UAE visa can borrow in Dubai. Fewer banks, a larger deposit, the same file — and a purchase that can be completed without flying in.
The Central Bank’s caps above are written for residents. A non-resident borrows from a shorter list of UAE lenders on the terms each sets itself, and the terms are conservative: commonly half the price, sometimes a little more for a strong file, on a completed freehold home, over a term that still ends by the age limits. The rate is usually a little above a resident’s. What a non-resident does not need is a UAE salary — the banks that lend abroad underwrite the income where it is earned.
The file is the resident’s file with the home-country papers in place of the Emirates ID: passport, proof of address, six months of bank statements, proof of income — a salary certificate or payslips, or audited accounts for the self-employed — and a credit report from home. The bank opens a UAE account for the repayments. The purchase itself can be signed through a power of attorney, notarised and attested for use in the UAE, so a buyer who cannot be at the trustee office on the day does not have to be.
- Who lends
- A handful of the UAE’s banks, each with its own list of countries and buildings it will lend on. The desk knows which will look at a given passport and property; a buyer working alone finds out one refusal at a time.
- The deposit
- Commonly around half the price, on top of the 4% DLD fee, the commission and the bank’s charges — all cash. Budget for the deposit and a little over 6% of the price in fees, in the account before the offer.
- What counts as income
- Salary in the home country, self-employed income shown in audited accounts, and sometimes rental income. Each lender weights them differently; the debt-burden ratio still applies to the whole.
- Where
- Freehold areas only — the home has to be one a foreign national can own — and a completed building the lender has approved. Off-plan, in practice, is bought on the developer’s plan and financed on handover.
- The visa it does not give
- A mortgage changes nothing about residence. A title deed can: the Golden Visa explainer covers the two-million threshold and how a mortgaged purchase counts toward it.
Non-resident terms are each lender’s own and change without notice; the figures here are what the market commonly offers as at 14 Sept 2026, not any bank’s schedule. The freehold areas page lists every district a foreigner can buy in, and the Golden Visa explainer what a title deed can earn.
Questions people ask
Mortgages in Dubai, answered
Do I need a mortgage broker in Dubai?
No — every bank will take a file straight from a borrower. A broker is worth having because the banks price the same borrower differently, a broker runs one file past several of them at once, and the week the seller’s mortgage has to be settled and yours registered on the same day at the trustee office is a sequence a broker has done many times and a buyer has done once. Ask how the broker is paid before you begin.
Can a non-resident get a mortgage in Dubai?
Yes. A shorter list of UAE banks lends to buyers with no UAE visa, on a larger deposit — commonly around half the price — for a freehold home, against the same kind of file a resident supplies: passport, proof of address, six months of statements, proof of income and a credit report from home. The purchase can be completed through a power of attorney, and the desk handles the file end to end.
How much deposit do I need for a mortgage in Dubai?
At least 20% for an expatriate resident’s first home under AED 5,000,000 and 15% for a UAE national, rising to 30% and 25% above five million. A second property needs 35% down and off-plan 50%. These are Central Bank minimums; a lender can ask for more, and non-resident lenders usually do. The 4% DLD fee, the commission and the bank’s charges are cash on top.
How much can I borrow?
Two ceilings apply and the lower wins. The loan-to-value cap sets the most a bank may lend against the price; the debt-burden ratio says your repayment, with every other loan and card you carry, may not exceed half your monthly income. Most buyers hit the second first. The mortgage calculator turns a price, a deposit, a rate and a term into the monthly figure.
Can I get a mortgage on an off-plan property in Dubai?
In principle, on a 50% deposit; in practice, almost nobody does. Of the 27,191 residential mortgages registered with the Land Department in the year to 31 Aug 2026, every one was on a completed home, against 122,865 off-plan sales in the same year with none. An off-plan buyer pays the developer’s plan from savings, and the bank lends on handover — which is why the districts handing over the most homes register more mortgages than resales.
How much do buyers in Dubai actually borrow?
The median mortgage registered in the year to 31 Aug 2026 was AED 1,224,000 — AED 1,000,000 on an apartment, AED 2,640,000 on a villa — with a quarter of loans under AED 747,500 and a quarter over AED 2,252,100. In Jumeirah Village Circle, the district with the most, the median was AED 840,000; on the Palm, AED 3,000,000.
Is Dubai really a cash market?
Partly. The register filed 27,191 residential mortgages against 40,458 ready sales in the year — about 67 for every hundred — and a mortgage registration is not tied to a sale (some are refinances, some are loans taken on handover), so the true financed share of purchases is somewhat lower. It is lowest where the money is: Downtown Dubai 55, Meydan and Mohammed Bin Rashid City 57, Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai Harbour and Bluewaters 57 per hundred. Off-plan, which was three sales in four, is bought with no bank at all.
How long does a Dubai mortgage take?
Pre-approval in a few working days once the file is complete; from an accepted offer to transfer, commonly three to six weeks, most of it the valuation, the final offer and — where the seller has a mortgage — the two banks agreeing a settlement date. A cash buyer can complete in a week, which is the advantage a financed buyer is bidding against.
Which areas can I get a mortgage in?
A foreign buyer can borrow only where a foreign buyer can own — the freehold areas — and the bank will want the building on its approved list, which most completed towers and villa communities are. The freehold areas page lists every district a foreigner can buy in, from the register.
Where this leads
The rest of a buyer’s reading
The mortgage calculator turns a price, a deposit, a rate and a term into the monthly figure and the cash you need on the day. What a home in your building actually sold for — the number the valuer will be looking at — is on the Dubai property prices page and in each community’s area guide. If the question is still whether to buy at all, the rent vs buy calculator sets the repayment against the rent. What is for sale with us today is on Buy.
Our mortgage desk
Want to know what you can borrow, and at what rate, today?
McCone has been in Dubai since 2013 and runs a mortgage desk that places files with every major UAE lender, for residents and for buyers abroad. Tell us the price you have in mind and where your income is earned, and we will come back with what you can borrow, the rate on offer this week, and how the desk is paid — in writing.