For landlords · Dubai
Property management in Dubai
556,250 residential tenancies were registered through Ejari in the year to 14 Sept 2026, and a great many of the homes behind them belong to someone who lives in another country. This page is what looking after one of them involves — the letting, the cheques, the deposit, the renewal cap, the notices — what it costs on the rent your district actually records, and where in Dubai a landlord most needs someone on the ground.
Read this first
What a property manager actually does
A Dubai tenancy is a year of small jobs, most of them needing someone in the emirate with a signature, a car and a phone that is answered. In the order they happen.
- Letting it
- Pricing the home against what the register says the last one in the building went for, not against the adverts; photographing and listing it; showing it; taking the tenant’s passport, visa and Emirates ID and checking the income behind the offer. A manager who has let in the building before knows which tenant to take and which rent is a bluff.
- The contract and Ejari
- The tenancy is written on the Land Department’s unified contract and registered through Ejari, which is mandatory — an unregistered lease cannot be enforced at the Rental Dispute Centre, cannot connect DEWA and cannot sponsor a visa. The tenant conventionally pays the registration; the manager makes sure it happens, and that the certificate names the right rent.
- The rent and the cheques
- Rent in Dubai is still paid largely in advance, by a small number of post-dated cheques — one to four a year is the common arrangement, and a single cheque has long earned a lower rent. The manager holds the cheques, banks them on the day, chases a bounce, and reconciles what arrived against what the contract says. Direct debit is spreading; the cheque has not gone.
- The deposit
- Conventionally 5% of the annual rent unfurnished and 10% furnished, held by the landlord or the manager against damage beyond fair wear, and returned at the end less any agreed deductions. Photographed and inventoried at move-in, or there is nothing to deduct against at move-out.
- Maintenance
- Dubai’s tenancy law puts maintenance and major repairs on the landlord unless the contract agrees otherwise; the convention is that the tenant carries minor repairs under a stated threshold, often somewhere between AED 500 and AED 1,000 a call. The manager takes the call at any hour, sends a contractor, and keeps the bill honest — the part of the job an absent landlord feels most.
- Renewal
- Ninety days before the contract ends the landlord may give notice of a new rent, and how far it may rise is set by the RERA rental index, not by the landlord. A manager runs the index, serves the notice in time and in writing, and — the part that matters — advises whether to keep a good tenant at the capped figure or take the vacancy and re-let at the market. The rent increase calculator is the sum.
- Notices and disputes
- A landlord who wants the home back to sell it or live in it must give twelve months’ notice, served through the notary public or by registered post, for one of the reasons the law allows; a tenant who stops paying is a case at the Rental Dispute Centre. Both are procedure, and procedure done wrong starts the clock again. The manager serves the notices and stands in the room.
- Move-out and the statement
- The final inspection against the move-in inventory, the DEWA final bill, the Ejari cancellation, the deposit returned, the keys — and then the home is a vacant unit that needs letting again. Across the year the landlord should receive one statement: rent in, fees and repairs out, and what is left.
What it costs
What a manager costs, on the rent your district records
Dubai managers most often quote a share of the annual rent, and 5% is the figure quoted most often. The table works that convention on the median new lease the register recorded in each of the sixteen busiest areas, so the fee is a sum of money and not a percentage.
The sixteen areas below held 246,686 of the year’s 556,250 tenancies. At 5% of the rent, managing a home in International City comes to about AED 2,000 a year on the median new lease of AED 40,000; in Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai Harbour and Bluewaters, about AED 6,250 on AED 125,000. A fixed fee, where it is offered, favours the dearer home; a share of the rent favours the cheaper one. The letting commission when a tenant is found is a separate sum, and in Dubai the tenant conventionally pays it.
| Area | Tenancies | New tenants | Median new lease | Median renewal | At 5%, a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jumeirah Village CircleAl Barsha South Fourth | 29,429 | 64% | AED 70,000 | AED 63,000 | AED 3,500 |
| Al Furjan, Discovery Gardens, Jebel Ali and Wasl GateJabal Ali First | 25,568 | 36% | AED 66,000 | AED 58,000 | AED 3,300 |
| International CityAl Warsan First | 24,715 | 39% | AED 40,000 | AED 36,000 | AED 2,000 |
| Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai Harbour and BluewatersMarsa Dubai | 18,146 | 57% | AED 125,000 | AED 120,000 | AED 6,250 |
| Business BayBusiness Bay | 17,479 | 60% | AED 95,000 | AED 97,000 | AED 4,750 |
| Dubai Silicon OasisNadd Hessa | 16,488 | 33% | AED 58,000 | AED 54,000 | AED 2,900 |
| ArjanAl Barshaa South Third | 13,199 | 51% | AED 63,000 | AED 60,000 | AED 3,150 |
| Al Nahda Second | 12,874 | 23% | AED 55,000 | AED 52,000 | AED 2,750 |
| Al BarshaAl Barsha First | 12,602 | 31% | AED 75,000 | AED 77,039 | AED 3,750 |
| Meydan and Mohammed Bin Rashid CityAl Merkadh | 11,724 | 74% | AED 78,000 | AED 75,000 | AED 3,900 |
| Al Karama | 11,467 | 23% | AED 65,000 | AED 63,635 | AED 3,250 |
| Muhaisanah Fourth | 11,051 | 12% | AED 51,999 | AED 39,000 | AED 2,600 |
| Arabian Ranches 3, Villanova, Dubai Land, Dubai Land Residence Complex and Athlon by AldarWadi Al Safa 5 | 11,026 | 45% | AED 75,000 | AED 55,000 | AED 3,750 |
| Al Nahda First | 10,670 | 26% | AED 60,000 | AED 55,566 | AED 3,000 |
| MirdifMirdif | 10,155 | 24% | AED 100,886 | AED 76,073 | AED 5,044 |
| Dubai Sports City and Tilal Al GhafAl Hebiah Fourth | 10,093 | 53% | AED 60,000 | AED 51,000 | AED 3,000 |
Ejari files a tenancy under its Land Department 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; an area none of our guides covers keeps the register’s own spelling. Medians are of every residential contract in the area, apartments and villas of every size, in the twelve months to 14 Sept 2026; the “at 5%” column is that convention applied to the new-lease median and is not a quotation from anyone. The bedroom pages cut the same register by layout.
Where you need one
Where a landlord most needs someone on the ground
The share of an area’s tenancies that were a new tenant, not a renewal. Every new lease is a vacancy, a viewing schedule, a handover and an inspection — the work a manager exists for.
The register splits Dubai in two. In Meydan and Mohammed Bin Rashid City 74% of the year’s contracts were a new tenant; in Jumeirah Village Circle 64%, in Business Bay 60% and in Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai Harbour and Bluewaters 57%. These are the freehold districts built for investors, where a great many owners live abroad and a tenant is often on a posting. At the other end, Muhaisanah Fourth renewed 88% of its contracts, Al Karama 77% and Al Nahda Second 77%: the older city, largely leasehold, whole buildings under one owner, families who renew year after year.
Two more things the same table says. Company tenants: 46% of contracts in Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai Harbour and Bluewaters were let to a company rather than a person, against 21% across the city and single figures in Muhaisanah Fourth — a corporate lease is paid on time and ends on a transfer date, and a manager who deals with the relocation firms sees them first. And the renewal gap: across the sixteen, a new lease sat anywhere from -3% to 27% apart from a renewal, widest in Arabian Ranches 3, Villanova, Dubai Land, Dubai Land Residence Complex and Athlon by Aldar. Part of any area’s gap is which homes happened to renew that year; the rest is the cap, and the wider it is, the more the question a manager answers every year — keep the tenant at the capped rent, or take the vacancy — is worth.
| Area | New tenants | Company tenants | New lease over renewal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meydan and Mohammed Bin Rashid CityAl Merkadh | 74% | 45% | +4% |
| Jumeirah Village CircleAl Barsha South Fourth | 64% | 29% | +10% |
| Business BayBusiness Bay | 60% | 37% | -2% |
| Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai Harbour and BluewatersMarsa Dubai | 57% | 46% | +4% |
| Dubai Sports City and Tilal Al GhafAl Hebiah Fourth | 53% | 35% | +15% |
| ArjanAl Barshaa South Third | 51% | 20% | +5% |
| Arabian Ranches 3, Villanova, Dubai Land, Dubai Land Residence Complex and Athlon by AldarWadi Al Safa 5 | 45% | 23% | +27% |
| International CityAl Warsan First | 39% | 28% | +10% |
| Al Furjan, Discovery Gardens, Jebel Ali and Wasl GateJabal Ali First | 36% | 15% | +12% |
| Dubai Silicon OasisNadd Hessa | 33% | 11% | +7% |
| Al BarshaAl Barsha First | 31% | 10% | -3% |
| Al Nahda First | 26% | 4% | +7% |
| MirdifMirdif | 24% | 10% | +25% |
| Al Nahda Second | 23% | 5% | +5% |
| Al Karama | 23% | 8% | +2% |
| Muhaisanah Fourth | 12% | 4% | +25% |
A renewal registered above a new lease (a negative figure) happens where the area’s renewals were disproportionately its larger homes in the year, not because sitting tenants paid more for the same flat. The register keeps a tenant’s kind as a person or an authority; the second is a company lease.
The rules
What the law fixes, and what the market has settled on
A manager works inside Dubai’s tenancy law (Law 26 of 2007, as amended by Law 33 of 2008) and the RERA decrees under it. What those fix is stated as regulation; what they leave to the parties, and Dubai has settled by habit, is stated as convention.
- Ejari registrationRegulation
- Every tenancy is registered with the Land Department. Without it the contract cannot be enforced, DEWA cannot be connected and a residence visa cannot be sponsored on the address.
- Rent increasesRegulation
- Ninety days’ written notice before the contract ends, and the increase is capped by the RERA rental index (Decree 43 of 2013) according to how far the current rent sits below the market for the area and layout. Below 10% under: no increase.
- Ending a tenancyRegulation
- A landlord may recover the home for a reason the law allows — to sell, to live in it or house a first-degree relative, to demolish or to renovate to a degree that needs it — on twelve months’ notice served through the notary public or by registered post.
- MaintenanceRegulation
- The landlord is responsible for maintenance and for repairing any defect that affects the tenant’s use of the home, unless the contract agrees otherwise. What “otherwise” means in practice is the threshold clause below.
- Security depositConvention
- 5% of the annual rent unfurnished, 10% furnished, returned at the end of the tenancy less agreed deductions. The law requires a deposit to be returned; the percentages are the market’s.
- Minor repairsConvention
- A clause in most contracts puts repairs under a threshold — commonly AED 500 to AED 1,000 a call — on the tenant, and everything above it on the landlord.
- Letting commissionConvention
- The agent who finds the tenant is conventionally paid 5% of the first year’s rent by the tenant. Where a landlord has asked for a managed, tenant-fee-free let, or the market is slow, the landlord carries it.
- Management feeConvention
- A share of the annual rent collected — 5% is the figure quoted most often, higher for furnished or short-let homes — or a fixed annual sum. Maintenance call-outs are usually billed at cost on top. Get the schedule in writing before you sign.
Checked 14 Sept 2026. Fees, thresholds and notice periods are what a ministry or the Land Department can change; the explainers on Ejari, the RERA rental index and the Rental Dispute Centre carry each rule at length.
Questions people ask
Property management in Dubai, answered
How much do property managers charge in Dubai?
Most quote a share of the annual rent — 5% is the figure quoted most often, with higher rates for furnished and short-let homes — and a few charge a fixed annual sum. On the median new lease registered in Dubai in the year to 14 Sept 2026, AED 73,000, 5% is about AED 3,650 a year, roughly AED 304 a month. Maintenance call-outs are usually billed at cost on top, and a letting fee may apply when a new tenant is found. Ask for the schedule in writing.
What does a property manager do in Dubai?
Finds and vets the tenant, writes the contract and registers it through Ejari, collects the rent cheques and chases a bounce, holds and returns the deposit, arranges maintenance and keeps the bills honest, runs the RERA index at renewal and serves the ninety-day notice, serves any notice to vacate the right way, represents the landlord at the Rental Dispute Centre, handles the move-out and DEWA, and sends the landlord one statement of what came in and went out.
Do I need a property manager if I live outside the UAE?
You need someone in Dubai who can be in the flat within the hour, bank a cheque, meet a contractor and sign at the Land Department. Some landlords use a friend or a relative; most use a manager. 41% of the 556,250 tenancies registered in the year were a new tenant rather than a renewal, and in Jumeirah Village Circle it was 64% — a home there changes hands often, and every change is a letting, a handover and an inspection someone has to be present for.
Who pays the agent when a tenant is found?
In Dubai the tenant conventionally pays the letting commission, 5% of the first year’s rent, to the agent who found the home. A landlord who wants a tenant-fee-free let to widen the pool, or who is letting in a slow market, carries it instead. The management fee is separate and always the landlord’s.
Can my property manager raise the rent?
Only as far as the RERA rental index allows, and only with ninety days’ written notice before the contract ends. The index caps the increase by how far the current rent sits below the market for the area and layout; a rent within 10% of it may not rise at all. A renewal was registered at a median AED 60,900 in the year against AED 73,000 for a new lease — 17% lower — which is the cap doing its work. The manager’s advice is whether a capped renewal or a vacancy and a new let is worth more.
Who pays for maintenance in a Dubai rental?
The landlord, by law, for maintenance and for any defect that affects the tenant’s use of the home — unless the contract agrees otherwise, and most contracts do: a threshold clause puts repairs under a stated sum, commonly AED 500 to AED 1,000 a call, on the tenant. Above it, and for anything structural or mechanical, the landlord pays and the manager arranges it.
Can I end the tenancy to sell the property?
Yes, on twelve months’ notice served through the notary public or by registered post, for a reason the tenancy law allows — selling is one, as is living in the home yourself or housing a first-degree relative. The notice has to be served correctly or it does not run. A sale with the tenant in place is the alternative, and in Dubai it is common: the buyer takes over the contract and the deposit.
Is Ejari the landlord’s responsibility?
The registration is conventionally paid for by the tenant, but the landlord is the one exposed if it never happens — an unregistered contract cannot be enforced at the Rental Dispute Centre, and every rent increase and notice rests on the registered rent. A manager registers it, checks the certificate, and re-registers each renewal.
Where this leads
The rest of a landlord’s reading
What a home in your building actually let for, new lease and renewal apart, is on the rent reports and in each community’s area guide. The rental yield calculator says what the home returns once the fees on this page come off the rent, and the rent increase calculator says what the index will let you add next year. What is to let with us today is on Rent.
Our property management desk
Own a home in Dubai and live somewhere else?
McCone has been in Dubai since 2013 and runs a dedicated property management desk for landlords here and abroad. Tell us the building and whether it is let today, and we will send you what the register says it should fetch, and our schedule of fees in writing.