Tenancy contract renewal in Dubai

A Dubai tenancy is almost always a year, and renewing it is two things done in order: the contract itself, which the law renews for you if neither side says otherwise, and the Ejari registration of it, which nobody renews for you. Both are worth doing on time and doing right, because the rent written on the renewed contract is the rent the register reads for the next year, and everything in the city that asks for an Ejari, from DEWA at a move to the family visa, the school and the parking permit, wants one with this year's dates on it. What follows is how a tenancy contract is renewed, what it costs and what it must not cost, the ninety-day rule that governs any change, what happens if the registration lapses, and how to do the whole thing without an agent. The fees are the Land Department's own, from its service card, checked in September 2026.

How to renew a tenancy contract in Dubai

• Ninety days before the end date, know where you stand: if the landlord wants to change the rent or any other term, the written notice has to reach you by then, and the rent can rise only as far as the RERA rental index allows; the rent increase calculator works it on your own figures
• Agree the terms in writing: the rent, the number of cheques, anything on the additional page
• Sign the renewal, either a fresh unified tenancy contract with the new dates and rent, or the old one with a signed renewal addendum naming them
• Hand over the cheques the contract asks for
• Register the renewed contract on Ejari, through the Dubai REST app, the department's Ejari system or a trustee centre; a renewal is a fresh registration of the renewed contract, with the same fee
• Keep the new certificate, which is the one everything asks for until the next renewal

If you stay on after the end date and the landlord does not object, the law renews the contract on the same terms for the same term, up to a year. That protects the tenancy; it does not register it. The Ejari still has to be renewed against the renewed term.

Tenancy contract renewal fees

The Ejari fee is conventionally the tenant's, and the department's card names the tenant as the applicant. The renewal fee some agencies and landlords ask for is the one to refuse. Tenants had reported AED 500, AED 700 and AED 1,000 a year to the Rental Dispute Centre when its chairman, Judge Abdulqader Mousa, said in February 2020 that the landlord and their representatives are prohibited from claiming any fees at the time of renewing the lease, that the clause should not be in the contract in the first place, and that not paying it is no ground for eviction. It is the centre's stated position rather than a line in the tenancy law, and it is the centre that would hear the argument.

What you need

The department's own list is short: a copy of the renewed unified tenancy contract through the app, or the original at a trustee centre, with the applicant's Emirates ID and, for anyone acting for a party, a power of attorney. In practice it helps to have to hand:

• The previous Ejari certificate number, which the renewal is filed against
• A recent DEWA bill, for the premise number the contract carries
• A passport and visa copy if the Emirates ID is itself being renewed
• The landlord's title deed and ID, which the system usually holds against the property already, in case the owner's record is out of date

Through the app the renewal is filed against the existing registration, so most of that is on file and the contract is the only real upload. At a trustee centre, bring the original contract and the ID.

The ninety-day rule

Any change at renewal, the rent above all but also the cheque count or a clause on pets or maintenance, needs written notice ninety days before the contract's end date. That is the law, not the contract, and it runs in both directions. A notice served late has no effect that year, and the contract renews on the old terms. Within a valid notice the rent can rise only as far as the RERA rental index allows for that home, which depends on how far the current rent sits below the index's figure for a home like it: no increase within ten per cent of it, and five, ten, fifteen or twenty per cent as the gap widens; the index page has the slabs and the decree.

What matters afterwards is that the registered rent is the rent. The figure on the new Ejari is what the index reads at the next renewal and what the Rental Dispute Centre reads if there is ever a dispute. If the landlord agreed a lower figure than the notice asked for, make sure the contract and the registration both say so.

Is there a grace period?

Not one the law names, and two things are mistaken for one. The first is the automatic renewal: if you stay after the end date and the landlord does not object, the contract renews on its old terms, so there is no day on which the tenancy itself lapses. The second is that the department sets no deadline and publishes no penalty for registering the renewal late. What there is instead is a practical deadline: the first thing that asks for a current certificate. DEWA asked for the Ejari to open the account and does not ask for it again each year, but the family visa renewal, a school admission, a parking permit and a case at the Rental Dispute Centre all want a certificate whose dates cover today. Register the renewal in the first weeks of the new term and none of them becomes a problem.

What happens if Ejari is not renewed?

The tenancy survives; the paperwork does not. The contract still binds both sides and the law's automatic renewal still runs. But an expired registration means no current certificate, and that shuts the doors that open with it: the immigration file for a spouse or a child, the school, the parking permit and, most of all, the Rental Dispute Centre, which hears cases on registered contracts, so an unregistered renewal weakens whichever side needs the tribunal. The rent is also unrecorded, which leaves the next year's index reading to argument. There is no fine for a late renewal that the department publishes; the cost is in what you cannot do until it is done.

Renewing without an agent

You do not need one. An agent's part in a tenancy is the introduction; at renewal the parties are the tenant and the landlord, and the department admits the tenant as the applicant for the registration. If your landlord is an individual who manages the home themselves, the two of you sign the renewal and either of you registers it through Dubai REST, provided the owner's details in the system are up to date, or at a trustee centre with the original contract and your Emirates ID. If the home is managed by a licensed property management company, the manager files the renewal through the department's Ejari system; that is what the landlord pays them for, and the prohibition on renewal fees applies to them too. The unified contract is a form the department publishes, and a renewal addendum is a signed page naming the new dates and the new rent.

When the tenancy ends instead

A renewal is one end of the record; the other is closing it. When a tenancy ends rather than renews, the registration is cancelled so the next tenant can register theirs, and there is a page for that: Ejari cancellation, who can cancel it, the three routes, the department's fee (none through the app, AED 40 + VAT at a centre), the DEWA account and the deposit either side of it, and why the next tenant's registration fails until it is done. The DEWA half of the same week, the final reading, the final bill and the deposit's way back, is the DEWA move-out page.