Dubai or Abu Dhabi: what changes for a buyer, and what does not

The table gives each rule in a line. The sections below quote the text behind it, and the sources list at the foot of the page gives every address with the date it was read.

In Dubai, Article 4 of Law No. (7) of 2006 says that, subject to the approval of the Ruler, non-UAE nationals may, “in certain areas determined by the Ruler”, be granted freehold ownership without time restriction, or usufruct or leasehold for up to 99 years. Regulation No. (3) of 2006 names those areas by plot: twenty-three of them, among them Dubai Marina, Palm Jumairah (as the text spells it), Palm Jebel Ali, The World Islands and Emirates Hills 1 to 3.

That list is where the map starts, not where it ends. Resolution No. (14) of 2015 and Resolution No. (8) of 2016 added freehold plots; Resolution No. (25) of 2021 added plots on usufruct and lease rights of up to 99 years only, not freehold. On 19 January 2025 the Land Department announced that private owners on Sheikh Zayed Road, from the Trade Centre Roundabout to the Water Canal, and in Al Jaddaf can convert their ownership to freehold for all nationalities, 457 plots in all. So the question to ask is not whether a district is “freehold” but whether the specific plot is.

In Abu Dhabi, Law No. (13) of 2019 rewrote Article 3 of the 2005 ownership law: “The non-National natural or legal persons may own and acquire all the principal or collateral real rights of the properties located within investment areas, and may dispose them in any manner whatsoever.” DARI, the emirate’s registration platform, puts it plainly for buyers: other nationalities “are eligible to buy in investment areas only.” The federal portal u.ae names nine of them: Yas Island, Saadiyat, Reem, Mariya, Lulu, Al Raha Beach, Sayh Al Sedairah, Al Reef and Masdar City. The same page still describes the 2005 position, floors and apartments only and not land, which the 2019 law replaced; the gazette text is the operative one. Our Abu Dhabi guide covers how the investment areas are designated.

In Dubai one authority does both jobs. The Land Department describes its registration role as “registering property transactions, issuing title deeds and ownership documents, and registering off-plan sales, mortgages and other property dispositions”, and its regulatory role as licensing developers, brokers, owners’ associations and management companies and “supervising escrow accounts for development projects.” The Real Estate Regulatory Agency, RERA, was set up by Law No. (16) of 2007, whose Article 3 says “It will be affiliated to the Land Department.”

In Abu Dhabi the work is split. Law No. (3) of 2015 gives its powers to the Department of Municipalities and Transport, and Administrative Decision No. (26) of 2025 says the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC) “shall exercise all powers and duties vested in the Department” under that law. Sales are registered on DARI, which was launched with the support of the Department of Municipalities and Transport.

Two islands in the capital sit outside that system. ADGM’s Registration Authority governs “the registration of all types of real property interests located within the ADGM Jurisdiction, Al Maryah and Al Reem Islands”, under the ADGM Real Property Regulations and an English common law based legal system. If the unit you are looking at is on either island, ask the developer which registry will record it, because the fees and the off-plan rules in this guide may not be the ones that apply there.

Dubai prints the same fee for an off-plan sale and a completed one. The Land Department’s sale registration page lists “Seller: 2% of the sale value” and “Buyer: 2% of the sale value”, with AED 250 for the title deed certificate, AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees, and a trustee office fee of AED 4,000 plus VAT where the sale value is AED 500,000 or more. The initial sale registration, the Oqood service for an off-plan unit, prints the same 2% and 2%. At AED 10,000,000 the two shares come to AED 400,000. Which party bears them is for the contract to say; on an off-plan purchase the developer is the seller. Our DLD fees guide goes through each line.

In Abu Dhabi an off-plan sale costs half as much to register. DARI’s help centre says “The amount due will be 2% of the total sale price, and an AED 10,000 will be added in the case of late registration (21 days from the contract’s date).” At AED 10,000,000 that is AED 200,000, or AED 210,000 if registered late. DARI does not say which party pays, so the contract decides that too.

For a completed home in Abu Dhabi the official wording is older. The DARI guide to selling and buying, last modified on 19 December 2023, says the transaction fee can be “2% of the valuation or selling price, whichever is higher”, and has the seller enter the buyer’s percentage in the transaction. The fee schedule behind it, Executive Council Chairman Resolution No. (49) of 2018, sets the sale fee at not less than 1% and not more than 4% for each transaction, “equally divided between seller and buyer unless otherwise agreed.” That schedule was amended by Resolution No. (127) of 2019, which we did not read, so confirm the rate on DARI before you budget. Our cost of buying calculator prices a Dubai purchase line by line, and an Abu Dhabi off-plan purchase at DARI’s 2%.

Both emirates require an escrow account for each project, under different laws. Dubai’s is Law No. (8) of 2007. A developer who wishes to sell units off plan “must submit to the Department a request to open an Escrow Account” (Article 6). The account is opened in the name of the project and “dedicated exclusively to the construction” of it, and no attachment may be imposed on the money in it for the benefit of the developer’s creditors (Article 9). Once the completion certificate is issued, the escrow agent keeps back 5% of the account and releases it one year after the units are registered in the buyers’ names (Article 14). If the project fails, the escrow agent must, after consulting the Department, act to see it completed or the depositors refunded (Article 15).

Abu Dhabi’s is Law No. (3) of 2015. No unit may be sold off plan unless the developer has opened a project escrow account (Article 15), and the money in it is “exclusively allocated for the purposes of construction of this project as well as for the settlement of its financing payments” (Article 18). The same Article 15 says the buyer pays “according to the actual completion percentage of the construction works, unless otherwise agreed with the developer.” Law No. (2) of 2025 replaced Article 19: “No amounts deposited in the Project Escrow Account shall be disbursed unless the Developer has completed at least (20%) of the construction works”, unless the developer gives bank guarantees worth at least 20% of the construction value, and the account may not pay for the land or for brokers’ commissions.

In either emirate the practical rule is the same: pay only into the escrow account named in your contract. What a delay or a cancellation does to that money in Dubai is in our guides to handover delay and cancellation and refunds.

The residence is federal, issued through ICP, and its property threshold is the same everywhere: a letter from the real estate registration department confirming that the investor owns property “worth at least AED 2,000,000”, and “The property must be fully owned by the investor.” ICP’s Golden Residency Guide adds that the property may be financed through a loan from an approved local bank, and that off-plan units worth at least AED 2,000,000 count if bought from an approved local real estate company.

Each emirate then states its own conditions. The Dubai Land Department takes a property whose purchase value was AED 2 million or more “at the time of purchase” and, for a mortgaged property, asks for a bank letter indicating “2 million AED paid amount”. GDRFA Dubai accepts a mortgaged property and places a lien on it “to ensure the continuity of ownership throughout the validity of the Golden Residency”. Neither Dubai page we read says anything about off-plan units.

Abu Dhabi’s Department of Economic Development asks for property bought with a minimum total value of AED 2,000,000 “outside a mortgage”, and gives the arithmetic: “if a property is worth AED 5,000,000, the outstanding mortgage principal cannot exceed AED 3,000,000.” For an off-plan unit it asks for a purchase agreement with an approved developer and evidence that at least AED 2,000,000 has been paid to the developer. ICP, the Land Department, GDRFA Dubai and the Abu Dhabi department all give 10 years; the federal portal u.ae says 5 years for real estate investments, so confirm the term when you apply. Our Golden Visa calculator checks a price against the threshold.

The Central Bank’s Regulations Regarding Mortgage Loans apply to banks, finance companies and other financial institutions providing mortgage loans, in every emirate. Under Article 3, the maximum loan to value “for mortgages on property being purchased off plans is 50% regardless of purpose, value, or category of purchaser.” For an expatriate’s first home the rulebook prints 80% where the value is less than AED 5 million and 70% where it is more, and 60% for a second home or an investment property, whatever its value. These are ceilings: “the LTV ratios set out in these Regulations are the maximum allowable”, and a bank may lend less.

So the emirate does not change what you can borrow; it can change what the borrowing does to a Golden Visa application, as the section above shows. How the cap meets a developer’s payment plan is in our guide to a mortgage on an off-plan property.

The Dubai off-plan hub and the Abu Dhabi off-plan hub list the projects we track in each emirate. For the waterfront addresses buyers most often weigh against each other, the area guides to Palm Jumeirah, Saadiyat Island and Hudayriyat Island say what is there and what is being built. Before you offer on either side, run the price through the cost of buying calculator.

Everything below was either not on an official page we read on 1 October 2026 or would need a reading we did not do, so it is not stated above.

• A current count of Dubai’s freehold areas. The 2006 list has been extended plot by plot, and no official page we read gives the total today.
• The current Abu Dhabi fee for registering the sale of a completed home. DARI’s guide dates from December 2023, and we did not read Resolution No. (127) of 2019, which amended the fee schedule.
• How Al Reem Island sits between the ADGM registry and the investment areas the federal portal lists, and the ADGM registry’s own fees.
• Whether Dubai accepts an off-plan unit for the Golden Visa on different terms from ICP’s federal guide. The Land Department and GDRFA Dubai pages we read do not mention off-plan.
• Mortgage registration fees in Abu Dhabi. Dubai’s are in our mortgage guide.
• Any annual fee on an owner who lives in the home. What we found in either emirate is tied to tenancies.
• Resale before handover. Neither emirate’s law that we read sets a minimum payment before an off-plan buyer may sell; developers set it, and our resale guide covers Dubai.
• Prices, rents, yields and which market will rise faster. No official page we read publishes them on a comparable basis, and this guide makes no investment claim.
• Inheritance, wills and tax in your home country.