Research

The Dubai Off-Plan Index

What a square foot of Dubai property costs, community by community. The first ladder is what buyers actually paid, from the Dubai Land Department's register of completed sales. The second and third are what developers and agents are asking on off-plan stock, which is a different kind of claim and is labelled as one. Every figure carries the register it came from, its date and the number of sales or projects behind it. Nothing is estimated, smoothed or filled in.

Registered sales as of 2 September 2026. Developer register as of 4 September 2026. Free to cite with attribution.

27.9x
Cheapest to dearest community

Al Twar at AED 288 per sqft, Jumeirah Bay Island at AED 8,029

Dubai Land Department registered sales, 2 September 2026

73
Communities with a registered median

158,879 registered sales behind them in twelve months; a community needs 10 to be published

Dubai Land Department registered sales, 2 September 2026

37
Communities with an asking median

88 more are tracked but fall under the 8 project minimum and are suppressed

Our developer register, 4 September 2026

1,075
Dubai projects still to hand over

of 1,579 tracked in Dubai; 4 state no handover date

Our developer register, 4 September 2026

What Dubai property sold for, by community

Dubai Land Department registered sales, 2 September 2026

Median registered price per square foot over the last three months, for the 73 Dubai communities with at least 10 registered sales in the last twelve. These are transactions the Dubai Land Department recorded, not listings. A community name opens its registered-sale page, building by building.

Cheapest firstAED per sqft, registered sales
2,0004,0006,0008,000

Upright rule is the median registered rate over the last three months. The figure beside each community is its registered sales over the last twelve. Axis starts at AED 250 per sqft, not at zero. Registered sales of all property types, off plan and completed together. A community below 10 sales in twelve months publishes no median here at all, because a three-month median off two transactions is one penthouse.

What developers are asking

The two ladders below are a different measurement and a weaker one. They are the prices developers and agents publish on off-plan stock that has not sold yet, taken from our own register rather than from the Land Department, and they carry their own date. Where a community appears on both, the gap between them is the gap between an asking price and a transaction, which is the most useful thing on this page.

Asking price per sqft by community

Our developer register, 4 September 2026

The 37 Dubai master communities where at least 8 tracked off-plan projects publish unit sizes alongside unit prices. A community name links to every off-plan project we hold in it.

Cheapest firstAED per sqft
2,0004,0006,0008,000

Upright rule is the median. Brass band is the middle half of the sample, the range the 25th to the 75th percentile. Axis starts at AED 1,000 per sqft, not at zero. Asking prices from developer and agent listings, not registered transactions. 88 further Dubai communities are tracked but sit under the 8 project minimum, so no asking price is published for them.

Asking price per sqft by developer

Our developer register, 4 September 2026

The 19 developers with at least 8 rated Dubai projects. This is where a developer prices, not how much it builds: for volume and share, see the developer market share report below.

Cheapest firstAED per sqft
2,0004,0006,000

Upright rule is the median. Brass band is the middle half of the sample, the range the 25th to the 75th percentile. Axis starts at AED 1,000 per sqft, not at zero. A developer working across several communities will show a wide band, because the band is the spread of its own projects, not a measure of consistency.

What the ladder shows

Dubai does not have one price per square foot. It has a ladder that runs 27.9 times from bottom to top on registered sales alone, and the rungs are communities, not emirate-level averages. A buyer moving from Al Twar to Jumeirah Bay Island is not paying a premium of a few percent; they are in a different market with different buyers.

The sales count beside each community matters as much as its position. A community with thousands of registered sales in a year has a median that barely moves; one just over the minimum can be turned by a single tower completing. The count is printed next to every median for that reason, and everything under the minimum is left off rather than shown faintly.

Dubai South carries the largest sample on this page, at 15,232 registered sales in twelve months, so its median is the most stable figure here. The communities near the 10-sale minimum are the least stable. The asking ladders below it run on a different register with a different date, and answer a different question: what is being asked for stock nobody has bought yet.

The index in five reports

Price is one dimension. These five reports carry the rest: where supply sits, when it lands, what it costs to get in, who is building it and on what terms. They run on the same developer register the asking ladders above use, and each one states its own sample and as-of date.

Report 01

Dubai Off-Plan Supply by Area

Which Dubai communities carry the most off-plan projects, and what entry prices look like in each.

Read the report →

Report 02

Dubai Off-Plan Handover Pipeline

Confirmed handover dates by quarter and year, including how strongly completions cluster in Q4 and December.

Read the report →

Report 03

Dubai Off-Plan Entry Prices

The distribution of published starting prices across the Dubai off-plan market, and the cheapest and most expensive communities to buy into.

Read the report →

Report 04

Dubai Developer Market Share

Which developers hold the largest share of tracked off-plan projects, their live pipelines and sell-out rates.

Read the report →

Report 05

Dubai Off-Plan Payment Plan Norms

What down payment, construction-phase and handover splits developers actually offer, measured across the catalogue.

Read the report →
Handover calendarRental yield toolPayment plan toolBrowse off-plan projects

Methodology and limitations

What the registered figures are. Every sale registered with the Dubai Land Department, aggregated by community. A community's rate is the median price per square foot of the sales registered in the last three months; the figure beside it is its sales over the last twelve. 73 communities clear the 10-sale minimum and are published, on 158,879 registered sales between them. These are all property types and both off-plan and completed transfers, because that is how the register records them, and they are transaction prices rather than valuations.

What the asking figures are. For every off-plan project we hold a list of unit types. A unit type's rate is its stated starting price divided by its stated floor area. A project's rate is the median of its unit types, so a tower with forty layouts and a villa release with four count once each. A community's or developer's rate is the median of its projects, and the band is the 25th to the 75th percentile of the same set. The source publishes no rate of its own to check the division against, which is precisely why these sit below the registered figures rather than above them.

The minimum sample. An asking price is published only where at least 8 of a community's or developer's projects carry a rate. Below that a single villa release moves the median further than the gap between two neighbouring communities. 88 Dubai communities fall under the minimum and are left out entirely rather than printed with a caveat.

Coverage. The developer register holds 1,919 off-plan projects across the UAE, 1,579 of them in Dubai. Of the Dubai projects, 853 (54%) publish unit sizes alongside unit prices and can be rated; the rest publish a headline price with no size, or no price, and contribute nothing to either asking ladder. This is the same register the project pages and the off-plan hub count, so the totals on this page and on those agree.

What this index does not cover, and cannot. Neither register carries rental values, because rental contracts are not in the data we can republish, so no yield is printed anywhere on this site as a headline number. The registered ladder says nothing about a specific unit: a community median covers studios and penthouses, plots and towers together, and the per-building figures at /sold are where a real comparison starts. The asking ladders say nothing about what anything sold for. Where the two disagree for a community, the registered figure is the one to quote.

The developer register is a broad, continuously maintained record of publicly marketed off-plan projects. It is not a register of every project in the emirate. Developer-stated prices, sizes, dates and payment plans change after publication. Where a project does not state a value it is excluded from that calculation rather than estimated. The Land Department register is a record of completed transfers and is republished as the department publishes it.

Common questions

What is the price per square foot of property in Dubai?

As of 2 September 2026, median registered sale prices across the 73 Dubai communities on this page run from AED 288 per square foot in Al Twar to AED 8,029 in Jumeirah Bay Island, a spread of 27.9 times. Each figure is the median of the sales the Dubai Land Department registered in the last three months, with at least 10 sales in the last twelve behind it. Developer asking prices for off-plan stock are published separately on the same page and are not the same number.

Which Dubai community is cheapest per square foot?

Al Twar, at a median registered rate of AED 288 per square foot across 52 sales in the last twelve months, as of 2 September 2026. Communities with fewer than 10 registered sales in twelve months are not ranked, so a cheaper district with a thin sample may exist and is deliberately left out.

Which Dubai community is the most expensive per square foot?

Jumeirah Bay Island, at a median registered rate of AED 8,029 per square foot across 16 sales in the last twelve months, as of 2 September 2026. The largest sample on the page is Dubai South, with 15,232 registered sales at a median of AED 1,705.

What is the difference between the registered prices and the asking prices here?

A registered price is what a buyer paid and the Dubai Land Department recorded. An asking price is what a developer or agent is publishing for stock that has not sold. This page carries both because off-plan property has no registered price until it transfers, but it never blends them: the registered ladder covers 73 communities as of 2 September 2026, and the asking ladders cover 37 communities and 19 developers from our own register of 1,919 projects as of 4 September 2026.

Can I cite these figures?

Yes, free, with attribution to Luxury Located and the as-of date of whichever register you are quoting (2 September 2026 for registered sales, 4 September 2026 for asking prices). The citation block at the foot of the page gives the wording. Both refresh with their sources, so quote the date with the number.

Cite this report

This research is free to reference in articles, forums and reports. We ask only for attribution with a link to this page.

Harcsa, B. (2026). The Dubai Off-Plan Index. Luxury Located Research. Data as of 4 September 2026. https://luxurylocated.com/market

Questions about what these numbers mean for a specific purchase? Balazs Harcsa advises buyers directly on off-plan selection, payment plans and handover timing.

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