Transferring a ready property in Dubai: the steps and the full cost

In this article

Written by

Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

About Kooky and Shaka →

In Dubai, a home is not sold when the contract is signed, when the cheque is handed over or when the keys change hands. It is sold when the Dubai Land Department records the sale in its register. Everything a buyer and a seller do before that moment is preparation, and the moment itself has a price: a percentage of the sale value, a handful of fixed charges and a fee for the office or the app that processes the file.

Those costs are published, but in several places: a 2013 resolution of the Executive Council of Dubai for the percentage, the Land Department's service pages for the fixed charges, and separate laws for mortgages, service charges and understated prices.

This guide follows the transfer of a ready property, meaning a completed home with a title deed, from the first check to the new deed. It sets out what each party pays under the published scales as they stood at the start of October 2026, what must be in hand before the appointment, how the two routes offered by the Land Department differ, and where the published sources stop. It does not cover off-plan sales, which are registered differently, and it does not go into the role of the registration trustee offices and notaries beyond the steps a transfer passes through.

Executive Council Resolution No. (30) of 2013 and the Dubai Land Department's property sale registration service page, read in October 2026.

Why registration is the transfer itself

The starting point is Dubai Law No. (7) of 2006 concerning real property registration. Its Article 9 requires every transaction that creates, transfers, amends or extinguishes a real property right to be recorded in the Property Register kept by the Land Department, and, as replaced by Law No. (7) of 2019, states that such transactions are not deemed effective unless recorded. Article 6 of the same law makes the Department the only body authorised to register real property rights in the emirate.

Two consequences follow for anyone buying or selling. The first is that a private agreement, however carefully drafted, does not by itself make the buyer the owner. The law says that when a party fails to transfer a right it has promised, its liability is generally limited to compensation for the breach. A signed contract therefore gives a claim against the other party; the register gives the property.

The second is that the register is very hard to argue with once it is written. Under Article 7 of the 2006 law it has absolute evidentiary value against everyone, and its content can be challenged only by proving fraud or forgery. Title deeds are issued by the Department from the data in the register, and the law gives them the same absolute value as proof of real property rights.

The law also explains a term that returns throughout the procedure. Ownership in Dubai is open to nationals of the UAE and of the Gulf Cooperation Council and to companies they wholly own. Other buyers may hold freehold title, or usufruct and leasehold rights of up to 99 years, only in the areas designated by the Ruler. These are the "freehold areas" the Land Department's pages refer to, and they are where a developer's clearance is asked for before a sale.

The 4% fee and who pays it

The main cost of a transfer is the registration fee. Item 1 of the schedule attached to Executive Council Resolution No. (30) of 2013, which approved the Land Department's fees and was issued on 18 September 2013, sets the fee for registering a sale contract at 4% of the contract value.

Article 3 of the resolution then says who bears it: in a sale, the seller and the buyer split the fee equally unless they agree otherwise. The Land Department's service page for property sale registration presents the result of that default, listing 2% of the sale value for the seller and 2% for the buyer.

The words "unless they agree otherwise" carry weight. The resolution fixes the amount owed to the Department; it leaves the parties free to decide between themselves who funds it. A sale contract may put the whole 4% on the buyer, the whole on the seller, or any split in between, and the Department still receives 4%.

A sale is not the only way a ready property changes owner, and the scale is very different for the others. According to the Land Department's gift registration page, a transfer by gift between first-degree relatives is charged at 0.125% of the property's valuation, with a minimum of AED 2,000. The 4% discussed here applies to sales.

The fixed charges on top

The percentage is followed by a short list of flat amounts. The Land Department's sale registration page lists them under "additional fees", and the 2013 schedule confirms the first of them, AED 250 for issuing a title deed.

One line of that list needs a caution. The page shows AED 250 against the words "villas and apartments" without saying what the charge is for. The Department's page for the Dubai Now route, described below, lists a "villa and apartment map" at the same amount, which suggests that the line is the map charge for a villa or an apartment and that the AED 225 and AED 100 lines concern land. That reading is an inference from a second page, not something the sale registration page states, and the worked examples in this guide show both possibilities.

The page also does not say which party pays each flat charge. Article 3 of the resolution addresses the split of sale fees between seller and buyer in general terms, and the deed is issued in the new owner's name, but the published page stops short of assigning them.

The processing fee depends on the route

The last component is not a government fee in the strict sense. Sales are processed either at a Real Estate Registration Trustee centre, an office authorised to handle registrations for the Department, or through the Dubai Now application. Each route has what the Land Department calls a service partner fee, charged in two bands according to the sale value, with value added tax on top.

At a trustee centre the fee is AED 4,000 plus VAT when the sale value is AED 500,000 or more, and AED 2,000 plus VAT when it is below. Through Dubai Now, where the service partner named on the page is Emirates Real Estate Solutions, it is AED 1,000 plus VAT at AED 500,000 or more and AED 500 plus VAT below. The pages do not state the VAT rate, so the amounts in this guide are given before VAT.

The band is set by the sale value, not by the type of home. The other flat charges differ slightly between the routes as well. On the Dubai Now page the knowledge fee and the innovation fee are AED 30 each, against AED 10 each at a trustee centre, while the title deed charge is AED 250 on both. As on the trustee page, the Dubai Now page does not say which party pays the partner fee.

What must be ready before the appointment

The Land Department's list of required documents for individuals is short. Both the seller and the buyer present their Emirates ID, which the page says is used only to verify identity, with no copy taken. A non-resident foreigner presents a valid passport instead. For a property in a freehold area, the file also needs an electronic no-objection certificate from the developer, which the page calls an e-NOC and says is obtained through the Dubai REST application.

The page gives no fee, validity period or processing time for the e-NOC, and none of the sources opened for this guide does either. It is therefore listed here as a required document and nothing more. Deposits and the way the price is secured under the sale contract are not described on any page read either.

A company that is a party to the sale has one extra step. According to the service terms on the page, it must first be registered with the Department by submitting a company registration request. The service description adds that a sale may be registered by the legally authorised representatives of the seller or the buyer.

Three checks can be made before any of this, and the Department's pages list no fee for two of them.

• Property status. The Department's property status enquiry, on its website or in Dubai REST, returns the status of a property from data such as its area and land number. The result is immediate and the page lists the service as free.
• Title deed validity. A separate service verifies that a title deed is valid, again on the website or in Dubai REST, with an immediate result.
• Proof of ownership. An owner can obtain a "To Whom It May Concern" certificate confirming ownership through Dubai REST or the website. The Department's page prices it at AED 50 plus a knowledge fee of AED 10 and an innovation fee of AED 10, AED 70 in all, and says it is issued instantly.

There is also a condition that can stop a sale of an apartment or of a villa in a managed community. Article 32(a) of Dubai Law No. (6) of 2019 on jointly owned real property gives the management entity a lien on each unit for unpaid service charges, and provides that a unit cannot be sold until those charges are paid. The service charge account is therefore part of the seller's preparation.

Finally, the sale agreement itself. The Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide published by the Land Department and its regulatory arm in November 2024 says that brokers must record sales with electronic contracts, and identifies Contract F as the sale agreement between the seller and the buyer. It is this contract that carries the agreed price, and with it the base of the 4% fee.

Five steps at a trustee centre

The Land Department's service page describes the transfer at a Real Estate Registration Trustee centre as five steps, and gives a processing time of 25 minutes.

The 25 minutes describe the processing of a complete file. Everything listed in the previous section has to be in hand when the parties sit down: a missing document is found at the first step, and the page says only that deficiencies are identified and addressed.

Payment is made by one of four methods named on the page: ePay, Dubai Pay, a Noqodi wallet or a manager's cheque. The page describes the payment of the Department's fees; it says nothing about how the purchase price itself passes from buyer to seller at a trustee centre, and this guide does not fill that gap.

What comes out is electronic. The issued documents are an electronic title deed and an electronic map. Should it later need replacing, the 2013 schedule sets the fee for a replacement title deed at AED 1,000, four times the AED 250 charged for the original.

The Dubai Now route

The second route does away with the office visit. The Land Department describes buying or selling through Dubai Now as a digital service available at all hours, with an instant processing time and a single required document, UAE PASS, the digital identity used to sign.

It is open to fewer sales. According to the page, five conditions apply:

• only individuals who hold a UAE ID can use it, and the page lists citizens and residents as the eligible users;
• the property must be free of restrictions and of mortgages;
• it must be in a freehold area;
• it must be a subdivided unit, which the page defines as an apartment, an office or a townhouse;
• the sale amount and the service fees must be paid through an escrow account approved by the Department.

The procedure has four stages. A sale request is created in Dubai Now, which generates the sale and purchase agreement. The parties sign it. The purchase amount and the service fees are transferred to the escrow account. The title deed and the receipt then become available to view.

Two timing rules protect a party who changes course early. Either party can cancel before the contract is signed with the digital ID, without needing the other's approval. And the request cancels automatically if it runs past seven days before the signing step.

When a mortgage is part of the sale

Finance adds a second registration to the transfer. Under Article 7 of Dubai Law No. (14) of 2008 concerning mortgages, a mortgage takes effect only once it is registered with the Land Department, and any agreement to the contrary is void. Article 4 limits who may lend against Dubai property in this way: a licensed bank, or a financing company or institution registered with the UAE Central Bank to provide property finance.

The cost is on the 2013 schedule. Registering a mortgage is charged at 0.25% of the debt value, not of the property's price. Article 7 of the mortgage law says the mortgagor, meaning the borrower who gives the property as security, pays the registration fees unless the parties agree otherwise, and Article 3 of the fees resolution points the same way by putting mortgage fees on the person who receives the rights unless agreed otherwise.

A seller with an outstanding loan faces a different rule. Article 10 of the mortgage law provides that a mortgagor may not sell or otherwise dispose of the mortgaged property without the mortgagee's approval, and that a person who takes the property over must agree to assume the mortgagor's obligations. Article 20 adds that a mortgage ends when the secured debt is repaid in full. A mortgaged home is therefore sold either with the lender's approval or after the debt is cleared and the mortgage removed from the register, and the 2013 schedule prices that removal: discharging a mortgage costs AED 1,000.

The steps a bank takes on its own side, such as the letters it issues and the way it holds or releases funds, are not described in the laws read for this guide, and the Land Department's mortgage registration page could not be opened during the research. They are left out here for that reason.

Three worked examples

The examples below are illustrations computed from the published scales. The prices and loan amounts are assumptions chosen to show how the bands work; they are not market data. Each assumes that the registration fee is split equally, as Article 3 provides when nothing else is agreed. Value added tax on the service partner fee is not included, because the pages read do not give its rate.

A cash sale at AED 2,000,000, at a trustee centre. The registration fee is 4% of AED 2,000,000, or AED 80,000: AED 40,000 for the seller and AED 40,000 for the buyer. The title deed adds AED 250, the knowledge fee AED 10 and the innovation fee AED 10. The sale value is above AED 500,000, so the service partner fee is AED 4,000. That makes AED 84,270 before the map charge. With the AED 250 line for villas and apartments the total is AED 84,520; with the AED 225 unified map it would be AED 84,495.

The same sale, with the buyer borrowing AED 1,500,000. Nothing changes in the transfer itself. The mortgage registration adds 0.25% of AED 1,500,000, or AED 3,750, which the mortgage law puts on the borrower unless agreed otherwise. If the buyer also bears the flat charges, which are AED 4,520 on the AED 84,520 total once the AED 80,000 registration fee is taken out, the buyer's side comes to AED 40,000 plus AED 4,520 plus AED 3,750, a total of AED 48,270, and the seller's side to AED 40,000.

A sale at AED 450,000, compared across the two routes. The registration fee is 4% of AED 450,000, or AED 18,000, which is AED 9,000 each. At a trustee centre the lower band applies: AED 2,000 for the service partner, AED 250 for the title deed, AED 250 for the map line and AED 20 for the two small fees, a total of AED 20,520. Through Dubai Now, for a unit and parties that meet its conditions, the list is AED 500 for the service partner, AED 250 for the title deed, AED 250 for the map and AED 60 for the two small fees, a total of AED 19,060. The gap is AED 1,460 before VAT: the service partner fee is AED 1,500 lower through Dubai Now, and its two small fees are AED 40 higher. At AED 2,000,000 the same comparison gives AED 84,520 against AED 81,560, a gap of AED 2,960.

If the declared price is questioned

Because the fee follows the contract value, the 2013 resolution gives the Land Department the means to test that value. Under Article 4, the Department may verify property values and assess the value itself where it is undetermined, where it is below market value or where false data has been submitted.

Articles 5 and 6 deal with the deliberate case. Giving false information about the value counts as evasion of fees, and evasion is punished by a fine of double the prescribed fee, without prejudice to any stricter penalty under other legislation. The resolution extends the same penalty to developers or brokers who help others evade fees. On the AED 2,000,000 example above, the prescribed fee is AED 80,000 and double that figure is AED 160,000; whether the fine is measured on the whole fee or only on the part evaded depends on the wording of the article, which should be read in full on the Dubai Legislation Portal before any figure is relied on.

The Department also offers valuation as a service in its own right. Its valuation page gives AED 4,000 for a residential villa with land or an apartment, plus AED 10 for the knowledge fee and AED 10 for the innovation fee, with a service partner fee of AED 230 plus VAT when the request is made at a centre. The result is instant for residential units and attached villas and takes seven working days for other property types, according to the page, which was last updated on 30 September 2026.

A party who disagrees with a decision under the resolution has a route of appeal inside the Department. Article 8 provides that a grievance is filed in writing with the Director General, that a committee decides it within 30 days, and that the committee's decision is final.

What the transfer means for the broker

The transfer is also a date in the broker's calendar. By-law No. (85) of 2006, which regulates the real estate brokers register in Dubai, provides in its Article 28 that a broker's remuneration falls due, unless agreed otherwise, on the signing and registration of the sale contract with the Department. That article was read for this guide in an English reproduction published by a legal information service, because the copy on the official legislation portal could not be opened; the wording should be checked against the official text.

The by-law fixes the moment, not the amount. No primary page read for this guide states a customary commission rate for a Dubai sale, and none is given here. The commission is not part of the Land Department's scale and does not appear on either service page.

Read together, the sources leave five things open: the fee and validity of the developer's e-NOC, the purpose of the AED 250 line for villas and apartments, the party who pays each flat charge, the VAT rate applied to the service partner fee, and the bank's own steps when a mortgage is registered or cleared. On each of them the answer depends on the sale in question and on the developer, the trustee centre or the lender involved.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

About Kooky and Shaka →