Register · Dubai and Abu Dhabi
DLD fee and the cost of buying property in Dubai
The registration fee, the half the law puts on the buyer, the trustee and title-deed fees and the mortgage rate — each with the instrument behind it.
- Checked2026-09-12
- Documentslisted at the foot of the page
The short answer
One rate, charged on the contract, split down the middle
Registration is the one large cost of a Dubai purchase: a share of the price written into the sale contract, which the law divides equally between seller and buyer unless the two of them agree otherwise.
The rate is 4%Dubai law of the value of the sale contract, and the instrument that sets it also says it is shared equally by seller and purchaser. The Department's own service page states the same thing as 2%Land Department from each side. That is one rate presented two ways, not two rates, and an estimate that mixes the two readings is wrong by half.
Everything else on a straightforward purchase is a fixed sum rather than a share: the title deed, the trustee centre that processes the transfer, and two small statutory fees. A mortgage adds a percentage of its own, charged on the debt.
The costs
Every line, with the article behind it
The rates below come from the 2013 fees resolution and from the Department's live service pages. Nothing here is a market average, and what we could not source is listed further down as a dash.
The trustee's fee turns on the size of the sale and is quoted before tax. The two smallest lines, knowledge and innovation, are added to almost every transaction the Department registers.
An off-plan purchase is registered differently and at its own fees — those are in off-plan payment plans. A buyer coming from outside the country pays the same rates as a resident; what changes is the paperwork, set out in buying from abroad.
- Registering the sale, of the contract value4%Dubai law
Executive Council Resolution 30/2013, Table (1) item 1, charged on the value of the sale contract.
- The seller's half, and the buyer's2%Land Department
Res. 30/2013 art. (3): shared equally unless agreed otherwise; the Department's service page states the same rate as two halves.
- Registration trustee, AED4,000Land Department
Plus VAT, where the sale value is AED 500,000Land Department or more — DLD e-service «Property Sale Registration».
- Registration trustee, smaller sales, AED2,000Land Department
Plus VAT, below that threshold — same service page.
- Issuing the title deed, AED250Dubai law
Res. 30/2013, Table (1) item 22.
- Knowledge fee, AED10Land Department
DLD e-service «Property Sale Registration», fees section.
- Innovation fee, AED10Land Department
Same service page, same section.
- Registering a mortgage, of the debt0.25%Dubai law
Res. 30/2013, Table (1) item 10, and the DLD mortgage registration page.
- Discharging a mortgage, AED1,000Dubai law
Res. 30/2013, Table (1) items 11–13; transferring one is charged at the registration rate.
- Understating the price in the contracta fine of double the fee
Res. 30/2013 arts. (5)–(6).
The rules
What the resolution actually says
Five lines from one instrument: the base the fee is charged on, who pays it, what a mortgage costs, and what happens to a contract that states the wrong price.
The fee follows the contract. Writing a lower figure into it to shrink the fee is the one act the resolution punishes by name, and the fine is double the fee it was meant to save.
- Res. 30/2013, Table (1) item 1The fee is charged on the value of the sale contract — the price the parties register, not a valuation either of them prefers.
- Res. 30/2013 art. (3)The fee on a sale is shared equally by the seller and the purchaser unless they agree otherwise, which is what makes the common arrangement lawful without documenting it.
- Res. 30/2013 arts. (5)–(6)Declaring a price lower than the real one is punished by a fine of double the prescribed fee — the saving and its penalty are the same size, twice over.
- Res. 30/2013, Table (1) items 10–13A mortgage carries its own fees: registration and transfer as a share of the debt, discharge as a flat sum.
- DLD e-service, «Property Sale Registration»The trustee centre's fee belongs to the centre, not to the Department, and is quoted before tax on one page and after it on another.
What we do not print
Where the sources are silent, or disagree with each other
Three of the sums quoted most often for a Dubai purchase have no document behind them, and the law usually cited for the rates has no English text on the portal at all.
Two of the Department's pages present the same registration fee differently: one gives the whole rate, the other gives each side's half. Both are correct and we print both, because a buyer shown only one of them will budget for the wrong figure.
The trustee's fee appears on one page before tax and on another as a round sum with the tax already inside it. We hold no tax instrument, so we print the fee as the service page quotes it and leave the rest to the invoice.
- The administrative fees quoted almost everywhere—
the three round sums in circulation appear in no DLD document; the components the service page does list do not add up to any of them
- Who pays the whole registration fee in practice—
the resolution says «unless agreed otherwise» and stops there; market practice is not a document, and we hold none
- The tax added to the trustee's fee—
one page quotes the fee before tax and another quotes a round sum with it included; we hold no tax instrument, so we print the fee as the service page states it
- Law 7/1997 on land registration fees—
no English text on the legislation portal; the rates on this page are taken from the 2013 fees resolution instead
Checked 2026-09-12
Documents
What this page rests on
One resolution and two service pages, read on the day this page was built.
- Resolution
Executive Council Resolution No. (30) of 2013 approving the fees of the Land Department, 18 September 2013
Table (1) for the rates, Article (3) for the split, Articles (5)–(6) for the penalty.
- Service page
DLD e-service «Property Sale Registration», read 12 September 2026
The trustee's fee and its threshold, the statutory fees, the documents a buyer brings.
- Service page
DLD e-service «Mortgage registration application», read 12 September 2026
The mortgage registration rate as the Department states it today.
- As filesSend the documents
The instruments, as they stand today
The English texts carry the portal's own caveat: for interpretation and application, reference must be made to the original Arabic, which prevails in case of conflict.
Talk to us
Ask for your own arithmetic
Send the address and the price you are weighing up. We come back with the fees that apply to it, each line with its document.