UAE property and tax: what foreign investors actually pay

What you pay in the UAE

The Corporate Tax question

The UAE introduced 9% Corporate Tax in 2023, but the Federal Tax Authority has confirmed in its official guidance that real-estate investment income earned by individuals, rent and sale gains alike, sits outside Corporate Tax entirely, whether you’re resident or not, and with no cap on the amount. The exclusion holds as long as you don’t hold (or need) a business licence for the activity; using a property manager doesn’t affect it.

Buy through a company, though, and the picture changes: a foreign company owning UAE property is taxable on its net UAE property income (0% on the first AED 375,000, 9% above), and must register with the FTA. UAE companies fall in the normal 9% regime. For most private investors this is the decisive argument for buying in personal names. The 15% global minimum tax that took effect in 2025 only touches multinational groups with €750M+ revenue, irrelevant to individuals.

The catch: your home country

The UAE not taxing you doesn’t mean nobody does. UK tax residents pay UK income tax (up to 45%) on Dubai rental profits and UK CGT on disposals; Indian residents are taxed in India on worldwide income; most EU states likewise. Because the UAE charges nothing, there’s usually no foreign tax credit to offset, the UAE’s 137 double-tax treaties allocate taxing rights but can’t reduce a home-country bill to zero on their own. The picture only becomes fully tax-free once you are genuinely UAE tax-resident under both countries’ rules.

Estate planning, not inheritance tax

There’s no UAE inheritance tax, but UAE assets of non-Muslims can default to Sharia distribution rules unless you register a will (DIFC Wills Service Centre or local courts). It’s a planning step, not a tax, and it’s one every foreign owner should take. We flag it in every purchase we advise on.

A worked example: buying at AED 2 million

Here is what the table above comes to on an illustrative AED 2 million purchase with no mortgage. In Dubai the DLD fee is 4%, AED 80,000. DLD’s own fee pages split it 2% each between buyer and seller, but by long-standing custom the buyer pays all of it. Add about AED 560 of fixed DLD charges for the title deed, the map and the knowledge and innovation fees, and on a resale the registration trustee office fee of AED 4,000 plus VAT, AED 4,200, the fee for any deal of AED 500,000 or more. That makes AED 84,760 before the agent’s 2% plus VAT. Off-plan, the developer registers the sale on Oqood, so there is no trustee fee and the total is about AED 80,560, though many developers add an admin charge of their own. In Abu Dhabi the fee is 2% of the higher of the price and the ADREC valuation, AED 40,000 at this price, which the rules share equally between buyer and seller unless the contract says otherwise, plus an AED 875 DARI fee on a resale. Read the sale agreement, because many put the whole 2% on the buyer.

What selling costs

On the way out the UAE charges an individual no tax on the gain, so what a seller pays are costs, not taxes. In Dubai the seller normally pays none of the 4% DLD fee, which the buyer carries by custom, unless the contract splits it. In Abu Dhabi the 2% ADREC fee is shared equally by default, so a seller should expect to carry half unless the buyer has agreed to take it all. Two debts must be cleared before the deed moves. In Dubai, service charge arrears come first, because the developer’s no-objection certificate, which a transfer needs, is not issued while any service charge is outstanding, and the trustee office will not register the sale without it. Then any mortgage, which is settled from the proceeds at or before transfer. What is left is yours in the UAE. Whether your home country taxes the gain is the question in the section above, and it is the one to settle before you list.