August 2026

For years the property route to a 10 year UAE residency came with an awkward asterisk. You could own an apartment worth well over the threshold and still be told to come back later, because the rule looked at how much you had actually paid rather than what the property was worth. Buyers on long payment plans waited years. Mortgage holders did the maths and gave up. That asterisk is gone. The...

There is a rumour that refuses to die. It says foreigners in Dubai never truly own anything, that the title is really a long lease dressed up in nicer language, and that one day a local partner appears holding the keys. It gets repeated at dinner parties by people who have never bought here. It is wrong. Foreign buyers can own property outright in Dubai on a full freehold basis, in roughly 40...

Most people get serious about buying in Dubai and then stall on the same question. One friend swears the city is completely tax-free. Another says nothing is ever really tax-free and there must be a catch buried somewhere. So the plan sits in a group chat for three weeks while everybody argues. Here is the short answer, and then the detail behind it. Dubai charges no annual property tax, no personal...