Is your Dubai rent fair?
Listings show asking rents. We show registered Ejari contracts - what tenants actually signed for. Find your building to compare an asking rent, or estimate your legal renewal cap below.
Check rents in your building
Type a building name. We suggest buildings with registered Ejari contracts we can attribute - single-tower projects, mostly.
Renewing a lease?
RERA rent increase calculator
Dubai's rent decree (43/2013) caps how much a landlord may raise your rent at renewal - the cap depends on how far your current rent sits below the average market rent. Both numbers stay in your browser.
What a landlord may legally add
Decree 43 of 2013 sets the cap, and it is a slab system rather than a flat percentage: the further your current rent already sits below the market average, the more a landlord may add. The table is generated from the same function the calculator above uses, so the two cannot drift apart.
| Where your current rent sits | Maximum increase |
|---|---|
| Within 10% of the market average | No increase permitted |
| 11-20% below the market average | Up to 5% |
| 21-30% below the market average | Up to 10% |
| 31-40% below the market average | Up to 15% |
| More than 40% below the market average | Up to 20% |
Two rules that matter more than the percentage
90 days' notice, in writing
A landlord who wants to raise the rent, change any term, or not renew must say so at least 90 days before the tenancy ends, unless your contract sets a longer period. Miss that deadline and the tenancy renews on the existing terms. The notice has to be in writing and actually delivered - a message sent a fortnight before expiry is not late notice, it is no notice.
Once a year, measured against the index
Rent may be raised at most once in any twelve months, and only as far as the slab allows. A landlord cannot stack two increases into one renewal, and cannot raise the rent mid-term. If your current rent already sits at or above the market average, the permitted increase is zero - regardless of what the wider market did that year.
If the cap is ignored
The Rental Dispute Settlement Centre at the Dubai Land Department hears rent disputes, including increases above the permitted slab and defective notice. Filing costs a percentage of the annual rent and does not require a lawyer. Take the tenancy contract, the Ejari certificate, the notice you received, and the index figure you are relying on.
How this differs from RERA's official index
The binding number is RERA's. Its Smart Rental Index has, since 2025, graded individual buildings rather than applying one average across a whole area, and its output is what the Rental Dispute Centre works from. Check it before you rely on any figure, including ours.
What this page adds is evidence rather than authority. RERA tells you the permitted percentage; it does not show you the contracts underneath it. We show the registered Ejari rents actually signed in your building over the last twelve months - the median, the spread, and how many contracts sit behind it. That is the number that moves a negotiation, because it is what your neighbours are genuinely paying.
Common questions
- How much can my landlord raise my rent?
- It depends entirely on how far your current rent sits below the market average for your building. Within 10%, the answer is nothing at all. The 20% maximum applies only when your rent is more than 40% below that average. Every band is in the table above.
- What if I was not given 90 days' notice?
- The tenancy renews on the existing terms for another year. The notice period is a requirement rather than a courtesy, and a late notice does not become valid by being firmly worded.
- Can the rent go up twice in one year?
- No. One increase per twelve-month period, and only within the permitted slab.
- Is the median on this page the same as the RERA index?
- No, and it should not be used as though it were. RERA's index is the binding figure and grades buildings individually. Our median is computed from registered Ejari contracts in your building: useful evidence in a negotiation and a sound sanity check on a quoted figure, but not the legal benchmark.
- Why does my building show no rents?
- Ejari records carry a unit's location but no building name, so rents attribute cleanly only where a project is a single tower. In multi-tower communities the contracts cannot be assigned to one building without guessing, and showing nothing beats showing a confident wrong number.
General information about published Dubai tenancy rules, not legal advice. The binding figures come from RERA's index, and a dispute is decided by the Rental Dispute Settlement Centre.
Most-rented buildings, last 12 months
- SKYZ BY DANUBEArjanAED 54K/year median · 443 contracts · 12m
- Sulafa TowerDubai MarinaAED 85K/year median · 400 contracts · 12m
- SILICON GATES 1Silicon OasisAED 45.9K/year median · 392 contracts · 12m
- GHALIAJumeirah Village CircleAED 50K/year median · 382 contracts · 12m
- ZADA TOWERBusiness BayAED 76K/year median · 358 contracts · 12m
- Binghatti CornerJumeirah Village CircleAED 75K/year median · 349 contracts · 12m
- Farhad Azizi ResidenceDubai Health Care City Phase 2AED 60K/year median · 349 contracts · 12m
- ELITE RESIDENCES 2Dubai Sports CityAED 42K/year median · 342 contracts · 12m
- Sobha Creek Vistas ReserveSOBHA HARTLANDAED 80K/year median · 338 contracts · 12m
- GrandeDownTown DubaiAED 170K/year median · 335 contracts · 12m
- MERANOBusiness BayAED 79.9K/year median · 330 contracts · 12m
- ARABIAN GATESilicon OasisAED 50K/year median · 326 contracts · 12m
How the rent check works
Every rental in Dubai is registered as an Ejari contract with the Dubai Land Department. We aggregate those records per building - medians by layout, over the last 12 months - and compare any rent you type against them. Your numbers never leave your browser.
At renewal, Decree 43/2013 caps the increase by how far your current rent sits below the market average: within 10%, no increase at all; more than 40% below, at most 20%. Registered contracts are the evidence that moves a negotiation - asking prices are not.