What You Really Earn on a Dubai Property
The number I hear most often from a client on our first call is 30 percent ROI. Sometimes 25, sometimes 40, always a round figure and always from a brochure. I’ll show you where that number comes from and why it never ends up in your pocket. Not to put you off Dubai — I work here myself and I believe in this market — but so that you go into an investment with a real number, not a promise.
Where the “30 percent” myth comes from
Thirty percent a year from rent does not exist. That number is produced in three ways, all of them misleading.
First: someone takes the increase in an off-plan apartment’s value across three years of construction, adds it all up, and calls it “ROI” as if it were an annual return. Second: they calculate the return on the deposit paid under an instalment plan rather than on the property’s value, so leverage turns 8 percent into “thirty.” Third, and most common: they add rent and an assumed price increase into a single figure, then forget that no one guarantees the price increase.
From ongoing rent, after all costs, no apartment in Dubai delivers 30 percent a year. It delivers 3 to 5 percent net. The rest of this market’s appeal has historically come from appreciation — and we’ll get to that shortly, because it’s a separate conversation.
Gross yield, which is only the starting point
Gross yield is the annual rent divided by the price of the apartment. The market average in Dubai is currently around 6.3 to 6.7 percent gross (Property Monitor, Global Property Guide, May 2026). It looks decent. The problem is that this is the number before you subtract anything — and there’s plenty to subtract.
For orientation, here are the gross ranges by district for 2026, for apartments:
- Downtown around 5.7 percent
- Dubai Marina around 6.2 percent
- Business Bay around 6.8 percent
- JVC around 7.4 percent
- Palm Jumeirah around 5.5 percent
The higher the yield, the greater the risk along the way (oversupply, weaker liquidity, a worse district). The lower it is, the more you’re paying for prestige and price resilience. The figures are from May 2026, and the market changes, so treat them as an order of magnitude for a specific building, not as a valuation.
The costs that eat into gross yield
This is where the advertised “6 percent” starts to melt away.
Service charge. A maintenance fee paid by the owner, regardless of whether the apartment is rented. In the Marina it’s 14 to 28 dirhams per square foot per year, in Downtown as much as 17 to 40, in branded buildings even more. Two towers on the same street can differ twofold. You pay this even when the apartment sits empty.
Rental management. If you live in Poland and the apartment is in Dubai, someone has to manage it. A management company on a long-term lease takes 5 to 7 percent of the rent.
Vacancy. Between one tenant and the next, the apartment sits empty. Realistically, assume half a month to a month of vacancy per year, even when the market is strong.
Insurance and a refurbishment reserve. Minor, but real. The apartment needs to be prepared between tenants.
The tax that isn’t in the brochure
And here comes the thing most brokers don’t mention, because it spoils the number. As a Polish tax resident, you pay flat-rate (lump-sum) rental tax in Poland: 8.5 percent up to 100,000 zloty of revenue per year, and 12.5 percent above that. On revenue, not on profit. Dubai indeed levies no tax on rent, but that doesn’t mean you pay nothing. You pay it in Poland. I’ve laid this out in a separate post on taxes, because the topic is important enough to deserve its own place.
A full breakdown on a specific apartment
Let’s take a one-bedroom apartment in Dubai Marina for 1.5 million dirhams — roughly 1.5 million zloty — on a long-term lease, bought in cash.
| Item | Amount (AED) |
|---|---|
| Purchase price | 1,500,000 |
| Gross annual rent (about 6.2 percent) | 93,000 |
| minus service charge (800 sq ft at about 18 AED) | -14,400 |
| minus management (6 percent) | -5,580 |
| minus insurance and reserve | -6,000 |
| minus vacancy (about a month) | -7,750 |
| Net operating (before PL tax) | about 59,270, or 3.95 percent |
| minus PL tax (flat rate 8.5 percent on 93,000) | -7,905 |
| Net after PL tax | about 51,365, or 3.4 percent |
And if we calculate the return on the full entry cost — the price plus about 6.5 percent in purchase costs (4 percent DLD fee, commission, fees) — the real net yield drops to about 3.2 percent.
Out of the advertised “6.2 percent,” roughly half stays in your pocket. That’s not a bad number. It’s simply the real number.
Long-term or Airbnb
Short-term rental is tempting with its higher gross yield, 8 to 12 percent instead of 6 to 7. But after subtracting costs (management at 20 to 25 percent of revenue, cleaning, utilities — which the owner pays under short-term — tourism fee, depreciation of furnishings, seasonal vacancy), the real net difference melts down to one or two percentage points, and outside the best locations it can fall below long-term rental. Short-term isn’t a passive investment, it’s a small hospitality business. For an owner who lives in Poland and wants peace of mind, long-term rental usually wins. That, too, is a topic for a separate post.
So where’s the rest of the profit
If rent delivers 3 to 5 percent net, where do the stories of Dubai as a gold mine come from? From appreciation — the increase in value. And here you have to be honest both ways. The average price per square foot rose from around 900 dirhams at the start of 2020 to around 1,650 in May 2026, roughly 90 percent in six years. That was an exceptionally strong cycle.
But the market has just passed its peak. The price index peaked in October 2025 and has been edging down since. Rent growth has slowed from 6.2 percent year over year in December 2025 to about 1.5 percent in April 2026. Fitch forecasts a price correction of up to 15 percent in the residential segment by the end of 2026, driven by a wave of new supply. That’s a forecast, not a fact, and it mainly hits mass-market districts rather than the prime segment, but it shows one thing: you’re buying after six years of a bull run, not at the bottom.
What number to realistically count on
Rent in Dubai is a cash-flow instrument in the range of 3 to 5 percent net — in the value segment closer to 4 to 5, in the prestige segment closer to 2.5 to 4. Appreciation can add to that, but it’s cyclical and not guaranteed, and in 2026 it’s more likely to be flat than double-digit. The horizon that makes sense is a minimum of five to seven years, to get through the cycle.
If someone promises you 30 percent, they’re running off with two-thirds of the bill. I’d rather show you the full bill, even if the number at the end is smaller, because that’s the number that won’t leave you feeling cheated after six months.
Want me to calculate the real return for a specific apartment you’re considering? Write to me and I’ll break it down into numbers for you, before you sign anything.
This post is informational in nature and does not constitute investment or tax advice. The figures given are market ranges that depend on the specific building and unit, as of June 2026. Consult a tax advisor on tax matters.