What it costs beyond the advertised price

A developer's brochure publishes the price of a unit, not the cost of a transaction. That is not necessarily misleading – it is simply what a brochure does. But the gap between the two runs to tens of thousands of dirhams, and it tends to surface at precisely the point where discovering it is least convenient.

Most of what is in the tables below is set out in the Dubai Land Department's own published fee schedules, each of which is open to inspection. The rest – currency conversion, service charges – is not fixed in any schedule, and so appears here as what it is: something to obtain in writing rather than to estimate.

In an off-plan purchase the money does not pass to the developer. Law 8/2007 requires a dedicated escrow account for each project, and purchasers' payments go there. The developer draws from that account against construction progress, not at its own discretion.

What this secures is what the money may be used for, not the handover date. A properly operated escrow account is no promise that the project will be delivered on time, and it is no substitute for checking the developer.⁹

On completion, the interim registration becomes a title deed. The official service for this is the completion of the initial procedures, and where the registration fees have already been collected – that is, where you paid the 4% at the Oqood stage – the further fees are fixed amounts rather than percentages.²

A studio of 380 square feet – about 35 square metres – at a published starting price of AED 649,000, with handover in the first quarter of 2029. This is a real unit in a project we market, not an invented example.

The table assumes the common case: the buyer bears the full 4% registration fee. If your contract says otherwise, substitute the two middle lines.

A studio is the cheapest end of the project. The same fee schedule applies to every unit in it, so it can be run against two more units from the same price list to see what happens to the overhead as the deal grows.

This is the cost buyers forget to budget for, and the only one that returns every year. Article 25 of Law No. 6 of 2019 requires an owner to pay the management entity their share of the annual service charges, covering management, operation, maintenance and repair of the common parts. The share is calculated by the ratio of the unit's area to the total area of the jointly owned property, using a method approved by the Director General.

The same article also requires the developer to pay its share in respect of unsold units, and in respect of sold units where its sale contract or reservation agreement commits it to – worth checking in your own contract. Article 27 provides that the Real Estate Regulatory Agency will not approve a service charge budget unless it has been approved by a certified audit firm recognised by RERA.

The Land Department makes a point worth absorbing before buying to let: the liability sits with the owner. If the tenant does not pay, the debt is still yours.^5,6

Under Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017, the first supply of a residential building within three years of its completion – by sale or by lease – is zero-rated (Article 45(9)). A supply of a residential building that does not fall within that clause is exempt (Article 46(2)).

For a buyer of a residential unit, that means the price of the unit itself does not carry 5% VAT. The services around the transaction do: the Land Department's fee schedule quotes a service partner fee of AED 4,000 plus VAT on resale transactions of AED 500,000 or more, and AED 2,000 plus VAT below that. Brokerage is a taxable service too – where any is payable. On a purchase from the developer, as above, the buyer pays no commission, so there is no such cost for VAT to sit on.

Commercial property is a different matter – and some projects, RAW District among them, also sell office and retail units. If that is what you are considering, ask the developer to state the VAT treatment of the specific transaction in writing.^7,3

The same schedule applies in the other direction, and a resale adds a line that an off-plan purchase does not have: the service partner fee at the registration trustees centre.

Everything above is a cost in the UAE. Israeli tax liability, reporting obligations and the consequences of holding a foreign asset are not covered here, and not by accident: these are statements a marketing site should not be making, and they turn on each person's circumstances.

The right question for your accountant is not "how much tax" but "what must I report, when, and what counts as a taxable event" – before the purchase rather than after it. We will not answer that, and should not.