Dubai service charge calculator 2026

It is a rate in dirhams per square foot per year, multiplied by your unit's built-up area — not the plot. A 900 sqft apartment at AED 15 per sqft pays AED 13,500 a year, billed by the owners' association, usually quarterly. The rate is set in the building's annual budget, which the management company must submit to RERA for approval, so it is not something a developer or an owners' association can raise at will.

Most apartments sit somewhere between AED 10 and AED 30 per sqft a year. Villa and townhouse communities are far lower — commonly AED 2 to AED 6 — because there are no lifts, no central cooling plant and much less common area per home. The extremes run from around AED 3 in the cheapest stock to AED 60 or more in a handful of branded and ultra-prime towers. A high rate is not automatically bad: chilled water, concierge, podium gardens and pools all cost money, and they are part of what the unit rents for.

Use the Dubai Land Department's official Service Charge Index. Go to dubailand.gov.ae, open the Service Charge Index service, and search by community, project and year — or look it up by title deed number. The Dubai REST app carries the same index. That figure is the RERA-approved rate for your building and it is the one to budget against; any range you read on a property website, including the bands on this page, is only a placeholder until you have it.

Yes, and it is usually the single biggest deduction. Service charges come out of rent before you see a return, so they are the main gap between the gross yield an agent quotes and the net yield you actually receive. On a 900 sqft apartment renting at AED 75,000 with a AED 15 per sqft charge, AED 13,500 — 18% of the rent — disappears before management fees, vacancy or maintenance. Two units at the same price and rent can produce materially different returns purely because of the service charge, which is why it belongs in the comparison, not in the small print.

The rate is annual but most owners' associations invoice quarterly through Mollak, the DLD platform that holds service charge accounts. Some management companies will agree to monthly instalments. Unpaid service charges accrue against the unit and can ultimately block a sale, because the DLD requires a clearance from the owners' association before transfer.

It can, but not arbitrarily. Every owners' association has to submit an annual budget that RERA reviews and approves, and the approved rate is what appears in the Service Charge Index. Increases usually follow a real cost — a chiller replacement, an insurance rise, or a sinking-fund top-up for major works. Check two or three years of the index for a building before you buy: a rate that has jumped repeatedly is worth asking about.