Which Dubai developers are least likely to delay? What the DLD register shows
Short answer, from the Dubai Land Department register on 30 October 2026: of each developer's projects whose own filed completion date has passed, Emaar has 0 of 3 and Tiger has 0 of 3 and Sobha has 0 of 2 still unfinished. Danube 3 of 3, Ellington 5 of 5, Samana 6 of 6, Binghatti 12 of 15 are still below 100% built and not marked finished.
How this is counted: a project is past its filed date when the completion date the developer filed with the DLD is before today. "Not finished" means the register shows it below 100% built and not marked finished. A filed date can be revised and the DLD updates the percentage after an inspection, so a project past its date is the question to ask the developer, not proof of a late handover. The counts are small: read them as counts, not as rates. The register here holds 717 projects registered or due in recent years, not every building a developer has ever delivered.
Sources DLD project register (open data) · Every project, daily: Dubai project status tracker
| Developer | Projects on the register | Past their filed completion date | Of those, not finished | Marked finished |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emaar | 38 | 3 | 0 | 7 |
| Tiger | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Sobha | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Imtiaz | 20 | 6 | 3 | 3 |
| Binghatti | 35 | 15 | 12 | 3 |
| Samana | 18 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Ellington | 8 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Danube | 7 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
Listed or private
Of the developers in the table, only Emaar Properties is listed on a stock exchange (the Dubai Financial Market); its largest shareholder is Dubai Holding, with 29.73% since 12 May 2026. The others are private companies. DAMAC Properties, often assumed to be listed, was taken private by its founder and delisted from the Dubai Financial Market in 2022.
A listed developer publishes accounts; a private one does not. For a buyer the protection that matters is the same for both: the project's escrow account.
The one check that matters most
Whatever the developer, verify two things before you pay: that the project is registered with the Dubai Land Department, and that your payments go into the project's escrow account, never to a personal or general company account. Escrow ties the developer's withdrawals to construction progress. No developer's name replaces this check.
Corrections
The counts come from the Dubai Land Department register and are recalculated every morning. A filed completion date can be revised, and the DLD updates a project's percentage after an inspection, so the table can lag reality by days or weeks. If you hold evidence that a project's record is out of date, such as a completion certificate or a revised completion date, send it and we will add a dated note.