Tax in the United Arab Emirates
See what the United Arab Emirates's tax rules do to your property portfolio.
What Freeholt models for property, income and retirement in the United Arab Emirates, and what it does not.
Free to start. No card. Rules reviewed 21 August 2026.
Modelled here
- Tax on rental income
- Duty on purchase
- Income tax beyond the rent
- Dividends, interest and share sales
- Retirement savings
AED · Rates as at 21 August 2026 · Rates editable in Settings · Estimates, not advice
The UAE levies no personal income tax, so residential rental income is untaxed for residents and non residents alike (tax may still be owed in the owner's home country).
How rental income is taxed in the United Arab Emirates
For a resident owner: There is no tax on residential rental income. For an owner living abroad and renting this out: There is no tax on residential rental income.
Capital gains on a sale
There is no capital gains tax on residential property.
Annual property tax while holding
There is no annual property or land tax here. What people pay instead is emirate service charges, and in Dubai a municipality housing fee collected through the utility bill.
What it costs to buy
About 4% of the price on purchase. A one time Dubai Land Department transfer fee of 4% applies on purchase (plus small registration fees), the same for residents and foreigners.
Can a foreign buyer purchase here?
A foreign buyer may own freehold only inside designated zones. Foreigners buy freehold in designated zones (most of investable Dubai/Abu Dhabi); leasehold elsewhere. AED 2m property earns a 10 year golden visa (down payment requirement removed Feb 2026).
Where the tax actually lands
The United Arab Emirates taking nothing does not mean nobody does. An owner who is tax resident somewhere that taxes worldwide income generally pays tax on the rent and any gain from this property THERE, at that country's rates, with credit for anything paid here. That makes the owner's country of residence the thing that decides the tax bill on this property, not the country the property sits in. Freeholt models the residence side separately, so setting a country of residence in the app shows the whole picture rather than a zero.
Income tax in the United Arab Emirates, beyond the rent
No personal income tax. Figures in AED, as verified 29 August 2026.
Dividends, interest and share sales
How the United Arab Emirates taxes investment income. For dividends: Not taxed. For interest: Not taxed. For share sale gains: Not taxed.
Pensions and retirement savings
EEE. Untaxed at every stage. Contributions are made from money already taxed. No annual cap is modelled. Growth inside the fund is untaxed. Withdrawals can start from age 60. After that age, withdrawals are tax free.
How Freeholt models the United Arab Emirates
Every rate above is priced from Freeholt's own table for the United Arab Emirates and runs through the whole projection: rental income, a modelled sale and the annual holding costs all use the same figures. They are also defaults that can be edited in Settings, so a position that differs, or a rate that changes before we catch it, can be corrected and the projection reprices around it.
What running this property costs
In the UAE this covers annual service and maintenance charges (per sq ft, covering common area upkeep, security and the reserve fund) plus unit maintenance and optional management. There is no annual property tax.
How borrowing works here
Terms up to ~25 years with LTV capped around 60% for non residents (often 50% off plan); many foreign purchases are cash.
What actually happened here
This country's own record, one year at a time. Nothing on this page is borrowed from another country. Move across a chart to read a year.
Recent rule changes in the United Arab Emirates
- 2023-06-01 Corporate tax at 9% applies to business activity, not to an individual's real estate investment income (Cabinet Decision 49 of 2023). Rechecked 21 Aug 2026: still no personal income tax.
What Freeholt models here
- ModelledTax on rental income
- Resident and non resident rates, with interest and losses treated under the local rule.
- None hereCapital gains on a sale
- No general capital gains tax; the page says what applies instead.
- ModelledDuty on purchase
- One off, on the way in, at the scale in force.
- None hereAnnual property or land tax
- No annual charge on the property itself here.
- ModelledIncome tax beyond the rent
- Salary and other income, stacked with the rent.
- ModelledDividends, interest and share sales
- Investment income and gains, with the local allowances.
- ModelledRetirement savings
- Contributions, the fund and the way out.
- Not yetInheritance and what happens on death
- Not modelled for this country yet.
What Freeholt does not model here
- Inheritance and estate tax
- Treaty relief between this country and the owner's country of residence
What the figures above leave out (6)
- The UAE charges no income tax, but a UAE national still contributes to the state pension run by the General Pension and Social Security Authority (GPSSA): about 20% of salary with employer and employee together, and the split is not stated, so no employee rate is used. That deduction is not priced, so a national's take home pay is lower than the nil bill suggests. An expatriate is outside GPSSA and receives an end of service gratuity instead, so nothing is deducted from their pay and for them the zero is complete.
- GPSSA covers UAE nationals. An expatriate is not in it and gets an end of service gratuity instead, which is not modelled. For an expatriate these figures are about somebody else.
- The UAE's GPSSA pension is an entitlement computed from salary and service, not a pot the member owns. This answers what the UAE charges on pension money (nothing), not how large the pension will be.
- The contribution rate for the UAE's national pension, run by the General Pension and Social Security Authority (GPSSA), is about 20% of salary with employer and employee together, and the source does not say how it is split, so no rate is applied here. The figures price whatever contribution is entered rather than deriving one from pay, so they do not tell a UAE national what the mandatory deduction is; the tax on it, nil, is right at any amount.
- A GPSSA pension at 60 also needs at least fifteen years' service, and only the age is checked here. A UAE national reaching 60 with a shorter record is shown access they may not yet have, which is optimistic for them.
- For an employee whose employer is in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the retirement saving is the DIFC Employee Workplace Savings plan (DEWS), a funded pot the employer has paid into since February 2020 at 5.83% rising to 8.33% of pay with tenure in place of the gratuity, and it is not modelled, because it is chosen by where the employer sits rather than by country. Nothing here describes that pot or its size; the nil tax answer would hold for it too, but the balance itself is simply absent from these figures.
Coverage deepens country by country. Every figure is an estimate, not advice.
Compare with another country
Each page is built from the same table the app runs on, so the figures line up side by side.
Compare the United Arab Emirates with another country — rent, gains, annual tax and duty, side by side.
Questions people ask
- Does Freeholt model United Arab Emirates property tax?
- Yes. Rental income tax and duty on purchase are priced from Freeholt's own rate table for the United Arab Emirates. The United Arab Emirates levies no capital gains tax and no annual property or land tax, so there is nothing to price. Any rate or threshold can be corrected in Settings so the whole projection reprices. Every figure is an estimate, not advice.
- How is rental income from the United Arab Emirates taxed if I live somewhere else?
- There is no tax on residential rental income. Tax may also be due in the country of residence, with credit for what was paid here. Estimates only, not advice.
- What are the United Arab Emirates figures as at?
- The rate table for the United Arab Emirates was last reviewed on 21 August 2026. Freeholt date stamps every country rather than implying all of them were checked on the same day. Estimates only, not advice.
Model a property in the United Arab Emirates alongside everything else you own: see the year your portfolio starts paying you back.