Yield on this property
Note: Educational estimate for planning. Confirm final amounts on official channels.
What this calculator does
It runs both yields side by side. Gross yield takes the annual rent over the purchase price, which is the figure in every brochure and portal listing. Net yield subtracts the money that actually leaves your account — service charge, management, vacancy, maintenance — and optionally measures the result against the price plus what it cost you to buy.
It also shows the payback period: how many years of net rent it takes to recover the cash you put in. That is the number that tends to change people’s minds.
Why gross yield flatters a Dubai purchase
Service charges are the reason. A tower with a pool, gym, concierge and district cooling plant can carry a service charge several times that of a low-rise building with none of those, and the charge is levied on square footage regardless of whether the unit is let. On a 900 sq ft apartment at AED 15/sq ft that is AED 13,500 a year before anything else — roughly 13% of a AED 105,000 rent.
Add a 5% management fee, three weeks of vacancy and AED 4,000 of maintenance and a 7% gross yield lands near 5% net. Neither number is wrong; they answer different questions, and only one of them pays you.
Where to get the service charge figure
Do not estimate it. Dubai service charges are approved per community and collected through the Dubai Land Department’s Mollak escrow system, and the per-square-foot rate for a specific building is a published, knowable number. Ask the developer, the owners’ association manager or the seller for the current statement before you model anything.
This page deliberately ships a placeholder rather than a per-area table, because a single average across Dubai would be wrong for almost every individual building — which is exactly the kind of plausible-looking number that makes a calculator useless.
What "rental yield by area" really means
Area-level yield figures circulate widely — one community quoted at 6%, another at 9% — and they are averages of transactions with very different service charges, unit sizes and conditions. They are useful for shortlisting and close to worthless for underwriting a specific unit.
A high headline yield in Dubai usually signals one of three things: a smaller unit, an older building, or a community further out. Each of those has a reason behind the number, and the reason is often a cost that lands on you later.
Worked examples
Gross 7.0%. After AED 13,500 service charge, 5% management, three weeks vacancy and AED 4,000 other, net is about 5.1% on price.
Net drops to roughly 4.8%. Nothing about the property changed — only the honesty of the denominator.
Net yield falls about 0.6 of a percentage point. One line on a statement you may not have read is worth more than most of the negotiation.
How to use this calculator
- Enter the purchase price and the annual rent you can realistically achieve.
- Enter the unit size and the service charge per square foot from the building’s own statement.
- Set a management percentage, or zero if you will manage it yourself.
- Allow some vacancy — a few weeks between tenancies is normal.
- Add other annual costs such as maintenance, insurance and chiller standing charges.
- Choose whether to measure the yield against the price alone or the price plus buying costs.
- Compare the gross and net figures, and look at the payback period.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good rental yield in Dubai?
There is no single answer, because the net figure depends heavily on the service charge of the specific building. The useful comparison is net yield against your own alternatives, not gross yield against a city-wide average — a 9% gross yield with a AED 30 per square foot service charge can net less than a 6% gross yield with a AED 10 one.
How is gross rental yield calculated?
Annual rent divided by the purchase price, as a percentage. It ignores every running cost, which is why listings quote it.
How is net rental yield calculated?
Annual rent minus service charge, management fees, a vacancy allowance and other running costs, divided by either the purchase price or the price plus your buying costs. This calculator shows both denominators because they answer different questions.
Should I include the 4% DLD fee in the yield calculation?
If you want to know the return on the cash you committed, yes — switch the basis to price plus buying costs. Buying costs in Dubai run roughly 4–7% of the price, so including them typically takes two to three tenths off the net yield.
Is rental income taxed in Dubai?
The UAE does not levy personal income tax on individuals, so rental income is not taxed at the individual level. Corporate tax may apply where property is held through a company, and you may still owe tax in your country of residence or citizenship — take advice for your own situation.
Where do I find the service charge for a building?
Ask the developer, the owners’ association manager, or the seller for the current service charge statement. Dubai service charges are approved per community and collected through the Dubai Land Department’s Mollak system, so the figure for a specific building is knowable rather than a guess.
Why does this page not list yields by area?
Because an area average is assembled from units with very different sizes, ages and service charges, and applying it to one specific apartment produces a confident wrong answer. Shortlist with area figures if you like, then underwrite the actual unit here.
Do you store my numbers?
No. Calculations run in your browser and nothing is sent to a server. See our Privacy Policy for analytics and AdSense cookie details.
Where these figures come from
The arithmetic on this page is definitional — gross yield is rent over price, net yield is rent less costs over the basis you choose — so there is no rate to go stale. Every cost is a figure you supply, because the ones that matter most are specific to one building.
Two context points are sourced rather than calculated. Dubai service charges are approved per community and collected through the Dubai Land Department’s Mollak system, which is why this page asks you for the figure instead of printing an average. And the UAE levies no personal income tax on individuals, so individual rental income is untaxed at that level — confirm your own position with the Federal Tax Authority if you hold property through a company.
Last checked against the source: 30 October 2026. The 5% management fee and the 4–7% buying-cost range shown as defaults are market norms, not published tariffs — replace them with your own quotes.
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Disclaimer
Disclaimer: Educational estimate using figures you enter. Rental yield depends on costs specific to one building, above all the service charge — take those from the property’s own statements, not from an average. Not investment, legal or tax advice. Not affiliated with the Dubai Land Department or RERA.