Dubai Commercial Property Investment Guide

Those figures come from one house, one document, one quarter — CBRE, Q2 2026 against Q2 2025 — so both halves of the market are measured the same way. Three more measurements fill it in. JLL, Q2 2026: citywide office vacancy 6.1%, against 7.7% a year earlier — the lowest in more than a decade, and not zero. Savills, Q2 2026: the average asking rate held at AED 238/ft²/year with no quarter-on-quarter growth, the first such quarter since H1 2021 — sharply up on last year, flat on last quarter. Cavendish Maxwell, full-year 2025: office sales of AED 13.1bn on about 4,600 deals, up 102% in value, the strongest year in eleven.

One caveat travels with all of it: rental growth is not a return. A yield depends on what you paid, what stands empty, what the service charge takes and what the fit-out costs. Where two reputable houses disagree about the same quarter — and they do — the measurements sit side by side in Dubai Office Market: Rents, Prices & Supply.

Almost every commercial page in this market is written for the investor. Two people read them, and the second one signs faster — they are buying a place to work from, not a position in a spreadsheet.

If you are buying for yield, the floor number and the view stop mattering, and four things decide the outcome. First, the entry price — and which of five numbers it is: a developer price list, the developer feed brokers work from, a broker asking price, a resale asking price and a Land Department sale all describe the same building differently. Second, the service charge and the chiller, set building by building, off the rent before you see a dirham. Third, vacancy and re-letting time: the citywide ≈94% occupancy is a comfort, and your unit still has to find its own tenant. Fourth, the +13% is rent moving, not return.

If you are buying an office for your own company, the yield matters less and a different four decide it. Permitted use first: an office floor is not automatically a clinic, a school or a restaurant. Dubai Law No. 6 of 2019 fixes a unit's designation at register level, and using it against the lease or the planning rules is grounds for eviction under Law 33/2008 Art. 25(1)(f). Then fit-out: most of what is on sale here is shell & core, so your real cost is the purchase plus the build. Then the licence, which attaches to the activity and the premises — an alcohol permission to the operator and the address, never to the unit. And the pair your staff will raise on day one: the parking ratio and the walk to the metro, both fixed the day you sign.

One thing an apartment can never do for you: an office carries visa capacity. The ratio consultants repeat for mainland Dubai is one visa per 9 m² of Ejari-registered office space — market practice, not a published norm, and your quota is settled in the system the day you apply.

The honest version is narrower than the pitch. Take the residential baseline first: Property Monitor, April 2026 — all types 6.68% gross, apartments 7.15%, villas and townhouses 4.98%; Engel & Völkers Middle East, early 2026 puts the all-type average near 6.9%. On the office side the only public numbers are broker estimates, because no institutional house publishes a Dubai office cap rate — Chestertons, February 2026: DIFC Grade A 6.5–7.5%, Business Bay 7–9%, JLT and Al Quoz up to 10%. Set those against a 6.9% residential base and the trophy office in DIFC earns you less than the average Dubai apartment. Business Bay beats it slightly. The cheap and value-add end beats it by up to three points. So «offices out-yield residential» is false about offices and true about cheap offices.

The sturdiest number available divides a reported rent by a registered price: average Dubai office rent AED 211/ft²/year (Cushman & Wakefield Core, MarketBeat Office Q1 2026) over the DLD ready-office average of AED 2,266/ft² for 1 January – 19 May 2026 gives 9.3% gross citywide, against 7.15% for apartments. Two extra points, and most of them sit at the cheap end. One warning if you try the arithmetic yourself: a different rent set over a different price set returns anything from 4.6% to 12.2% for the same city, because the samples stop describing the same offices. What VAT, the service charge, corporate tax and liquidity then do to that 9.3% is in Commercial vs Residential: What Changes the Net Return.

The portals make this market look enormous. The part you can actually buy is small, and knowing which part changes your shortlist.

The tier-one developers do not sell commercial space at all. Emaar states it in its own words: offices, retail, education and medical space are «built for leasing to occupiers», apartments «built for sale». Its 2024 Integrated Annual Report shows why: 10.5M+ ft² of mall GLA, 3,500+ retail units, AED 5.1bn of segment revenue. An asset earning that, with mall occupancy at 98% (CBRE Q1 2026), does not get cut into strata. Nakheel, Meraas, Wasl, Nshama, Expo City, DMCC, TECOM and Aldar run the same model; DIFC's own new towers are leased, and DIFC Square was substantially pre-let before it completed. The single tier-one exception is Omniyat, which really does sell commercial off-plan in Business Bay.

What is sold is strata: office floors and podium retail carved out of second-tier residential towers by the mid-market machine — Azizi, Binghatti, Samana, Danube, Imtiaz, Peace Homes and their peers. Across twenty districts, a genuine strata office is sold in about eight: Business Bay, SZR / Trade Centre, downtown Jebel Ali, JVC/JVT, Arjan, Majan/DLRC, Motor City/Sports City and Al Furjan/Discovery Gardens, with JLT, DHCC and Al Sufouh appearing occasionally. In the other twelve, what is marketed as «commercial» is a retail podium. And three districts sell nothing by design: Dubai Media City, Dubai Internet City and d3 are TECOM free zones where freehold does not exist — lease only. The retail half of it, including the licence rule that catches F&B buyers, is in Retail Investment: Footfall, Tenant Quality & Lease Risk.

Four things in a commercial purchase have no equivalent in a home. Budget the first early — it falls due before the property is yours.

• VAT 5%, on the sale and on the rent. Commercial real estate is taxed at the standard rate — FTA VAT Real Estate Guide VATGRE1 §6.2 — while residential resale is exempt and a first supply within three years is zero-rated. On a secondary commercial purchase the Special Payment Mechanism applies (VATGRE1 §6.4): you pay the VAT directly to the FTA, receive a Payment Transaction Number, and «without this evidence that the VAT on the purchase has been paid, the purchase of the property cannot proceed». A sale with sitting tenants to a taxable person may qualify as a transfer of a going concern and fall outside the 5% — structure that with a tax adviser in advance.
• DLD fees are 2% seller + 2% buyer, plus AED 250 for the title deed, AED 225 for the unified map, AED 10 knowledge, AED 10 innovation and a trustee fee of AED 4,000 + VAT above AED 500,000 (DLD service pages, checked 10 Aug 2026). The convention that the buyer pays all 4% is market practice, not the tariff — in a commercial deal the seller's 2% is negotiable, and few buyers try.
• Service charge, and a lien you can inherit. Charges are set on the unit's registered area and cannot be levied at all without RERA's prior approval of an audited budget (Law 6/2019 Art. 25, Art. 27). Art. 32 gates the transfer: the management entity holds a lien on the unit and «a Unit may not be disposed of unless these charges are paid». So a dated clearance certificate is part of the price you agree.
• Financing is a different product. The UAE Central Bank's LTV regulation covers residential property by definition, so commercial lending sits outside it and the bank sets the terms: 60–75% LTV over 10–15 years, not 25. Emirates NBD publishes 70% for UAE nationals and 60% for expatriates, up to AED 7M, up to 15 years — completed freehold or transferable property only. No published mortgage exists for an off-plan office, so most off-plan commercial is planned as cash.

Then the tax that is not charged — the happiest number here. An individual's real-estate investment income sits outside UAE corporate tax regardless of the amount, where the activity needs no licence (Cabinet Decision No. 49 of 2023, Art. 2(2), sub-paragraph c; FTA guide CTGTNP1 §3.8.3 and §6.1). A company pays 0% to AED 375,000 of taxable profit and 9% above. For a pure rental strategy you are often cheaper as an individual than as a company — the opposite of the advice that circulates. The whole checklist with its legal basis is Commercial Property Due Diligence: Before You Reserve.

Seventeen of the twenty have a commercial price with a date and a named source. All twenty are still being built: fourteen off-plan, five under construction, and Richmond District, whose commercial floors have yet to be released. Entry prices, as of the dates shown, by district:

Business Bay — five of the twenty, and the district with the most of them.

• Haus of Tenet (IRTH) — offices from AED 3.2M, broker asking, June 2026. On sale.
• Burj Capital (Centurion) — 238 offices of 243 units, shell & core from AED 2.58M on the developer feed, not a published price list, Sep 2026; the Land Department's most recent recorded sale here is AED 3.1M. On sale, under construction.
• HQ by Rove (IRTH, Marasi Bay) — fitted, furnished and serviced offices from AED 2.92M, the lowest DLD-recorded sale, Sep 2026, range to AED 12.34M; the broker channel asks from AED 3,504,009. On sale.
• LUMENA ALTA (Omniyat) — 132 offices from 4,502 ft² across 73 levels, sold by lift bank, from AED 12.7M, the lowest DLD-recorded sale, Sep 2026, range to AED 41.8M. On sale.
• Lumena (Omniyat) — offices from AED 25.1M, resale asking, Aug 2026. Resale only: the AED 19M launch figure still sits on Omniyat's own site above the words «officially sold out».

Sheikh Zayed Road and Al Jaddaf — the four buildings the January 2025 freehold decision runs through.

• Samana Business Hub (Samana, Downtown Jebel Ali) — offices from 593 ft² from AED 1.18M, the lowest DLD-recorded sale, Sep 2026, range to AED 2.91M; retail from 445 ft², quoted per unit. On sale.
• RAW DISTRICT (Imtiaz, SZR at downtown Jebel Ali) — offices from AED 1.2M, retail from AED 2.5M, developer list, June 2026. Resale only: the launch sold out on release day.
• Binghatti Spectre (Al Jaddaf Waterfront) — offices from AED 1.7M, retail from AED 2.87M, broker asking, Sep 2026. On sale.
• AHS Tower (Sheikh Zayed Road, Trade Centre stretch) — offices from AED 15.95M, resale asking, Aug 2026. Resale only, on a third-party asking basis.

Meydan Horizon and MBR City — two, at one address, at opposite ends of the price scale.

• The Symphony (Imtiaz) — 84 offices on floors 2–8 of a mixed-use tower of 381 units, from AED 2,395,481 on the developer feed, not a published price list, Sep 2026; the one sale the Land Department has recorded there is AED 3.43M, and the podium's seven retail spaces ask from AED 5.9M. On sale, under construction.
• Eaton Square (Meydan Horizon, MBR City) — full floors from AED 42M, broker asking, Sep 2026. Availability unestablished: no developer price list has been published.

The inland belt — seven buildings across Motor City, Sports City, Dubai Land Residence Complex, DAMAC Hills and International City 2 — and where the cheapest entries are.

• Tomorrow Commercial Tower 2 (Tomorrow World, International City 2) — offices from 391 ft² from AED 680,800 on the developer feed, Sep 2026 — the cheapest commercial entry of the twenty. On sale, and the Land Department has recorded no sale in this building.
• Aspirz (Danube, Dubai Sports City) — 266 offices on floors 2–15 of a 40-floor mixed-use tower, from AED 850,000, developer list, Sep 2026. On sale, under construction. No source publishes a size for these lots, so no per-foot rate is derivable.
• Cove Boulevard (Imtiaz, Dubai Land Residence Complex) — 149 offices of 436 units in a 30-floor mixed-use tower, from AED 1,886,668 on the developer feed, Sep 2026, to AED 4,330,178. On sale, under construction.
• O1NE District–DAWN (AVENEW, Motor City) — Grade A offices above the district retail podium, from AED 5,299,000, the lowest DLD-recorded sale, Sep 2026, range to AED 11,083,000. On sale.
• DAMAC District offices (DAMAC, DAMAC Hills) — core & shell offices on ten office floors from AED 6.1M, developer list, read on DAMAC's own page 27 September 2026 and unchanged since its launch announcement of 10 September 2025. On sale: DAMAC's own page carries the entry price, the 60/40 plan and a live call to action. One feed, EZRE, still says «Resale only» — contradicted by that page and by a Land Department ledger of 50 district sales with not one office in it.
• The WOW Tower (Mr. Eight, Dubai Land Residence Complex) — business suites on floors 1–15 of a 46-floor mixed-use tower. No commercial price: the building's own page publishes none.
• Tréppan Vision (Fakhruddin, Dubai Land Residence Complex) — office space in a mixed-use smart-technology tower. No commercial price and no published size. Whether they are sold individually or let is unstated by any source.

Al Furjan — two, one of them not for sale at all.

• Trussardi Residences (Mira, Al Furjan) — six branded office lots in a Trussardi Casa-furnished mixed-use tower, from AED 2.73M, broker asking, Aug 2026, to AED 36,405,100. On sale.
• Richmond District (Mira / John Richmond, Al Furjan) — a dedicated office tower and a retail, F&B and wellness podium, both confirmed in the master plan and neither released for sale. Nothing is on the market, so nothing is priced; the Q1 2029 belongs to its residential Tower 1.

Three things to carry into a viewing. No price per square foot appears in that list, because a rate needs a price and an area from the same lot, and for ten of these twenty no source pairs the two — where it does, the building's own floor-plan cards carry the rate. The AED 774,999 the portals attach to Binghatti Spectre is a studio apartment: never let a residential figure stand in for a commercial one. And The WOW Tower, Tréppan Vision and Richmond District come without a price because none has been published.

Location does more to a commercial return in Dubai than any other variable, and it runs backwards: the more prestigious the address, the worse the gross yield. On asking-price arithmetic, Downtown Dubai runs at 4.2–7.0% and Dubai Investments Park at 9.4–13.3% — a price per foot five to nine times apart against a rent per foot only three to four times apart. The full table — rents, prices, yield bands and service-charge data where it exists — is Dubai Office Districts: A Map-Led Investment Guide.

Two districts have their own guide, because their questions are specific. Business Bay Offices: A Project-by-Project Guide covers the district that took 52% of the market's money, building by building. Sheikh Zayed Road Offices: Freehold Since 2025 covers the policy change that opened a closed segment — in January 2025 Dubai Land Department moved 457 plots to freehold for all nationalities, 128 of them along SZR from the Trade Centre Roundabout to the Water Canal and 329 in Al Jaddaf. It is also careful about the road's name: SZR runs 55 km, three buildings here carry that address, and the first sits roughly 30 km from the other two.

The gaps are worth as much to you as the numbers. Seven of them are open today.

• AHS Tower's only live price belongs to a third party. Three figures circulate: a historic AED 12M launch entry, unavailable since 24 February 2026; no current primary price, the developer having announced the tower sold out during development; and a resale asking range of AED 15.95M–44.9M, checked on 15 August 2026. The third is the only one you can act on.
• Nobody agrees who is building Eaton Square. Property Finder credits Renaissance RE; Time Homes and Ellington's own project index credit Ellington. No developer price list has been published either, so settle both before a deposit.
• Eight of the twenty have a plot coordinate three independent sources agree on; twelve do not — Lumena and Eaton Square among them. For those twelve the exact plot comes from the developer on request.
• Binghatti Spectre's office sizes do not agree. The portals attach «from 597 ft²» to the AED 1.7M price; the only office areas in Binghatti's own office brochure are 1,059.60 / 1,072.84 / 1,094.15 ft². Get the area in writing before you price the deal — at 597 ft² and at 1,059 ft² it is a different purchase.
• Aljada CBD's «8% net over 10 years» lives in Arada's own Lease Management Agreement, on no public page of arada.com, and it carries no bank guarantee, surety or escrow. Ask us for the agreement itself.
• No public service-charge index exists for offices. The figures in circulation are Mollak residential proxies — a median near 17 AED/ft²/year, 20–40 for premium commercial towers. Your building's own rate is public in Mollak, per project; pull it before you model a net yield.
• Three numbers everyone quotes are practice, not rules: the 1 visa per 9 m² quota, the ~200 ft² minimum office area for a mainland licence, and the 2% broker commission. None appears on a regulator's page.

Read next. The district table is the heart of the section — rents, prices and yield bands, district by district: Dubai Office Districts. Two more pieces sit behind the numbers: Grade A Offices: What Supports a Rental Premium and Ready vs Off-Plan Offices: Income Now or Delivery Risk. All twenty buildings with their prices are on the commercial section.