Buying in Dubai: price per square metre by area
A square metre in a ready one-bedroom flat costs between AED 9,093 in Dubai Sports City and AED 22,296 in Dubai Creek Harbour. Those are medians from registered sale contracts - 248 of them in Dubai Sports City and 222 in Dubai Creek Harbour - not asking prices from a listing. The dearest area is 145.2 percent above the cheapest for the same bedroom count.
Source: Dubai Land Department, sale contract register, as of September 2026. Everything on this page is the ready market, meaning completed homes that changed hands. Off-plan contracts sit at their own level and have a page of their own. The bedroom count is not derived here: the sale register carries it in 96 percent of records.
Price per square metre, by area and bedroom count
| Area | Studio | 1 bedroom | 2 bedrooms | 3 bedrooms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dubai Sports City | AED 10,672 (n = 195) | AED 9,093 (n = 248) | AED 8,657 (n = 155) | AED 9,402 (n = 23) |
| Motor City | AED 10,225 (n = 18) | AED 10,221 (n = 122) | AED 9,428 (n = 86) | AED 8,611 (n = 39) |
| Dubai South | AED 12,020 (n = 86) | AED 10,270 (n = 110) | AED 9,306 (n = 171) | AED 9,003 (n = 25) |
| Jumeirah Village Circle | AED 13,523 (n = 417) | AED 11,162 (n = 970) | AED 10,269 (n = 324) | AED 13,870 (n = 35) |
| Mirdif | AED 10,655 (n = 6) | AED 11,838 (n = 10) | AED 9,898 (n = 26) | AED 10,310 (n = 7) |
| Al Furjan | AED 13,371 (n = 70) | AED 11,871 (n = 153) | AED 10,204 (n = 250) | AED 8,572 (n = 84) |
| Arjan | AED 14,248 (n = 219) | AED 12,673 (n = 276) | AED 12,564 (n = 142) | AED 12,693 (n = 27) |
| Town Square | AED 16,076 (n = 18) | AED 13,542 (n = 73) | AED 11,689 (n = 145) | AED 10,923 (n = 42) |
| Dubai Marina | group withdrawn | AED 16,355 (n = 545) | AED 15,699 (n = 421) | AED 14,911 (n = 158) |
| Business Bay | AED 21,293 (n = 274) | AED 17,700 (n = 502) | AED 16,287 (n = 320) | AED 15,560 (n = 127) |
| Palm Jumeirah | AED 35,775 (n = 22) | AED 20,360 (n = 80) | AED 21,138 (n = 191) | AED 20,468 (n = 86) |
| Downtown Dubai (register name Burj Khalifa) | AED 21,940 (n = 43) | AED 20,791 (n = 313) | AED 22,279 (n = 315) | AED 27,477 (n = 103) |
| Dubai Hills | AED 20,757 (n = 15) | AED 21,793 (n = 166) | AED 20,715 (n = 198) | AED 20,276 (n = 65) |
| Dubai Creek Harbour | no contracts in this class | AED 22,296 (n = 222) | AED 22,684 (n = 316) | AED 22,831 (n = 108) |
The letter n in every table on this page is the case count: the number of registered contracts the figure in that row is calculated from. A median without its n is not a statement, it is a guess.
The whole ticket, not just the square metre
| Area | Studio | 1 bedroom | 2 bedrooms | 3 bedrooms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dubai Sports City | AED 436,455 (n = 195) | AED 672,457 (n = 248) | AED 1,010,000 (n = 155) | AED 1,800,000 (n = 23) |
| Motor City | AED 630,000 (n = 18) | AED 911,800 (n = 122) | AED 1,369,503 (n = 86) | AED 1,920,894 (n = 39) |
| Dubai South | AED 470,000 (n = 86) | AED 675,675 (n = 110) | AED 1,100,000 (n = 171) | AED 1,460,000 (n = 25) |
| Jumeirah Village Circle | AED 581,000 (n = 417) | AED 859,880 (n = 970) | AED 1,280,000 (n = 324) | AED 1,809,180 (n = 35) |
| Mirdif | AED 548,000 (n = 6) | AED 950,000 (n = 10) | AED 1,394,000 (n = 26) | AED 2,175,000 (n = 7) |
| Al Furjan | AED 540,300 (n = 70) | AED 840,000 (n = 153) | AED 1,192,408 (n = 250) | AED 1,613,227 (n = 84) |
| Arjan | AED 550,000 (n = 219) | AED 852,500 (n = 276) | AED 1,370,000 (n = 142) | AED 1,900,000 (n = 27) |
| Town Square | AED 505,000 (n = 18) | AED 720,000 (n = 73) | AED 1,050,000 (n = 145) | AED 1,620,000 (n = 42) |
| Dubai Marina | group withdrawn | AED 1,150,000 (n = 545) | AED 2,000,000 (n = 421) | AED 3,203,170 (n = 158) |
| Business Bay | AED 935,000 (n = 274) | AED 1,301,210 (n = 502) | AED 2,057,478 (n = 320) | AED 2,750,000 (n = 127) |
| Palm Jumeirah | AED 1,390,000 (n = 22) | AED 2,167,746 (n = 80) | AED 3,550,000 (n = 191) | AED 4,756,502 (n = 86) |
| Downtown Dubai (register name Burj Khalifa) | AED 1,080,000 (n = 43) | AED 1,741,000 (n = 313) | AED 2,906,250 (n = 315) | AED 4,530,000 (n = 103) |
| Dubai Hills | AED 800,000 (n = 15) | AED 1,365,000 (n = 166) | AED 2,100,000 (n = 198) | AED 3,041,250 (n = 65) |
| Dubai Creek Harbour | no contracts in this class | AED 1,500,000 (n = 222) | AED 2,350,000 (n = 316) | AED 3,538,238 (n = 108) |
Square metre and ticket price tell two different stories, and confusing them is the classic mistake. Palm Jumeirah is cheaper per square metre than Dubai Hills at one bedroom (AED 20,360 against AED 21,793), yet the flat itself costs AED 2,167,746 there against AED 1,365,000. The layouts are simply bigger. The same logic runs at the bottom of the table: Motor City has a cheaper metre than Al Furjan (AED 10,221 against AED 11,871) but a dearer flat (AED 911,800 against AED 840,000).
Only one area is cheap on both counts at once. Dubai Sports City has the lowest metre at one bedroom, AED 9,093, and the lowest ticket, AED 672,457, both from 248 registered sale contracts. Dubai South follows on the ticket with AED 675,675 from 110 contracts and Town Square with AED 720,000 from 73.
A median is not a price tag: the quartiles behind it
| Area | n | Lower quartile | Median | Upper quartile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dubai Sports City | 248 | AED 552,000 | AED 672,457 | AED 800,000 |
| Jumeirah Village Circle | 970 | AED 676,800 | AED 859,880 | AED 1,025,000 |
| Dubai Marina | 545 | AED 1,052,173 | AED 1,150,000 | AED 1,607,249 |
| Business Bay | 502 | AED 1,000,000 | AED 1,301,210 | AED 1,680,663 |
| Dubai Creek Harbour | 222 | AED 1,304,000 | AED 1,500,000 | AED 1,665,000 |
This table is worth reading slowly, because it is where the number most often quoted out of context lives. A quarter of the 545 one-bedroom resales in Dubai Marina closed below AED 1,052,173 and a quarter above AED 1,607,249. That lower quartile belongs to one-bedroom flats and to nothing else; it is not a studio figure, and it is not the price of an average Marina flat.
Why the Dubai Marina studio cell is empty
One cell in the sale tables is left blank on purpose: resale studios in Dubai Marina. Most of the registered contracts in that group carried the same amount down to the dirham, which collapsed the median onto the upper quartile. That is what the first sale of a new building off a single developer price list looks like, and it is not a market price for a Dubai Marina studio. The group was therefore withdrawn from the data.
We do not slide a neighbouring value into the gap and we do not estimate one. An empty cell is more honest than a fitted one. It changes nothing on the rental side: Marina studio rents come from the Ejari register, where 172 registered new contracts give a median of AED 5,000 a month. That row stands.
What the square metre table shows
The main pattern: a studio costs more per square metre than a large flat in the same area, nearly everywhere. In Business Bay a studio metre is AED 21,293 from 274 contracts while a three-bedroom metre is AED 15,560 from 127, a difference of AED 5,733 on every metre. The kitchen, the bathroom and the share of the corridor are built into every unit regardless of its size, and small lots are bought to be let, which keeps demand for them tight.
The exceptions are readable too. Downtown Dubai inverts the rule at three bedrooms, AED 27,477 per square metre from 103 contracts against AED 20,791 at one bedroom from 313: large layouts with a view of the tower are sold as a separate product. In Dubai Creek Harbour the metre barely moves between classes, because the whole district was built by one developer to one standard.
Ready houses
| Area | House type | n | Median price | Median price per square metre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Town Square | 3 bedrooms | 93 | AED 2,240,000 | AED 11,483 |
| Town Square | 4 bedrooms | 26 | AED 2,769,037 | AED 9,501 |
| Jumeirah Village Circle | 3 bedrooms | 43 | AED 2,630,000 | AED 15,921 |
| Jumeirah Village Circle | 4 bedrooms | 31 | AED 2,525,000 | AED 15,524 |
| Al Furjan | 3 bedrooms | 33 | AED 2,580,000 | AED 14,433 |
| Al Furjan | 4 bedrooms | 48 | AED 3,212,500 | AED 15,512 |
| Motor City | 3 bedrooms | 23 | AED 3,900,000 | AED 11,534 |
| Motor City | 4 bedrooms | 21 | AED 6,100,022 | AED 9,500 |
| Dubai Hills | 3 bedrooms | 42 | AED 4,137,500 | AED 19,177 |
| Dubai Hills | 4 bedrooms | 57 | AED 4,025,000 | AED 15,763 |
| Dubai Hills | 5 bedrooms | 21 | AED 3,955,000 | AED 13,227 |
| Mirdif | 3 bedrooms | 5 | AED 4,000,000 | AED 9,958 |
What this price does not include
A median from the register is the contract sum and nothing else. On top come the Land Department transfer fee, the agency, and the annual service charge of the building, which never appears in a sale contract at all. For a one-bedroom flat in Dubai Creek Harbour at AED 1,500,000 the service charge can shift the annual arithmetic more than the price difference between two neighbouring towers.
Frequently asked questions
Which is the cheapest area to buy a flat in Dubai?
Dubai Sports City, on both measures at once: AED 9,093 per square metre and a median price of AED 672,457 at one bedroom, both from 248 registered sale contracts. Dubai South follows at AED 675,675 from 110 contracts.
What does a studio cost to buy?
A ready studio has a median of AED 436,455 in Dubai Sports City from 195 contracts, AED 470,000 in Dubai South from 86, and AED 1,080,000 in Downtown Dubai from 43.
Why does a studio cost more per square metre than a three-bedroom?
Because the fixed parts of a flat do not shrink with it. In Business Bay the gap is AED 5,733 on every metre. Compare square metre prices within a bedroom class, never across classes.
Why is there no figure for Dubai Marina studios?
Because that group was withdrawn: nearly all of its registered contracts carried one developer price to the dirham, and the median fell on the upper quartile. Marina studio rents are unaffected, they come from the Ejari register.
Are these asking prices?
No. Every figure is a registered sale contract. What a portal asks does not appear on this page.
Source: Dubai Land Department, sale contract register, as of September 2026. The figures are reproduced with attribution; they are not a DXB Radar survey.
New readings from the Dubai Land Department registers go out on the DXB Radar Telegram channel: t.me/dxbradar.