Dubai housing costs by bedroom count: rent and purchase in one view

A studio in Dubai rents for a median of AED 2,583 a month in Al Warsan First and AED 6,023 in Downtown Dubai. A one-bedroom flat runs from AED 3,666 to AED 9,166. Buying a ready studio costs from AED 436,455 in Dubai Sports City to AED 1,390,000 on Palm Jumeirah. Every figure is the middle of registered contracts, not an asking price.

Sources: Dubai Land Department, Ejari tenancy contract register for the rents and the sale contract register for the prices, both as of September 2026. The rent table covers 29 areas, the purchase table 14.

Rent: median monthly contract by area and bedroom count

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.

Without that case count a rent means nothing. The AED 51,666 for three bedrooms in Zabeel rests on 19 contracts and almost entirely on premium towers; the AED 15,000 in Dubai Marina rests on 316. Those two figures do not carry the same weight, and the table says so in every row.

Only new tenancy contracts are counted. Renewals are held down by the rent cap and sit systematically lower; they describe a sitting tenant, not the price a mover is quoted. Bulk contracts covering several units at once are excluded, because a building owner letting forty flats in a single document would drag the median down.

Purchase: median price of a ready flat by area and bedroom count

Off-plan contracts are deliberately absent here, because they sit at a systematically higher price per square metre and would spoil both columns. The studio rows in Mirdif, Town Square, Motor City and Dubai Hills rest on 6, 18, 18 and 15 contracts and should not be read as the price of a class. The sturdiest rows are Jumeirah Village Circle with 970 one-bedroom sales and Dubai Marina with 545.

The Dubai Marina studio cell in the sale table is deliberately empty. That group was withdrawn from the data because most of its registered contracts carried one and the same amount to the dirham, which is how a single project sells identical studios off one price list. A median that equals its own upper quartile describes a price list, not a market. Renting is untouched: the Marina studio rent comes from the Ejari register, where 172 new contracts give a median of AED 5,000 a month.

The range for each bedroom count

Three register areas are new to this reading, and each carries a caveat about what its zone contains. Wadi Al Safa 3 covers Majan together with Al Barari and Living Legends, so the row is named for all three and is not a price for Majan on its own. Wadi Al Safa 2 is Liwan, the Dubailand Residence Complex. Al Barsha South Fifth is Jumeirah Village Triangle, which the register keeps strictly apart from Jumeirah Village Circle.

The spread on a studio is AED 3,440 a month between the cheapest and the dearest area, on one bedroom AED 5,500, on two bedrooms AED 9,625. On three bedrooms the lowest median is AED 5,000 in Al Nahda Second from 34 contracts - a class that is cheaper than the two-bedroom class in the same area, because it consists of old, generous layouts in walk-up buildings - and the highest outside Zabeel is AED 25,833 in Downtown Dubai, a difference of AED 20,833.

On the purchase side the same comparison is harsher: AED 953,545 between the cheapest and the dearest ready studio and AED 1,495,289 between the cheapest and the dearest one-bedroom flat. The same bedroom count means completely different sums in Dubai. Note also that the Palm Jumeirah studio row rests on 22 contracts, so the top of that range is thinner than the bottom.

Where the bedroom count comes from

The tenancy register leaves the bedroom field empty in almost every record, so the class is derived from the floor area. The cut-offs are: studio up to 57 square metres, one bedroom 58 to 95, two bedrooms 96 to 146, three bedrooms 147 to 260, four bedrooms from 261 square metres upwards. They were calibrated on 2,177 of our own portal listings that state bedrooms and floor area together, then checked against the sale register, where the bedroom count is recorded outright: studio 37 against 42 square metres at the median, one bedroom 75 against 74, two bedrooms 120 against 117, three bedrooms 172 against 177. Two independent sources, less than five square metres apart.

The honest part: the classes overlap in reality. Ten to 90 percent of two-bedroom flats sit between 92 and 149 square metres, so a generous one-bedroom layout can land in the two-bedroom class and a tight two-bedroom in the one-bedroom class. Studios are a separate object type in the register and are not derived at all. Sale contracts do not have this problem: there the bedroom count is filled in 96 percent of records.

Two registers, two different things

Rent and purchase come from two registers of the same authority and are built differently. The tenancy side counts new contracts only and derives the bedroom class from floor area. The sale side carries the bedroom count in the register itself and shows the ready market only. Cells built on a few dozen contracts are indications; cells built on hundreds are market statements.

Cadastral names differ from everyday ones. Marsa Dubai is Dubai Marina, Al Thanyah Fifth is Jumeirah Lake Towers, Al Thanyah Third is The Greens and The Views, Al Barsha South Fourth is Jumeirah Village Circle, Al Barshaa South Third is Arjan, Al Khairan First is Dubai Creek Harbour, Burj Khalifa is Downtown Dubai, Al Merkadh is Sobha Hartland in MBR City. Al Hebiah Fourth covers Dubai Sports City together with Tilal Al Ghaf, and Jabal Ali First covers Al Furjan together with Discovery Gardens, so both appear under a double name.

For a number of areas our gazetteer has no everyday name at all: Al Warsan First, Muhaisanah Fourth, Nadd Hessa, Madinat Al Mataar, Al Yelayiss 2, Me'Aisem First, Al Hebiah Fifth, Al Nahda Second, Port Saeed and Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid stand under the register name. Inventing a marketing name would sever the figure from its source.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: Dubai Land Department, Ejari tenancy contract register and sale contract register, both 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.