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Buying from India

Buying Dubai property from India

This page is for two readers: someone who lives in India and is taxed there, and a non-resident Indian living in the UAE or elsewhere. The rules that apply to you differ at almost every step, so each section says which of the two it is talking about.

It covers moving money out of India, the tax collected when you do, how India and the UAE treat Dubai rent and sale gains between them, what a UAE bank may lend a foreign buyer, what Dubai Land Department charges to register the sale, and what the Dubai register itself shows about prices and rental returns.

Every rule below carries the document it comes from and that document's own date, as a link you can open and read for yourself. Where the published sources disagree with each other, or where a rule was not read from an official text, that is printed beside the claim rather than quietly resolved.

Checked against its sources on 25 September 2026.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice. Rules change; every figure carries the date of its source. Confirm with your adviser.

Your currency
INR — 1 AED = 26.37 INR (rate of 2026-10-11)
Golden Visa threshold
AED 2,000,000 · about ₹5.27Cr
Liberalised Remittance Scheme cap
USD 250,000 · about AED 918,125 · about ₹2.42Crper person, per Indian financial year (April–March), for a resident individual

The sequence, step by step

In the order it actually happens, from checking what you may send to reporting what you bought.

  1. Work out which route your money can legally take

    If you are resident in India, the Liberalised Remittance Scheme is the route. It lets a resident individual — including a minor — send up to USD 250,000 in a financial year, across all permitted purposes put together, and buying property abroad is one of the capital-account uses the scheme expressly names. It is not open to companies, partnership firms, Hindu undivided families or trusts.

    Family members may each send their own USD 250,000 towards the same property, but only if they are co-owners of it. The Reserve Bank's wording is explicit that clubbing is not permitted where the other family members are not co-owners. A family of four all named on the title can therefore move up to USD 1 million in one year; one buyer alone cannot exceed USD 250,000 without the Reserve Bank's prior permission.

    If you are an NRI, the scheme does not apply to you at all — it is for residents of India. Money already outside India, such as UAE salary or savings, sits outside Indian exchange control entirely.

  2. Budget for the Dubai costs on top of the price

    Dubai Land Department charges 4% of the sale contract value to register a sale. The law that sets it says the fee is shared equally by seller and buyer unless they agree otherwise, and DLD's own service page lists it as 2% each.

    On top of that, DLD publishes: AED 250 for the title deed; a map fee of AED 225 (unified map), AED 100 (land outside the municipality) or AED 250 (villas and apartments); AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees; and a registration trustee fee of AED 4,000 plus VAT where the sale is AED 500,000 or more, AED 2,000 plus VAT below that.

    In freehold areas the transfer also needs an electronic no-objection certificate from the developer. DLD states the registration appointment itself takes 25 minutes.

    Worth knowing: Buyers in Dubai commonly pay the whole 4% rather than half. That is market custom between the parties, not what the fee resolution says — no official document states it, so it is not presented here as a rule. Agency commission, customarily around 2%, is likewise a matter of agreement and is not a Land Department fee. Nor is the developer's no-objection certificate free: the developer sets that charge, not the Land Department. And if you are borrowing, the bank's own valuation fee comes on top of everything in this step — step 5 below.

  3. Sign DLD's own sale contract, not just the agency's paperwork

    The sale itself is recorded on the Unified Sale Contract, known as Contract F. A registered broker generates it through Dubai Land Department's Dubai REST system from the seller's Contract A and the buyer's Contract B, and it carries the price, the payment plan and the split of the DLD fee.

    Worth knowing: The 10% deposit cheque usually handed over when Contract F is signed is a market convention agreed between the parties. No Dubai Land Department document sets a percentage.

  4. If it is off-plan, check the project's escrow account

    A developer selling off-plan must apply to Dubai Land Department to open an escrow account before doing so. The law requires one account per project, opened in the project's name and dedicated exclusively to that project's construction, and it protects the money in it from the developer's own creditors — no attachment may be imposed on it for their benefit.

    That is the single strongest protection an off-plan buyer has, and it is worth confirming the account exists and that your payments are going into it rather than to the developer directly.

  5. If you are borrowing, know the Central Bank's limit before you ask a bank

    The Central Bank of the UAE caps how much of a property's value a mortgage may cover. For an expatriate buying a second or subsequent home, or an investment property, the cap is 60% of the value whatever the price — which is the one that applies to most overseas buyers of a rental flat. For a first home to live in, the cap is 80% at or below AED 5 million and 70% above it. Any off-plan purchase is capped at 50%, whoever the buyer is and whatever the purpose.

    Registering the mortgage costs 0.25% of the loan amount, plus AED 250 for the title deed, the AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees, and a trustee fee of AED 4,000 plus VAT (AED 5,000 plus VAT for an off-plan Oqood registration).

    The bank will also charge a valuation fee, for its own survey of the property, on top of all of that. It is routinely left out of marketing material and it is the cost overseas buyers are most often surprised by. Keyva's mortgage calculator starts from AED 3,000 as a typical figure and asks you to replace it with your own quote — no Land Department or Central Bank document sets it, because the bank does.

    Worth knowing: The valuation fee is the bank's own price and no official document fixes it, so the AED 3,000 above is labelled as a typical figure and nothing more. The 0.25% mortgage registration fee and the 4% transfer fee are the Land Department's and are reliable; the trustee, valuation, agency and no-objection charges are set by the trustee office, the bank, the agent and the developer respectively.

  6. Register the sale, then consider the residence permit

    Once the transfer is registered, u.ae lists a minimum capital of AED 2,000,000 for Golden Visa investors (public investments or real estate, in one row), and 5 years for real estate investments (read 9 October 2026). The pages Keyva read do not say whether mortgaged or off-plan property counts, or whether several properties can be added together.

    Keyva's Golden Visa page checks a value against that threshold and sets out what Dubai Land Department publishes for the two-year investor residence below it. This page restates the threshold and sends you there rather than repeating the rules in two places.

  7. Report it at home, if you are resident in India

    A resident and ordinarily resident individual must disclose every foreign asset, a Dubai flat included, and the income from it, in the Indian income tax return. The penalty for not doing so is Rs 10 lakh a year under the Black Money Act, regardless of what the asset is worth.

    The small-asset exemption introduced from 1 October 2024, which switches off that penalty below an aggregate Rs 20 lakh, expressly does not cover immovable property. A foreign home of any value has to be reported.

    NRIs and those who are resident but not ordinarily resident are outside this requirement.

    Worth knowing: The foreign-asset schedule is reported on a calendar-year basis, 1 January to 31 December, even though the Indian tax year runs April to March. That comes from the return form's own instructions, which this page has not read on the Income Tax Department's site — confirm it against the current form's instructions before you file.

Moving the money

Which rules apply depends on whether India treats you as resident. Read the one that is about you.

The remittance cap: USD 250,000 a financial year

A resident individual may send up to USD 250,000 per Indian financial year under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, across all permitted current and capital account purposes combined. Acquiring immovable property abroad is one of the capital-account uses the Reserve Bank's Master Direction lists by name.

Each remittance needs Form A2 filed with your bank, and quoting your PAN is mandatory. Remittances run through one designated branch of one authorised dealer.

Going above USD 250,000 in a year requires the Reserve Bank's prior permission. Pooling with family is possible for a property purchase, but only where those family members are co-owners.

Tax collected at source: 20% for a property purchase, once your remittances pass Rs 10 lakh

Your bank collects tax at source on money you remit under the scheme once your remittances pass Rs 10 lakh. The Income-tax Act 2025 — in force from 1 April 2026 by its own section 1(3), and repealing the 1961 Act by its section 536(1) — puts the rule in item 7 of the table in section 394(1): on a remittance under the scheme "of an amount or aggregate of the amounts exceeding ten lakh rupees", an authorised dealer collects 2% where the remittance is for education or medical treatment and 20% for any other purpose. A property purchase is any other purpose, so the rate that applies to you is 20%.

The repealed 1961 Act's section 206C(1G), which section 536(2) of the new Act keeps alive only for tax years that began before 1 April 2026, charged the same 20% on the part "in excess of ten lakh rupees" in a financial year. The 2025 Act's table is worded as a rate on remittances "exceeding ten lakh rupees", and whether your bank applies it to the whole amount or only to the part above Rs 10 lakh is a question to put to the bank in writing before you remit; this page does not resolve it.

Tax collected at source is not a cost of the property. It is credited against your Indian income tax liability, or refunded when you file your return. The 2026-27 budget's cut to 2% was to education and medical remittances only; the budget papers say nothing about the other-purposes band, and the Department's text of the Act still carries it at 20%.

Worth knowing: The rate and the threshold above were read from the Income Tax Department's own text of the Act, marked by the Department as amended by the Finance Act 2026, on 25 September 2026. The Department's site serves that text only to a browser, so open it yourself rather than trust a restatement — including this one — if the date on this page is not recent. The section number settles a point earlier drafts left open: the Department's text puts it in section 394(1), not section 506.

NRE and NRO accounts, for an NRI buyer

Balances in an NRE account are freely repatriable with no cap.

Balances in an NRO account are not, except for current income such as rent or interest: they may be remitted up to USD 1 million per financial year, together with your other eligible assets, under the Foreign Exchange Management (Remittance of Assets) Regulations, 2016, which is how the Reserve Bank's own FAQ puts it. The bank will tell you what paperwork it needs before it remits.

A returning NRI may keep a Dubai property bought while they were non-resident. India's exchange control law expressly allows a person resident in India to hold and own immovable property outside India where it was acquired when they were resident outside India.

How India and the UAE tax a Dubai home between them

The short version: the UAE does not tax an individual's rent or gains. Whether India does depends entirely on your residence.

The UAE side: no personal income tax on rent or gains

UAE corporate tax expressly excludes a natural person's real estate investment income — the sale, leasing, sub-leasing and renting of property — from being treated as a business, regardless of the amount, where no licence is required to do it. That is the one UAE tax document this page has read; it cites nothing for the absence of a personal income tax, because an absence has no document, and no document it has read levies one.

If you are resident and ordinarily resident in India, India taxes the rent and the gain

The India–UAE treaty says rental income from property may be taxed in the state where the property is, and the same for gains on selling it. "May be taxed" does not take the income out of India's hands. Section 5(1) of the Income-tax Act 2025 puts into a resident's total income "all income from whatever source derived" that is received or deemed to be received in India, accrues or arises (or is deemed to) in India, or "accrues or arises to such person outside India" — a Dubai rent is the last of those — and because the UAE levies no personal tax on it there is nothing to credit against the Indian bill.

One carve-out, in the same sub-section: for a person who is resident but "not ordinarily resident", income arising outside India is included "only when it is derived from a business controlled in or a profession set up in India". A Dubai flat's rent is neither, so a returning NRI in their not-ordinarily-resident years is not taxed on it; whether you are in those years is a question of section 6 and your own day counts, and this page does not decide it.

So a Dubai rent is taxed in India as income from house property, after the deduction of 30% of the annual value that section 22(1)(a) of the Income-tax Act 2025 allows. A gain on sale is long-term if the property was held more than 24 months, taxed at 12.5% without indexation for transfers on or after 23 July 2024. A shorter holding is a short-term gain. The special short-term rate at section 196 — 20% — reaches only equity shares, units of an equity-oriented fund and units of a business trust sold in a transaction chargeable to securities transaction tax. Property is outside it, so a short-term gain on property is not charged at that rate; it instead follows the normal rule — added to your other income and taxed at your slab rate.

An unlet Dubai flat can still be taxed in India on a notional rent. Section 21(6) of the 2025 Act takes the annual value of a house the owner occupies, or cannot occupy for any reason, as nil — but section 21(7)(a) allows that for two such houses only, so a third home that is neither let nor one of the two is taxed on the sum it might reasonably be expected to let for.

Worth knowing: The treaty wording above is the Department's own published text of Articles 6 and 13; the scope rule, the house-property rules and section 196 are the Department's text of the 2025 Act. The slab conclusion for a short-term gain on property is India's normal rule for income, not a rate section this page has read. Two points are genuinely unsettled and are therefore not stated either way here: the number of the 2008 board notification on "may be taxed" that published commentaries cite (they give both 90 and 91 of 2008), and whether the alternative of 20% with indexation that those commentaries describe for land or buildings acquired before 23 July 2024 extends to foreign property at all — neither point was read from an official text. Ask your adviser about both.

If you are an NRI who is a UAE tax resident, neither country taxes it

Section 5(2) of the Income-tax Act 2025 puts into a non-resident's total income only income that is "received or deemed to be received in India" or that "accrues or arises, or is deemed to accrue or arise, to such person in India". A Dubai rent is neither. The UAE does not tax it either, for the reason above.

The treaty's residence test for the UAE is a presence test: at least 183 days in the UAE in the calendar year concerned. Note that it runs on the calendar year, not India's April-to-March year — a distinction that has caught people out.

Worth knowing: The 183-day test is Article 4(1)(b) of the treaty as the Department publishes it today, amended by the notifications its page names. Residence is decided on your own facts in both countries; take advice before relying on a day count.

What a UAE bank may lend you

The Central Bank sets the ceiling. A bank may be stricter than the ceiling, and often is.

The loan-to-value ceilings

For expatriates, the Central Bank caps a mortgage at 80% of the property's value for a first home to live in at or below AED 5 million, 70% above AED 5 million, and 60% for a second or subsequent home or an investment property whatever it costs. UAE nationals are capped at 85%, 75% and 65% on the same three cases.

Any off-plan purchase is capped at 50%, regardless of purpose, value or who is buying.

The same regulation limits the loan term to 25 years, caps debt-service at 50% of gross income, and limits borrowing to seven times annual income for expatriates (eight times for nationals). An investment loan must deduct at least two months of rent when the debt-service test is run, and an end-of-service benefit cannot be used as the source of repayment.

Worth knowing: The regulation recognises two borrower categories, UAE nationals and expatriates. It has no separate category for non-residents, so the figure often quoted — that non-residents are capped at 50% or 60% by the Central Bank — is not in it. Individual banks do set their own tighter limits for buyers who do not live in the UAE, which the regulation expressly permits, and those are the bank's terms rather than a rule. Ask the bank for its own number. This page carries no interest rates: they are a bank's pricing, they change weekly, and a dated rate on a page like this would mislead.

The Golden Visa property route

One threshold, restated. The full check lives on its own page.

Check a value against the threshold on Keyva's Golden Visa page — it also sets out what Dubai Land Department publishes for the two-year investor residence below it.

AED 2,000,000 minimum capital, 5 years for real estate

u.ae lists, for investors, a minimum capital of AED 2 million, 5 years for real estate investments and 10 years for public investments (read 9 October 2026).

The pages Keyva read do not say whether mortgaged or off-plan property counts, whether several properties can be added together, or what ownership form is required. Ask the Dubai Land Department or ICP.

Worth knowing: u.ae's figures can change; read the page rather than any summary, including this one.

What the record shows

Dubai Land Department's open data does not record a buyer's nationality, so this page does not say which parts of Dubai Indian buyers choose. A page that tells you which neighbourhoods are the Indian community's, or what proportion of a tower's owners hold an Indian passport, is not reading it from any published register, because no published register carries it. What this page can show is what the register shows for everyone.

Where recorded rents are the highest share of recorded prices

The yield before costs is the typical new-let rent per square foot as a share of the typical sale price per square foot of ready homes — both over the same twelve months, to 7 October 2026. Renewals are priced off the previous contract under Decree 43 of 2013's cap and lag new lets, so they are excluded; an off-plan sale is a contract on a home nobody lives in yet, so it is out of the price side. Of Dubai's areas, 22 meet the minimums below; these are the 8 highest of them.

AreaYield before costsReady salesRent contracts
International City Ph 19.6%1,2379,601
Dubai Sports City8.6%1,3215,398
Jumeirah Golf8.5%9323,774
Silicon Oasis8.0%1,1105,464
Dubai Studio City7.9%5001,434
Al Furjan7.7%1,8209,505
Motor City7.5%7771,064
Jumeirah Village Circle7.2%4,38219,045

An area appears only with at least 500 ready sales and 1,000 recorded rent contracts in the period. These figures are before costs: service charges, agency commission and empty months are not deducted, and service charges are set per building and are in none of the records Keyva holds. Where the numbers come from

What AED 2,000,000 buys, on the register

The Golden Visa threshold is AED 2,000,000, so it is the budget worth answering. Each row is one area, home type and bedroom count whose typical sale price for a completed home over Oct 2025 – Sep 2026 sits within it. Ordered by how many recorded sales each rests on: ordered by price instead, this becomes a list of industrial estates and unusually small homes. 129 such combinations are within the budget; these are the 8 with the most sales behind them.

AreaHomeTypical priceSales
Jumeirah Village Circle1-bed apartmenttypically 808 sqftAED 1,000,000₹2.64Cr2,412
Jumeirah Village CircleStudio apartmenttypically 430 sqftAED 615,000₹1.62Cr1,119
Dubai Marina1-bed apartmenttypically 830 sqftAED 1,768,000₹4.66Cr1,046
Business Bay1-bed apartmenttypically 810 sqftAED 1,450,000₹3.82Cr1,016
Meydan One1-bed apartmenttypically 647 sqftAED 1,347,500₹3.55Cr774
Meydan OneStudio apartmenttypically 350 sqftAED 691,500₹1.82Cr639
Silicon Oasis1-bed apartmenttypically 827 sqftAED 730,000₹1.92Cr636
Jumeirah Village Circle2-bed apartmenttypically 1,276 sqftAED 1,500,000₹3.95Cr626

Typical prices of completed-home sales recorded with the Dubai Land Department — what was paid, not what was asked. A row appears only with at least 10 recorded sales in the period. Rupee figures are converted at the stored daily rate and are indicative; the Dirham figure is the one the register holds.

Dubai Land Department · recorded sales Sales on record with the Land Department · typical prices, not estimates. Half of the sales were above a typical price, half below. File dated 8 Oct 2026 · synced 8 Oct 2026.

Dubai Land Department · rent contracts Ejari (Dubai's rent registration system) contracts · agreed rents, not advertised ones. File dated 10 Oct 2026 · synced 11 Oct 2026.

What this page will not tell you

Guides like this one usually carry a few more figures than these. Each one below was left out because we could not show you where it came from.

Which parts of Dubai Indian buyers choose, and how much of any area they account for
No Dubai Land Department open dataset records a buyer's nationality. Keyva's catalogue holds 27 open datasets: 25 published by the Land Department and 2 Dubai Statistics Center tables built from its records. In the column lists of all 27, measured on 18 Sep 2026, the only columns naming a nationality are in the valuers register. Any such figure would be invented.
A current percentage of Dubai buyers holding Indian passports
The most recent primary, dated, emirate-level ranking we could find is from February 2021 and describes 2020; DLD's 2024 annual report publishes investment by continent with no per-country figure. Figures circulating for 2025 and 2026 trace to no Land Department or government publication, so they are not repeated here.
"Non-residents are capped at 50% loan-to-value by the Central Bank"
The Central Bank's mortgage regulation has two borrower categories, UAE nationals and expatriates, and no non-resident category at all. Banks set their own tighter limits, which the regulation permits — that is a bank's policy, not a rule.
The 10% deposit and the 2% agency commission as fixed rules
Both are market conventions agreed between the parties. No Dubai Land Department or RERA document fixes either figure.
Mortgage interest rates, and the claim that banks stopped financing the 4% fee in February 2025
Rates are a bank's own pricing and change constantly. The financing change was reported in the press in January 2025 with no corresponding Central Bank circular on the rulebook, so it is not stated here as a regulation.

What the government has actually published

Quoted rather than summarised, and at the level of the whole emirate — which is the only level at which it exists.

“Indians topped the list of foreign investments, followed by the Chinese, British, Pakistanis, and French.”

Describing calendar year 2020, in which Dubai's market drew 19,757 foreign investors making 24,666 investments worth over AED 35.6 billion.

“Asian investors are by far the largest contributors, with investments totaling approximately AED 301.9 billion, accounting for About 58% of the total global investment value. This reflects Dubai's strong connectivity with key Asian economies, including significant contributions from countries such as India, China, Pakistan, and the GCC states.”

DLD's most recent annual report names India among the main Asian source markets and publishes investment by continent only — no ranking and no figure for any single country.

Common questions

Only the questions the sources above answer. A question with no document behind it is not listed.

How much money can I send from India to buy a property in Dubai?
If you are resident in India, up to USD 250,000 per financial year under the Reserve Bank's Liberalised Remittance Scheme, across all permitted purposes combined. Buying immovable property abroad is one of the capital-account purposes the scheme expressly permits. Family members can each send their own USD 250,000 towards the same property only if they are co-owners of it. Exceeding the cap needs the Reserve Bank's prior permission. The scheme is not available to non-resident Indians, who are outside Indian exchange control for money already held abroad.
Is tax collected when I remit money to buy Dubai property?
Yes. Once your remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme pass Rs 10 lakh, your bank collects tax at source: 2% where the money is for education or medical treatment and 20% for any other purpose, a property purchase included. That is item 7 of the table in section 394(1) of the Income-tax Act 2025, read from the Income Tax Department's own text on 25 September 2026, which puts it as a rate on remittances "of an amount or aggregate of the amounts exceeding ten lakh rupees". Whether the 20% is applied to the whole remittance or only to the part above Rs 10 lakh is a question to put to your bank in writing before you remit. The tax is not a cost of the property: it is credited against your Indian income tax liability or refunded when you file your return.
Do I pay Indian tax on rent from a Dubai property?
It depends on your residence. If you are resident and ordinarily resident in India, yes: section 5(1) of the Income-tax Act 2025 counts income that accrues or arises to you outside India, the India–UAE treaty's "may be taxed in the UAE" does not remove India's right to tax you, and since the UAE levies no personal tax on the rent there is nothing to credit. If you are resident but not ordinarily resident, section 5(1)(c) leaves foreign income out unless it comes from a business controlled in or a profession set up in India, which a flat's rent does not. The rent is taxed as income from house property after the 30% deduction from the annual value that section 22(1)(a) of the Income-tax Act 2025 allows. If you are a non-resident Indian who is a UAE tax resident, the rent is neither received nor arising in India, so India does not tax it and neither does the UAE.
Do I have to declare a Dubai property in my Indian tax return?
If you are resident and ordinarily resident in India, yes — every foreign asset and the income from it must be disclosed in the return, and failing to do so carries a penalty of Rs 10 lakh a year under the Black Money Act regardless of the asset's value. The exemption introduced from 1 October 2024 for foreign assets aggregating under Rs 20 lakh expressly does not cover immovable property. Non-residents and those resident but not ordinarily resident are outside the requirement.
How much can a UAE bank lend a foreign buyer?
The Central Bank of the UAE caps a mortgage to an expatriate at 80% of the value for a first home to live in at or below AED 5 million, 70% above AED 5 million, and 60% for a second or subsequent home or an investment property at any value. Off-plan is capped at 50% for every category of buyer. The regulation has no separate category for non-residents; individual banks set their own tighter limits for buyers who do not live in the UAE, which the regulation permits, so ask the bank for its own figure.
What does Dubai Land Department charge to register the purchase?
4% of the sale contract value. The fee resolution says it is shared equally between seller and buyer unless they agree otherwise, and Dubai Land Department's service page lists 2% each. On top of that it publishes AED 250 for the title deed, a map fee of AED 100 to AED 250, AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees, and a registration trustee fee of AED 4,000 plus VAT where the sale is AED 500,000 or more and AED 2,000 plus VAT below that. In freehold areas the transfer also needs an electronic no-objection certificate from the developer.
What protects my money if I buy off-plan in Dubai?
A developer selling off-plan must apply to Dubai Land Department to open an escrow account first. The law requires a separate account per project, opened in the project's name and dedicated exclusively to that project's construction, and money in it cannot be attached for the benefit of the developer's own creditors. Confirm the account exists and that your payments go into it rather than to the developer directly.
How much Dubai property does the Golden Visa property route list?
u.ae lists a minimum capital of AED 2 million, and 5 years for real estate investments (read 9 October 2026). The pages Keyva read do not say whether mortgaged or off-plan property counts, or whether several properties can be added together.

Still deciding?

Ask Keyva answers from the same Dubai Land Department records this page's figures are built on — area prices, what a building has actually sold for, what a rent looks like beside recorded rent contracts.

Ask Keyva

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