Property guide · Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Service charges in Dubai: the law and the index
How Dubai service charges are set: your share of an audited budget by registered area, what RERA must approve first, and where to look up a building's rate.
- Paying the money into the property's own account, working days7Dubai law
- Checked2026-09-12
How it works
A share of the budget, by registered area
You pay a share of the annual budget for the whole property, in the ratio of your unit's registered area to the total area — and the management company may charge nothing at all until RERA has approved that budget on the back of a certified audit.
The law is Law 6/2019 on jointly owned property. It fixes the method rather than the amount: the amount depends on the building, its facilities and its budget, and it is approved project by project.
The rate approved for a named project can be looked up by anyone through the Department's Service Charge Index, by project, usage and year. That lookup is the only figure worth having — the caveats below explain why the ranges quoted elsewhere are not.
What you pay
Charged on registered area, only once RERA approves
Your share is taken on the area in the Real Property Register, nothing may be charged before RERA approves the budget, and the money goes into the property's own bank account.
The registered area matters more than it sounds: two units that look identical can carry different registered areas, and the register is what the share is taken on.
Service charges are the running cost of ownership and they sit outside the purchase entirely — the one-off costs of buying are in the cost of buying.
- Your share of the annual budgetthe ratio of your unit's area to the total area of the property
Law 6/2019 art. (25)(a)–(b), by the method the Director General approves.
- The area that ratio is taken onthe area recorded in the Real Property Register
Law 6/2019 art. (25)(b) — the registered area, not a measurement taken on site and not the brochure's.
- A charge RERA has not approvedmay not be charged, and may not be collected
Law 6/2019 art. (27)(a): «any amounts whatsoever… without first obtaining the relevant approval of RERA».
- A budget that no certified auditor has approvedcannot be approved by RERA either
Law 6/2019 art. (27)(b), an audit firm recognised by RERA.
- Paying the money into the property's own account, working days7Dubai law
Law 6/2019 art. (30)(a)–(c): a separate account per property, at a bank licensed in the Emirate and recognised by RERA.
- Giving up the common parts to avoid the chargenot possible
Law 6/2019 arts. (28)–(29).
- Looking up the approved rate for a projectno charge, through the Service Charge Index
DLD e-service «Service Charge Index»: choose the project, its usage and the year.
Manager's duties
Nothing is charged without RERA approval and audit
Approval before charging, an audit before approval, a separate account for the money, and no way for an owner to opt out of the common parts.
An owner who disputes a charge has something concrete to ask for: the RERA approval, the audited budget, and the account the money is being paid into. All three are requirements on the manager, not favours to the owner.
- Law 6/2019 art. (25)(a)An owner pays a share of the annual service charges calculated on the ratio of the unit's area to the total area of the jointly owned property.
- Law 6/2019 art. (25)(b)That area is the one recorded in the Real Property Register, which is why the register entry, not the floor plan, decides what you pay.
- Law 6/2019 art. (27)(a)A management entity must not charge owners, or collect from them, any amount at all without RERA's approval first.
- Law 6/2019 art. (27)(b)RERA may not approve a budget unless a certified audit firm it recognises has approved it — the audit comes before the invoice, not after the year.
- Law 6/2019 art. (30)Each property has its own service charges account at a licensed bank, and what is collected goes into it.
- Law 6/2019 arts. (28)–(29)An owner may not waive an interest in the common parts in order to escape the charges due on it.
- DLD e-service, «Service Charge Index»The approved rate for a named project, for a given usage and year, can be looked up by anyone — the check is per project, and there is no table of all of them.
Caveats
Per-foot ranges are brokers' aggregates, not rates
The familiar per-square-foot range is a brokers' aggregate; the regulator approves a rate one project at a time and does not name its unit of measure.
A Dubai-wide range is an average across buildings you are not buying in, and the difference between the cheapest and the most expensive is larger than the average itself.
Ask us, or the index, for the approved rate of the specific project. The answer is a fact about your building; a range is a fact about somebody's spreadsheet.
- A range per square foot across Dubai—
the regulator publishes a rate one project at a time; the ranges in circulation are brokers' aggregates
- The unit of measure of the published rate—
the official page does not name it, and feet or metres change the figure tenfold
- A description of the Mollak platform—
the Department names it as the channel for these charges, but no dated official page describing it was found
- What a given building will charge next year—
the budget is approved each year after audit, so only past rates are known
Checked 2026-09-12
Sources
The co-ownership law and the DLD index
The law on jointly owned property, the Land Department's Service Charge Index and its instruction sheet.
- Law
Law No. (6) of 2019 concerning ownership of jointly owned real property in the Emirate of Dubai, 4 September 2019
Articles (25), (27), (28)–(30): the share, the approval, the audit, the account, and the impossibility of opting out.
- Service page
DLD e-service «Service Charge Index», read 12 September 2026
The public enquiry into the approved service fees for a jointly owned property.
- Instruction
DLD, «Service Charge Index» instruction sheet (PDF, undated)
The steps through the Dubai REST app: services, index, project, usage, year.
- DocumentsGet the documents
The source documents
The instruction sheet for the index carries no date in the file itself, so it is listed as undated.
Questions
Ask about your building's service charge
Name the project and the year; we reply with the approved rate from the index and the budget it belongs to.