Dubai Net Yield Reality Check: What You Actually Keep

Dubai property rarely nets what its gross yield promises. A listing showing a 6 to 8 percent gross yield typically leaves a Dubai net yield 2 to 3 percentage points lower once the annual service charge is paid, and investors in r/dubairealestate have documented the gap on every tower type from JVC blocks to the Burj Khalifa. The practical rule: before you believe any yield number, subtract the service charge, the buying costs, and the vacancy, then judge what is left. This article walks through the documented numbers and the free tools that do the math for you.

Gross yield is a marketing number

The gross yield printed on listings and in agent decks is annual rent divided by purchase price. It ignores every cost of owning the unit, and in Dubai those costs are large enough to move the answer by half or more.

Investors in the community have watched the gap for years. One long-standing landlord put it plainly: net residential yields used to be above 7 percent, but as prices rose, the market moved to a net yield of around 6 percent. Another frame of the same drift: off-plan owners who hold and rent during oversupply report getting 2 to 4 percent on their investment. The spread between what marketing quotes and what owners keep is the whole story.

The service charge is the biggest line item

The single number that moves net yield most is the annual service charge, and it varies more than almost anything else in the market.

Ordinary towers commonly run around 12 to 14 AED per sqft per year. Branded towers charge 25 to 30 AED per sqft per year. That is roughly a 2 to 3x difference for owning nearly the same apartment, and it lands directly on the yield.

The extreme end shows how far the spread goes. Burj Khalifa apartments carry a service charge of roughly 40,000 to 50,000 AED a year, about 75 AED per sqft, which investors say makes Burj yields terrible. On the listing 1-bed priced near 2.7 million AED, that is close to 2 percentage points of yield gone before a single other cost.

Service charges do not just vary between luxury and budget. Investors document that service charges vary up to 3x between towers in the same cluster. Two buildings across the street from each other can carry very different annual charges, and the advertised rent will not tell you which one you are buying into.

The gross-to-net math, documented

Here is what the gap looks like with real numbers from the corpus.

A 1,000 sqft apartment in an ordinary tower at 12 to 14 AED per sqft pays 12,000 to 14,000 AED a year in service charges. The same apartment in a branded tower at 25 to 30 AED per sqft pays 25,000 to 30,000 AED. On a typical mid-market unit this difference alone is 2 to 3 points of yield.

A documented worked example from Al Marjan Island shows the full calculation. A studio that costs about 550,000 AED rents for 25,000 AED a year with a service charge of 8,000 AED including chiller. Gross yield looks like 4.5 percent. After the service charge, buying costs of 2 percent brokerage and 4 percent DLD fee, the net yield comes to roughly 2.9 percent. That is the reality check in one number, a gross-to-net loss of about a third of the headline yield.

The direction of the gap is consistent. Long-let investors expect to net 5 to 6 percent after service charges in good cases, against gross quotes of 6 to 8 percent or higher. Short-term rental does worse: the real net is 30 to 40 percent lower than the brochure number after permits, cleaning, platform fees, vacancy, and management.

Live Zily benchmark medians, refreshed 2026-09-03, give the gross baseline for the areas discussed:

• Downtown Dubai apartments, 3,081 AED per sqft median, 150 AED rent per sqft, 4.87 percent gross yield
• Dubai Hills Estate, 2,483 AED per sqft, 145 rent, 5.84 percent gross yield
• Dubai Silicon Oasis, 1,199 AED per sqft, 84 rent, 7.01 percent gross yield
• International City, 776 AED per sqft, 65 rent, 8.38 percent gross yield

Run the International City numbers as an example. At the 776 AED per sqft benchmark, a 1,000 sqft unit costs about 776,000 AED and would gross about 65,000 AED a year, the 8.38 percent headline. Subtract an ordinary-tower service charge of 12,000 to 14,000 AED and the net sits around 6.5 to 6.8 percent before vacancy and maintenance. Subtract a branded-tower charge instead and the net drops to roughly 4.5 to 5.2 percent. Same area, same rent, same unit. The service charge decides which investor you are.

For the market wide picture, the Dubai property price drops page tracks where asking prices have actually fallen, and the Dubai Marina, Business Bay, and Downtown Dubai area pages carry live medians, rents, and yields per area.

What else sits between gross and net

The service charge is the largest recurring cost, but it is not the only one. The full list between the advertised yield and your bank account:

1. Service charge, 12 to 30 AED per sqft per year depending on tower type.
2. Vacancy. A vacant quarter eats a 5 percent renewal premium, and every re-let costs a listing fee.
3. Maintenance and repairs inside the unit, typically a few percent of rent over time.
4. For mortgages, the finance cost. The real cash-to-close is about 26 to 27 percent of the price, not the nominal 20 percent down, after the 4 percent DLD fee, about 2 percent agency, valuation, and bank admin, per a mortgage consultant in the community.
5. Chiller charges where the building is not chiller free, an opaque extra line that some landlords bill separately.

None of these is hidden. All of them are routinely missing from the gross yield on the listing.

How to check the real net yield before you buy

Three free zily.app tools do this without an account:

1. The rental yield calculator takes the price, expected rent, and service charge and returns gross versus net side by side.
2. The deal analyzer benchmarks the asking price against the area median first, because yield math on an overpriced unit is yield math on the wrong number.
3. The price drop tracker shows which asking prices have actually fallen, the cheapest entry points in the market right now.

The manual method, if you want to verify any tool:

1. Take the realistic annual rent for the unit type, not the agent's optimistic one.
2. Subtract the service charge per sqft times the unit size. Ask the building's own number, not the area average, since service charges vary up to 3x between towers in the same cluster.
3. Divide by the all-in cost of buying the unit: price plus 4 percent DLD fee, 2 percent agency, and registration.
4. Reserve for vacancy and maintenance before you call the result net.

For context on whether the entry price is fair, the below market value explainer covers how the median benchmark works and when a discount is real.

FAQ

What is a realistic net rental yield in Dubai? For long lets in ordinary towers, roughly 5 to 6 percent after service charges is the documented good case. Gross quotes of 6 to 8 percent typically net 2 to 3 points lower. Branded towers and short-term rentals net less, and extreme cases like the Burj Khalifa's roughly 75 AED per sqft service charge push net yields well below the district average.

How much is the service charge on a Dubai apartment? Ordinary towers commonly run 12 to 14 AED per sqft per year, branded towers 25 to 30 AED per sqft per year. Both figures are community-reported ranges, not an official table, and specific buildings have quoted well above both ends.

Why is my net yield lower than the gross yield? The gross number ignores the service charge, vacancy, maintenance, and buying costs. The service charge alone moves the yield by 2 to 3 points on a typical unit, and buying costs of about 6 to 7 percent of price are paid upfront and only recovered over years of holding.

Does a high gross yield mean a good investment? Not by itself. A high gross yield in a cheap area can net less than a modest gross yield in a branded tower, because service charges, vacancy, and rent realism differ more between buildings than gross yields suggest. Run the net math on the specific unit before judging.

What to do next

Before you believe any yield number on a listing, put the price, rent, and service charge into the rental yield calculator and read the net figure. If the net survives a realistic service charge and a vacant month or two, the deal is real. If it only works on the gross number, the listing is marketing, not math.