Dubai Commercial Landlord–Tenant Law: Rent Increases, Eviction Rules & Security Deposits

Yes — explicitly, and this is the single most misunderstood point on the subject. Article 2 of Law No. 26 of 2007, as replaced by Law No. 33 of 2008, defines Real Property as "Immovable property, and everything attached or annexed to it, which is leased out for residential purposes or for practising any commercial activity, trade, profession, or other lawful activity." Article 3 applies the law to land and real property leased out in the Emirate, excluding only property provided rent-free by a person or company as staff accommodation.

Commercial tenants therefore get the same statutory architecture as residential tenants: capped renewals, fixed notice periods, closed-list eviction grounds, and a specialist tribunal. Several provisions are in fact written for commercial occupiers — the vacancy ground in Article 25(1)(d) applies where "the leased Real Property is used as business premises", and the re-letting bar in Article 26 sets a longer restriction for non-residential property than for residential.

One point of translation worth knowing before you read further. The English texts quoted throughout this guide are the Supreme Legislation Committee translations published on Dubai's Legislation Reference Portal, and each carries the same warning: the Arabic text prevails in case of conflict. Other English renderings of these articles circulate widely and differ in wording. Where a single word decides your position, work from the Arabic with a UAE-licensed lawyer.

If you are still deciding how to hold the asset in the first place, the ownership question sits upstream of all of this — see freehold vs leasehold ownership in Dubai for who can own commercial property and where. The wider cluster map is in the legal, tax and ownership hub guide.

Note which articles the 2008 amendment superseded. Any commentary quoting the original 2007 text of Articles 4, 9, 14, 25 or 26 is quoting superseded law, and the differences are not cosmetic:

• The original Article 25 required only 90 days' notice for end-of-lease eviction. It is now twelve months.
• The original Article 26 imposed a one-year re-letting bar. It is now two years residential, three years non-residential.
• The original Article 14 covered a party who "do not wish to renew the Lease Contract or wish to amend any of its terms". The replacement covers only a party who "wishes to amend any of its terms pursuant to Article (13)". The non-renewal limb is gone.
• The original Article 4(2) barred authorities from hearing unregistered-lease disputes. The replacement does not — see the registration section below, where this matters.

If a landlord, an agent or a template lease cites the 90-day eviction notice or the one-year re-letting bar at you, they are working from a text that has been superseded for more than seventeen years.

The maximum increase is set by Article 1 of Decree No. 43 of 2013, on a five-band scale keyed to the gap between your current rent and "the average rental value of similar units":

Two structural points matter for commercial investors. First, Article 2 of the decree states that it "will apply to Landlords, whether private or public entities, in the Emirate of Dubai, including those in Special Development zones and free zones such as the Dubai International Financial Centre" — an unusually wide reach for a Dubai instrument. Second, Article 3 provides that the average rental value of similar units "will be determined in accordance with the 'Rent Index of the Emirate of Dubai' approved by the Real Estate Regulatory Agency." The cap is only as operable as the index behind it, and for commercial property the index picture needs care.

Note also what the decree does not do. It sets a ceiling on the increase, not a floor under the rent and not an entitlement to any increase. And it caps the increase at renewal only — Article 9 of Law 26/2007 in its original form barred any rent increase or amendment of terms in the first two years of a contractual relationship, and that restriction was removed when Law 33/2008 replaced Article 9. The current text of Law 26/2007 as amended contains no replacement minimum interval between increases; in practice the lease term sets the interval, since the cap bites at renewal.

For the strategic read on how capped rental growth affects yield planning across a holding period, see the guide to the Smart Rental Index and RERA rent reforms, and our article on the implications of Dubai's Smart Rental Index for landlords and tenants.

Yes — with an important qualification about which index you are actually using.

DLD's Rental Index e-service carries five separate property-type tabs: Residential, Commercial, Industrial, Industrial Lands and Staff Accommodation. The Commercial tab asks for contract end date, property type, unit area in square feet or square metres, current annual rent, the area or district, and building name, with additional fields for shopping mall, retail sub-type and mall unit type. So a commercial lookup route exists inside the official service and has done for some time.

The Smart Rental Index is a different and narrower thing. DLD launched it on 2 January 2025, and both the DLD announcement and the UAE Government Media Office describe its coverage as "all residential areas in Dubai, including key areas, special development zones, and free zones." The same announcements state that DLD has plans "to expand its coverage to include additional real estate sectors, such as commercial and industrial indexes" — with no published launch date, and no DLD announcement of a commercial or industrial Smart Rental Index as at 16 August 2026. The building-level, AI-assisted classification that got all the coverage in 2025 is, on the official record, a residential upgrade.

What that means for you in practice: run your own unit through the Commercial tab before you argue about a number, because what the service returns for a given district, property type and mall depends on the transaction data behind it, and the official service page publishes no coverage statement telling you which commercial sub-types and areas are populated. If the tab returns nothing usable for your asset, you are in evidence territory rather than lookup territory — and you should say so in writing to the landlord early, rather than at the hearing.

Article 9 as amended tells the Tribunal how to fill that gap. It determines the rental value of similar real property taking into account the criteria for determining the percentage of rent increase prescribed by RERA, the prevailing economic situation in the Emirate, the condition of the property, the prevailing rental value of similar property in other similar property markets within the same area, the provisions of any legislation in force in the Emirate regulating property rent, and any other factors it deems appropriate. Article 13 then lets the Tribunal determine the fair rent on those criteria where landlord and tenant cannot agree at renewal.

Our own Dubai rental index tool is a useful cross-check on area-level rental evidence when you are preparing a renewal position or an RDC filing.

Ninety days before the lease expires. Article 14, as replaced by Law 33/2008, reads in full: "Unless otherwise agreed by the parties to a Lease Contract, where either party wishes to amend any of its terms pursuant to Article (13) of this Law, that party must notify the other party of this intent no less than ninety (90) days before the date on which the Lease Contract expires."

Four things follow that catch commercial tenants out:

• A rent increase is an amendment of terms. Article 13 covers amending any term or reconsidering an increase or reduction in rent for the purposes of renewal, and Article 14 is the notice rule attached to it. A landlord who serves a rent-increase notice inside 90 days of expiry has not complied with Article 14, whatever the amount.
• Article 14 is not the route to ending a tenancy. The replaced text says nothing about a party who does not wish to renew — that limb existed in the original 2007 Article 14 and was dropped. An end-of-lease eviction runs on Article 25(2) and twelve months' notice, and no shorter notice converts into a valid one because it was called a non-renewal.
• The parties can contract out of the 90 days. The article opens "Unless otherwise agreed by the parties to a Lease Contract." Read your own lease before relying on the statutory default — a longer or shorter agreed period will govern.
• Silence renews the lease. Under Article 6, where a lease expires and the tenant continues to occupy without objection from the landlord, the lease renews for the same term or one year, whichever is shorter, on the same terms as before. Under Article 7, a valid lease cannot be unilaterally terminated mid-term by either party; it ends by mutual consent or under the law.

Dubai operates a closed list, split between grounds available during the lease term and grounds available only at expiry.

Three points on this table that get lost in secondary summaries.

Government-mandated demolition is a mid-term ground, not an expiry ground. It sits at 25(1)(i), and it does not carry the twelve-month clock. The expiry ground at 25(2)(a) is different: it is the owner's own wish to demolish and reconstruct or add structures, and it requires permits from the competent entities.

Paragraph 2 talks about the owner, paragraph 1 about the landlord. Three of the four expiry grounds — 25(2)(a), (c) and (d) — are framed around the wishes of the Real Property owner; only (b), the restoration ground, turns on the condition of the property instead. That distinction matters where your landlord is a head-lessee, a master developer's leasing arm or an agent rather than the registered owner. Check who is serving the notice against who holds the title.

Service channels are narrow, and they are narrow at both stages. For expiry grounds, Article 25(2) requires the landlord to notify the tenant of the eviction reasons "at least twelve (12) months before the date of eviction," with the notice served "through a Notary Public or by registered mail." Article 25(1) carries the same limitation for mid-term notices. Article 2 defines a Notice more broadly — by Notary Public, registered mail, by hand, or by any other technological means approved by law — but Article 25 narrows eviction notices to the first two channels. A WhatsApp message, a hand-delivered letter or an email is not a compliant Article 25 eviction notice.

The commercial-vacancy ground deserves attention from investors buying tenanted assets and from occupiers running seasonal or project-based operations. Thirty consecutive days of an empty unit is a short window — short enough to be triggered by a fit-out overrun, a licence lapse or a summer shutdown. Note that both this ground and the rent-arrears ground open with "unless otherwise agreed by the parties," so a well-drafted lease can soften them; equally, if your lease is silent, the statutory default applies as written.

Not for three years, where the premises are non-residential. Article 26 as amended provides that where the Tribunal rules in favour of the landlord retaking possession for his own use or a first-degree relative's use under 25(2)(c), the landlord "may not rent the Real Property to a third party before the lapse of at least two (2) years in case of residential Real Property, or three (3) years in case of non-residential Real Property, from the date of retaking possession of the same. Otherwise, the Tenant may request the Tribunal to award him fair compensation."

Three details worth holding onto. Article 26 is drafted around a Tribunal ruling in the landlord's favour, so its clearest application is to a contested repossession that went through the RDC. The clock runs from the date of retaking possession, not from the date of the notice or the judgment. And Article 26 restricts letting to a third party — it does not on its face restrict a sale, which is a separate ground under Article 25(2)(d) with its own 12-month notice.

If you are the outgoing tenant, that gives you something concrete to do: diarise the address, and check the listings and the Ejari record over the following three years. The remedy is fair compensation from the Tribunal, and it depends on you noticing.

No. Article 20 of Law 26/2007 — untouched by the 2008 amendment — provides that when entering into a lease, "the Landlord may obtain from the Tenant a security deposit to ensure maintenance of the Real Property upon the expiry of the Lease Contract, provided that the Landlord undertakes to refund such deposit or remainder thereof to the Tenant upon the expiry of the Lease Contract."

That is the whole of it. The article sets no percentage, no ceiling, and no fixed number of days for the refund. The 5–10% of annual rent quoted across the Dubai market is negotiating convention. The often-repeated "refundable within 30 days" is likewise not in the statute.

Because the statute is thin here, the lease has to do the work. Three drafting points are worth insisting on in a commercial deal: define what the deposit secures, since Article 20 ties it to maintenance rather than to rent arrears generally; fix a refund deadline in days with a mechanism for itemising deductions; and record the handover condition, because Article 21 requires the tenant to surrender the property in the condition received, ordinary wear and tear and damage beyond the tenant's control excepted. A dated, photographed condition schedule at handover is the cheapest dispute insurance available.

This is where commercial leases diverge most sharply from residential ones, and where the default statutory position is unhelpful to tenants who invest in their premises.

• Article 19 requires the tenant to maintain the property as an ordinary person would maintain their own, and bars the tenant from making changes or carrying out restoration or maintenance works unless permitted by the landlord and after obtaining the required licences from the competent official entities.
• Article 18 obliges the landlord to provide the tenant with the approvals required for submission to official entities where the tenant wishes to carry out decoration or other works needing approval, provided the works do not affect the structure and the tenant holds the official documents requesting the approvals. This is the statutory backbone of the landlord NOC.
• Article 23 provides that unless otherwise agreed, on vacating the tenant may not remove any leasehold improvements made. The default is that your fit-out stays.
• Article 16 makes the landlord responsible for maintenance and for repairing defects affecting the tenant's intended use — unless otherwise agreed, which in practice most commercial leases do vary.
• Article 22 makes the tenant liable for all government fees and taxes due for use of the property unless the lease says otherwise.

"Unless otherwise agreed" appears in Articles 16, 22 and 23. These are default rules, not protections — they are negotiable, and in commercial leases they are routinely negotiated away. For how the landlord NOC layer interacts with the statutory permit process, see master-developer and landlord fit-out standards. For what the premises must support before your licence issues, see office, Ejari and signage requirements for a Dubai trade licence.

No. Article 34 states that the landlord may not disconnect services from the property or disturb the tenant's use of it in any manner. Where this happens, the tenant may go to the police station with jurisdiction over the property to seek a remedy or file a report, and may separately claim damages before the Tribunal supported by official reports evidencing the violation.

Article 35 completes the picture: awards relating to vacating the property are executed through the Tribunal under its own rules and procedures, while other awards go to the Execution Section of Dubai Courts. Decree 26/2013 then routes enforcement through the Centre — Article 21 gives its Judgment Enforcement Directorate the job of enforcing final judgments, with the chairman able to call on Dubai Courts' Execution Department for assistance. Either way, eviction in Dubai is a judicial act with an execution stage, not something a landlord can arrange with a locksmith.

Article 31 cuts the other way for tenants: filing an eviction claim does not exempt the tenant from paying rent for the whole period the claim is under consideration, and until an award is rendered and executed. If you are defending an eviction, keep paying. Withholding rent hands the landlord a separate 25(1)(a) ground and does not pause the clock on anything.

At the Rental Disputes Center, established by Decree No. 26 of 2013 under the Dubai Land Department. Its structure, per the decree, runs a Mediation and Conciliation Directorate, a First Instance Division, an Appellate Division and a Judgment Enforcement Directorate.

The decree sets the internal clock: under Article 10(f) the Mediation and Conciliation Directorate seeks amicable settlement within a maximum of 15 days from the parties' appearance, extendable for the same period or periods; under Article 16 the Tribunals determine rent claims within a maximum of 30 days from referral of the file, extendable once for the same period; and under Article 18(a) appeals run 15 days from the day after the hearing at which judgment was issued.

Article 17 is where a widely repeated summary goes wrong. Paragraph (a) does make judgments in rent claims worth less than AED 100,000 final and not subject to any form of appeal. But paragraph (b) then lists six situations in which such a judgment may be appealed anyway — most importantly where an eviction judgment is issued, and also where the judgment breaches the rules of jurisdiction, grants relief not requested or beyond what was requested or fails to address relief requested, is issued against a person not duly represented or on invalid service, rests on documents or testimony later declared false, or where a party concealed evidence that would have changed the outcome. So a sub-AED-100,000 eviction is not a one-shot hearing. Read (a) and (b) together before you decide whether to fight at first instance or plan for appeal.

One more procedural point that shapes strategy: under Article 18(b), to have an appeal admitted in a financial claim the judgment debtor must deposit half the judgment amount with the Centre until the appeal is determined, though the chairman of the Centre may admit the appeal without that deposit or on part payment. Budget for it.

On cost, the Center's published FAQ sets the registration fee at 3.5% of the annual rent or lease value, subject to a minimum of AED 500 and a maximum of AED 20,000 — and, for monetary claims, 3.5% of the claimed amount, minimum AED 500 and maximum AED 15,000. Add process service of AED 100, a knowledge fee of AED 10, an innovation fee of AED 10, and AED 25 for power-of-attorney registration where used. Filing through a Real Estate Services Trustee Centre adds partners' service fees of AED 130 plus VAT. Half the fee comes back if the conciliation stage produces a settlement — that appears both in the FAQ and in Article 10(i) of the decree.

On registration, note a nuance that changes what an unregistered lease is worth. The original 2007 Article 4(2) said that "Judicial authorities and Government departments, authorities, and corporations may not consider any dispute or claim or otherwise take any action relating to a Lease Contract unless such Contract is registered with RERA." Law 33/2008 replaced Article 4, and the replacement retains only the registration obligation: "All Lease Contracts related to Real Property which is governed by the provisions of this Law, and any amendments thereto, will be registered with RERA." The bar on hearing unregistered-lease disputes is not in the amended text.

The Center's own FAQ is consistent with that. It states that a rental cancellation statement from Ejari "is not necessary as it is not required for claim registration," and that you can register a rental claim without a rental contract "on the condition of adding a request for proving the leasehold relationship." That additional request carries a published fee. Asked "What is the fee for proving a lease relationship?", the same FAQ answers "AED 500". It appears there as its own fee line rather than as part of the registration-fee scale, so treat it as an additional item to budget for and confirm with the Centre or the trustee centre how it is applied alongside your registration fee when you file.

None of that makes an unregistered lease a good idea. Registration is a legal obligation under Article 4(2), Ejari registration is what the licensing and utility chain runs on, and a claimant who has to prove the leasehold relationship from scratch is starting the case a step behind one who can hand over an Ejari certificate. The registration mechanics are covered in RERA, Ejari and Oqood, and the portals themselves in Dubai REST, DubaiNow, Ejari and DET.

Partly — and the answer splits between the cap and the forum.

On the cap, Decree 43/2013 is unambiguous. Article 2: "This Decree will apply to Landlords, whether private or public entities, in the Emirate of Dubai, including those in Special Development zones and free zones such as the Dubai International Financial Centre."

On the forum, Decree 26/2013 Article 6(a) gives the Rental Disputes Center exclusive jurisdiction over rent disputes between landlords and tenants of property situated in the Emirate "including in free zones" — and then Article 6(b) removes three categories: rent disputes arising within free zones "which have tribunals or special courts having jurisdiction to determine the Rent Disputes that arise within their boundaries"; rent disputes arising from a lease finance contract; and disputes arising from long-term lease contracts covered by Law No. 7 of 2006. The decree also supersedes Law No. 15 of 2009 Concerning Hearing Rent Disputes in Free Zones.

So a rent cap can apply to your DIFC or DMCC premises while the route to enforcing it sits somewhere else. What neither instrument says is which body then applies the Decree 43 cap inside such a free zone. No Dubai government publication resolves the overlap; the commentary that circulates on it is law-firm analysis rather than an authority statement, and it does not agree with itself. This guide does not invent an answer. Treat this as a genuinely open question and handle it commercially: get the rent-review mechanism and the dispute forum written expressly into the lease, and ask the free zone authority in writing which body it considers competent, before you sign rather than after.

On DIFC specifically, this page deliberately sets out no DIFC leasing provisions. DIFC's own legal database does not confirm a current text of DIFC's Leasing Law as at 16 August 2026, and no statute is paraphrased here from a text that has not been verified against its source. What that means for you: do not assume the mainland rules described above — the 90-day amendment notice, the twelve-month eviction notice, the Article 26 re-letting bar, the Article 20 deposit position — carry across to a DIFC lease. Ask DIFC for the current text of its leasing legislation, and get it to tell you in writing which forum hears a leasing dispute inside the Centre, before you commit. The broader structural trade-off between the two regimes is covered in mainland vs free zone licensing in Dubai, and the premises-side diligence in the licensing premises due diligence checklist.