Investor Tools
Commercial Price Index
Mitchell's Dubai Commercial Real Estate Index — the median price per square foot of existing offices and shops registered with the Dubai Land Department, month by month since January 2009, by segment and over the time range you choose.
Index
Market Intelligence
Commercial Price Index
Mitchell's Dubai Commercial Real Estate Index: the median price per square foot of existing offices and shops registered with the Dubai Land Department, month by month since January 2009. Choose the segment, the smoothing and the time range below.
Index value · 3-month pooled · All commercial
224.7
Three months to September 2026 · ▼ 10.9 (−4.6%) vs three months earlier · based on 569 trimmed sales (3M window)
3-month pooled series · All commercial
All commercial full history · 3-month pooled · 2022 calendar-year average = 100
Three months to September 2026 · index 224.7 · median 1,907 AED / sq ft · 569 trimmed sales (3M window)
index (left axis) sales registered in the month (right axis) fewer than 30 sales October 2026, provisional
Source: Dubai Land Department sale transactions, published via data.dubai — Existing-property offices and shops (reg_type = 'Existing Properties', property_sub_type Office/Shop, unit sales); mcin_commercial_txns_raw ∪ dld_transactions, one sale counted once on the canonical transaction key. Median AED per sq ft per calendar month after a 1%/99% trim applied per segment and calendar quarter and the removal of sales priced below 15% of that quarter's trimmed median. Dates are the Dubai Land Department's own registration dates. Where a sale reaches us twice — once in DLD's bulk export and once in its daily feed — we keep the bulk record, and DLD registers on working days, so a sale agreed at a weekend carries the following working day; the 3-month view is a pooled median over the trailing three months, indexed per segment to its 2022 calendar-year average = 100. Register read to 9 October 2026; series January 2009 to September 2026 complete, October 2026 provisional. Compiled 10 October 2026.
Indicative — a trimmed monthly median of Dubai Land Department sale registrations for existing-property offices and shops, indexed per segment to its 2022 calendar-year average = 100; within each segment and quarter the highest and lowest one per cent of sales are set aside, and so is any sale recorded at less than 15% of what the rest of that segment fetched over the quarter, which is what stops a block of units registered far below the market from setting a month’s median. Not mix-adjusted: a month heavy in prime stock reads higher even if nothing repriced, and retail and the thinnest months rest on small samples, which the chart marks. The register’s “Existing Properties” flag is taken as filed: the Land Department publishes no open primary-versus-secondary key, so that flag can carry a developer’s delayed-sale registration alongside genuine standing-stock sales. The month in progress is provisional and excluded from every headline; the newest complete month can still revise as late registrations land. Direction and level, not a valuation of any one property.
Next step
Value a specific commercial asset
We'll run the registered comparables, yield and liquidity for any Dubai office floor, retail unit or whole building you're weighing — off-market stock included.
Method
The commercial price index is a median, not an average, and it is built from prices actually registered with the Dubai Land Department rather than from asking prices. Every existing-property sale of an office or a shop that carries a price per square foot goes into a monthly pool; the extreme 1% at each end of that pool is trimmed away, per segment and per quarter, and the median of what is left is the month’s reading. Each segment is then indexed to its own 2022 calendar-year average = 100, which is what lets the office line and the shop line be read against one another even though they sit at different price levels. The rate itself is the registered price over the registered unit area, both as the Land Department files them.
Two choices of scope are deliberate. The series starts in January 2009 because that is the first month carrying enough registered commercial volume in both sub-segments to produce a median worth publishing. And it covers offices and shops because those are the two commercial sub-types that register in sufficient volume, month after month, to sustain a monthly series at all — a line drawn through a handful of sales is a line about those sales, not about a market.
On the chart, the line is the index and the bars behind it are the number of sales the reading rests on — the second tells you how much weight to put on the first. Hover any month for its median, its index value and its sale count. The controls switch the segment between all commercial, offices and shops, switch between the three-month pooled view and the single-month one, and set the window to one, three or five years or the whole history. Start on the three-month view: a single month can move on the mix of stock that happened to register, and any point resting on fewer than 30 trimmed sales is marked on the chart so you can see when that is what you are looking at.
With the register read to 9 October 2026, the headline reading is the three-month pooled one, and it covers the three months to September 2026: all commercial at a median of AED 1,907.3 per sq ft, an index of 224.69 on 569 trimmed sales; office at a median of AED 1,863.1 per sq ft, an index of 223.71 on 420 trimmed sales; retail (shops) at a median of AED 2,347.1 per sq ft, an index of 251.66 on 147 trimmed sales. That is the view the instrument above opens on, and it is the reading to quote.
The single-month series is the same data without the pooling, and it moves further because it rests on a third of the sales. For September 2026 alone: all commercial at a median of AED 1,800 per sq ft, an index of 212.06 on 207 trimmed sales; office at a median of AED 1,721.7 per sq ft, an index of 206.72 on 149 trimmed sales; retail (shops) at a median of AED 2,242.5 per sq ft, an index of 240.45 on 57 trimmed sales. Retail is the thinner of the two sub-segments and moves further from month to month, so read the shop line on the three-month view and beside its sale counts rather than on a single point.
None of this is a valuation. The index gives you the direction and the level of registered pricing across a whole segment; it cannot tell you what one floor in one tower is worth, because it is not adjusted for the mix of stock registering in any given month. What it does do for a buyer is set the frame for a negotiation — whether the segment you are buying into has moved up, down or sideways across the window you care about — and test what a seller says about the market against what the register shows. Then work the comparables building by building: the commercial valuation estimator is built for that. Tell us the building you are looking at and we will pull the registered comparables behind it — the sales that completed, not the prices that were asked — before you put a number on the table.
Data source and limits
Every filter, window and base behind the chart above, read from the same data file the chart renders, and the five things the series is not.
The specificationThe filters as they are written, read from the same data file the chart above renders.
Inputs
ScopeExisting-property offices and shops
- Source
- Dubai Land Department sale transactions, published via data.dubai
- Scope
- Existing-property offices and shops (reg_type = 'Existing Properties', property_sub_type Office/Shop, unit sales)
- One sale, counted once
- mcin_commercial_txns_raw ∪ dld_transactions, one sale counted once on the canonical transaction key
- Excluded
- Off-plan launch registrations, mortgages, gifts, land and whole-building sales, hospitality sub-types
Method
ScopeMedian AED per sq ft per calendar month
- Measure
- Median AED per sq ft per calendar month after a 1%/99% trim applied per segment and calendar quarter and the removal of sales priced below 15% of that quarter's trimmed median. Dates are the Dubai Land Department's own registration dates. Where a sale reaches us twice — once in DLD's bulk export and once in its daily feed — we keep the bulk record, and DLD registers on working days, so a sale agreed at a weekend carries the following working day; the 3-month view is a pooled median over the trailing three months
- Base
- Each segment's 2022 calendar-year average = 100
- History
- Monthly from January 2009; October 2026 is the month in progress, shown provisional
- Register read to
- 9 October 2026
- Low-confidence flag
- Any point resting on fewer than 30 trimmed sales
The limitsWhat the series cannot do, and which segment each caveat bites on.
- Every segment
Class boundary
“Existing Properties” is a flag the Dubai Land Department applies at registration and we take it as filed. The Land Department publishes no open primary-versus-secondary key, so that flag can carry a developer’s delayed-sale registration alongside genuine standing-stock sales. It is the cleanest separation available between standing stock and launch activity, and it is not a perfect one — which is why the instrument says so beside the chart rather than in a footnote.
- Every segment
Mix adjustment
A month in which more large, prime floor-plates happened to register reads higher than one in which more small secondary units did, even if nothing about the market changed. The trim removes the extremes; it does not correct the mix. Read it as a trend, and read the three-month view before the monthly one.
- Retail (shops)
Retail sample depth
Shops are a fraction of the office count in most months, so the retail line is noisier and more of its points carry the low-confidence mark. The mark is there to be read.
- Every segment
The newest months
The month in progress is provisional and excluded from every headline; the latest complete month can still revise as late registrations reach the register. Points older than three months are stable.
- Every segment
Not a valuation
A registered price is a historical fact about one transaction, in one building, on one day. It is evidence for a view about your asset. It is not a view about your asset.
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