Dubai mortgage calculator

What to understand before you run the numbers

UAE banks lend to residents and to non-residents, but on terms different enough that running both through one formula is meaningless. A resident with a work visa and UAE income can borrow up to 80% of the price on a property under AED 5 million, and up to 70% above that. Those are Central Bank of the UAE caps, and no bank can go around them. A non-resident earning abroad is normally looking at 50–60%, which means a down payment starting at 40–50%, and a rate roughly 0.3–0.8 percentage points higher — the bank cannot see your salary history in the local system and prices that uncertainty in.

The second input that decides everything is the term. The formal maximum is 25 years, but it is capped by age: the loan must be repaid by 65 for an employee and by 70 for a business owner. At 50 your maximum is not 25 years but 15, and the payment moves accordingly. Run the calculator at 25 years, then at 15, and look at both the monthly figure and the total interest — that comparison changes people’s purchase budget more often than any other single thing on this page.

How the rate is actually built

Fixed and variable are not two products in the UAE; they are two phases of one. The fixed period runs from one to five years, most commonly three, after which the loan reverts to variable automatically. Variable is EIBOR — the Emirates interbank benchmark — plus the bank’s margin, typically 1.5 to 2.5 percentage points. The margin is written into the contract for the whole term; EIBOR is reset regularly, and your payment moves with it.

Which produces the most common mistake in choosing a lender: comparing banks on the headline fixed rate for the first three years. That number is marketing. A difference of 0.2 points over three years matters far less than a difference in the margin you will be paying for the twenty after. Use the fixed-period block and the rate scenarios for exactly this: fix for 36 months, then push the rate up by one or two points and look at what happens. That stress test is more honest than any advertised calculation.

What the bank looks at in your profile

The number that decides the application is DBR — the share of your income going to service all debt. The Central Bank caps it at half your income, and credit cards, car finance and instalment plans count towards it even if you never use them: the bank counts the card limit, not the balance on it. Closing an unused card before you apply is frequently worth more than adding to the deposit.

After that comes stability of income: six months in the current job for an employee, two years of accounts for a business owner. Your credit file at the AECB bureau is pulled as well — missed payments on local cards are visible to the bank immediately. Pre-approval takes three to five working days, final approval after the bank’s valuation another two to three weeks, and the pre-approval holds for 60–90 days. It is worth starting the search with one in hand: a resale seller will almost always take the approved buyer.

The costs that are not in the loan

A UAE property purchase carries roughly 7–8% of transaction cost on top of the price, and none of it can be financed — it is paid in cash, on top of the down payment. The Dubai Land Department transfer fee is 4% of the price. Mortgage registration is 0.25% of the loan. The bank’s valuation of the property runs around AED 2,500–3,500 and its arrangement fee up to 1% of the loan. Add agency commission at 2%, the trustee office fee, and the mandatory life and property insurance.

Put in numbers: on a AED 2 million purchase with a 20% deposit you need not AED 400,000 but around AED 560,000 available. Failing to budget for that gap is the single most common reason a transaction stalls a week before signing.

Then there is the annual carrying cost, which is where projections most often fall apart: the service charge. It is billed per square foot and varies enormously — a branded tower in Downtown can cost several times what a mid-market building in JVC does. Always subtract it before comparing a rental yield to a mortgage payment.

There is no annual property tax in the UAE and no personal income tax on rental income, which is a genuine and substantial advantage over almost every other market. It does not, however, remove your obligations wherever you are tax resident — check that separately.

Ready property or off-plan

UAE banks finance a building under construction reluctantly and usually not at all before handover: during the build you are on the developer’s payment plan, and the mortgage is taken against the finished unit. So comparing an instalment schedule with a mortgage payment directly is a category error — they are different obligations. The developer plan carries no interest but is short and rigid; the mortgage costs more, runs for decades, and can be repaid early.

Early repayment and refinancing

UAE law caps the early settlement fee at 1% of the outstanding balance or AED 10,000, whichever is lower. That cap is what makes partial overpayment a real instrument here, and the calculator shows the two forms separately: a recurring overpayment and a one-off lump sum shorten the term and cut the interest in different proportions. Worth looking at the offset account alongside them — its balance reduces the amount interest is charged on while the money stays available to you.

Refinancing in the Emirates is ordinary practice rather than a sign of trouble. If your bank’s margin turns out to be above market once the fixed period ends, the loan moves to another lender; the question is only whether the saving on the rate covers the cost of re-registration. The same calculator answers it: enter the current balance as the loan, the remaining years as the term, and compare the two scenarios.

How to use the rate scenarios

If you are taking a variable-rate mortgage, the single most useful thing this calculator does is let you model a rate rise before you commit. Set your expected starting rate, then add a scenario two or three percentage points higher and look at the payment. If that payment is uncomfortable, the loan is too large — regardless of what the affordability calculation at the bank says today.

For a fixed-then-variable structure, set the fixed period to the actual number of months your bank is offering and model the reversion. The step up at the end of a fixed period surprises people every year, and it is entirely predictable.

Everything above is rules and ranges that hold for years at a time. The rate you are actually offered, the limit and the document list depend on the bank and on your profile, and there is only one way to find them out — ask. Send me your situation and I will collect what several lenders are currently quoting for it and price the transaction whole, costs outside the loan included.