Russian retail brands in Dubai in 2026: a quarter of them left, and what it tells a mall-space investor

Dubai’s mall leasing market carries a lesson worth reading beyond any single nationality of tenant: a fast-growing cohort of brands can contract just as fast when a handful of cost and geopolitical pressures line up at once. Through 2025, Russian-owned retail and F&B brands were among the more visible new entrants to Dubai malls. A year on, the trend has reversed, and the reversal says more about how mall landlords are pricing risk in 2026 than about any one country of origin.

From 107 to 78 brands in one quarter

According to consultancy Nikoliers, 107 Russian-owned retail and F&B brands were trading in Dubai in April 2026; by the end of the first half of the year that had fallen to 78 — a 27% drop in three months. Some of the closures were temporary rather than permanent exits, concentrated among smaller projects in segments sensitive to shifts in tourist traffic. Of the 78 remaining brands, a notable share sit in F&B (34 outlets) and fashion retail (13 outlets), with the rest spread across other categories.

The slowdown in new entries predates the drop. Only 10 new Russian brands entered the Dubai market in 2025, half the pace of the year before, and in the first half of 2026, according to the same Nikoliers research, none entered at all — the first such stretch in several years.

What changed on the landlord side

Leasing conditions tightened across the board over the same period: new mall lease signings in Dubai fell 36% year-on-year, and lease renewals fell 42%. Consultants surveyed (Nikoliers, CMWP, Zemskiy Group) and operators such as the Drinkit chain point to a mix of causes — rising operating costs, more expensive freight and cargo insurance, a shortage of available space in top-tier malls, and noticeably less favourable terms in new leases. The escalation of the Middle East conflict in early 2026 added a sharper shock: some estimates put Dubai restaurant revenue down 60–80% in March alone. Inbound relocation and tourism from Russia also slowed over the same period, hitting demand for brands built around that customer base specifically.

Who still opened in 2026

Despite the overall retreat, expansion did not stop entirely — it just shifted from new market entrants to existing operators adding locations:

• Lichi, a women's fashion chain, opened its fourth Dubai store at Palm Jumeirah Mall.
• Tigrus, a restaurant group, opened its fifth Georgian restaurant, Shvili, at Circle Mall in JVC.
• Dodo Pizza and Drinkit both added outlets to their existing Dubai footprint.

Nikoliers consultants expect a fresh wave of expansion no earlier than 2027–2028, framing the current pause as tied to a specific 2026 mix of geopolitics, space scarcity and cost — not a permanent retreat. For anyone underwriting mall or F&B retail space in Dubai, the takeaway is less about one tenant nationality than about how quickly lease economics can move when several pressures land in the same year.

For a broader read on household and business costs in the emirate, see cost of living in Dubai in 2026.