Service charges in Dubai: per square foot rates by building, 2026.
The quiet yield killer. The least glamorous number in Dubai property, and the one that silently separates a good investment from a mediocre one. How the service charge per square foot is set under Law 6 of 2019, how to check your building's real rate, and how to keep it honest.
By the Mulki team · Updated 13 June 2026
A Dubai service charge is an annual per-square-foot fee, set against a RERA-approved building budget and billed only through Mollak, the Dubai Land Department system that holds every approved rate. Villa communities tend to run AED 3 to 10 per square foot, mid-rise apartments AED 10 to 18, full-service towers AED 18 to 30 or more, and branded residences AED 30 to 60 or more. It is a building-level number, so two neighbours can differ sharply. Your exact rate is public: look it up before you read any of the ranges below.
The ranges, at a glance
| Building class | AED / sq ft / year |
|---|---|
| Townhouse & villa communities | 3 to 10 |
| Mid-rise apartment communities | 10 to 18 |
| High-service towers | 18 to 30+ |
| Branded residences | 30 to 60+ |
Building-class bands read from the per-building Mollak rates in our service charge dataset, the same source the calculator searches, reviewed June 2026. A sanity check only: the charge is set per building, so search yours by name to get your real number rather than trusting a band.
Service charges are set per square foot at building level, approved by RERA, and invoiced only through Mollak. Check yours in the Dubai REST app.
Normal ranges run from AED 3 to 10 per sq ft in villa communities through AED 18 to 30+ in full-service towers, up to AED 30 to 60+ in branded residences.
On the worked 900 sq ft, AED 1.4M example below, a 10-dirham difference in rate is AED 9,000 a year, moving net yield from 5.6% to 4.9%: roughly two-thirds of a point, permanently, and more on a smaller unit.
Unpaid charges block your developer NOC, which blocks any sale. Dispute through the OA and RERA; never through non-payment.
The idea
Two one-beds in Dubai Marina. Same size, same rent, one street apart. Building A charges AED 14 per square foot, Building B charges AED 24. On 900 square feet that is AED 12,600 against AED 21,600 a year. The Building B owner hands over AED 9,000 more, every year, for as long as they hold. The rates are not secret and they are not estimates: each one is a building-specific figure, approved by RERA and held in Mollak under your unit. It is the most consequential number in Dubai property, and the one owners most rarely open before they buy.
Check yours in two minutes
- 01
Open Dubai REST and find your unit.
The DLD's Dubai REST app lists your property against your Emirates ID. Under the unit you'll find the Mollak service charge section: the approved rate per square foot, current invoices, and your payment history.
- 02
Read the rate, not just the invoice.
The invoice is this period's bill. The rate, AED per square foot per year, is what you compare against other buildings and what belongs in your yield calculation. Note whether cooling is inside the rate or billed separately; in district-cooled towers it often isn't.
- 03
Multiply and put it in the yield.
Rate × your unit's square footage = the annual figure. A 780 sq ft unit at AED 16.50 is AED 12,870. Drop it into the yield calculator and watch what it does to the net. That's the real cost of your building's service level.
How it works
- 01
A building budget, approved by RERA.
The owners' association or appointed manager budgets the year for running costs and a reserve fund for future capital works. Under Law No. 6 of 2019 on jointly owned property, that budget must be reviewed by an approved auditor and signed off by RERA before a single invoice goes out. The rate is the approved budget divided across the building's square footage.
- 02
Invoiced through Mollak, against your title.
Mollak is the DLD system every legitimate charge must legally pass through, with funds ring-fenced in a community trust account rather than a manager's operating account. Your invoices and payment status sit against your unit in the Dubai REST app, which makes verification a two-minute job, not an email chain.
- 03
General fund and reserve fund.
The general fund runs the building this year: security, cleaning, cooling, lifts, insurance and the rest. The reserve fund pre-pays the expensive decade ahead, when the façade, the lifts and the chiller plant all come due at once. A suspiciously low charge often just means an empty reserve fund and a special levy waiting downstream.
What it does to yield
| Line | Building A (AED 14) | Building B (AED 24) |
|---|---|---|
| Annual rent | 95,000 | 95,000 |
| Service charges | −12,600 | −21,600 |
| Maintenance & insurance | −4,500 | −4,500 |
| Net income | 77,900 | 68,900 |
| Net yield | 5.6% | 4.9% |
Illustrative comparison using round figures. Maintenance and insurance held constant at AED 4,500/year in both columns; the only variable is the Mollak rate. Swap in your own building's published rate to see your real net.
Building B’s owner gives up AED 9,000 a year. Held for eight years, that is AED 72,000: most of a kitchen renovation, or two years of a child’s school fees, paid for the same service a cheaper building delivers adequately. And because buyers increasingly run this same arithmetic, the high rate comes back a second time at sale, priced into the offers. This is why the Mollak rate belongs in every purchase decision and every sell-or-hold review, and why net yield is the number Mulki tracks for every unit rather than gross. Drop your building’s rate into the yield calculator and watch the net move.
What the budget actually buys
Pull the audited budget any building files behind its Mollak rate, as Law No. 6 of 2019 entitles owners to do, and the same shape tends to appear across the budgets in our dataset. A quarter to a third goes to the AC plant and utilities for common areas, around a fifth to security and cleaning contracts, a tenth to the building manager’s own fee, with insurance, lift maintenance, pool and gym upkeep, and pest control making up the rest. On top sits the reserve fund contribution, commonly 10 to 20% of the budget, which pre-funds the capital works of the decade ahead. These are the proportions the line items on a typical audited budget settle into, not a fixed formula, so read your own building’s statement for its exact split.
The reserve fund line deserves more attention than it gets. A building charging suspiciously little is often simply not reserving, which feels pleasant until year twelve delivers a special levy of AED 30,000 per unit for the lifts. When you compare two buildings’ rates, compare their reserve funds too. The audited financials state both, and under Law No. 6 of 2019 the accounts must be independently audited and made available to owners, so the figures are yours to ask for.
When the number looks wrong
- 01
Ask for the audited financials.
Law No. 6 of 2019 entitles you to them. Comparing the approved budget against actual spend is where padding shows up, and where a competent owners' committee earns its keep.
- 02
Benchmark against comparable buildings.
A rate 30% above genuinely similar towers needs explaining. Sometimes the answer is fair, a genuinely higher service level or a reserve fund honestly catching up after years of underfunding. Sometimes it is padding nobody has challenged. The audited budget tells you which.
- 03
Escalate to RERA, but keep paying.
Irregularities go to RERA through the OA channels. Withholding payment only stacks penalties against your own title and freezes your ability to sell. Fight on paper, not on the invoice.
General information, not legal advice. Governed by Law No. 6 of 2019 on jointly owned property and administered through RERA and Mollak, the Dubai Land Department system, at dubailand.gov.ae. Rates and budget composition read from building-level Mollak data. Reviewed June 2026.
Frequently asked questions
- How are service charges calculated in Dubai?
- Per square foot of your unit, against a building budget approved by RERA. The owners' association or management company proposes the budget, RERA reviews it, and the approved rate is invoiced through Mollak, usually in two annual instalments. General fund covers running costs; reserve fund covers future major works.
- What is a normal service charge per square foot?
- Broad 2026 ranges: townhouse and villa communities often run AED 3 to 10 per sq ft; mid-rise apartment communities AED 10 to 18; high-service towers AED 18 to 30+; branded residences AED 30 to 60+. The same square footage in two neighbouring towers can carry materially different rates. It is a building-level number, not an area-level one.
- How do I check the service charge for a building in Dubai?
- Through Mollak, the DLD system all charges must legally flow through, via the Dubai REST app, where a unit's invoices, rates and payment history are visible against the title. You can also search a building by name in our service charge calculator to pull its rate from DLD records. If anyone quotes a number that isn't in Mollak, the Mollak number is the real one.
- What is the service charge in areas like Dubai Marina or JVC?
- There is no single area rate, because the charge is set per building, not per area. A new full-service tower in Dubai Marina can sit at AED 18 to 25+ per square foot while an older block one street away runs far less, and JVC apartment buildings commonly fall in the AED 10 to 18 band. Always look up the specific building rather than trusting an area average.
- Can I dispute a service charge?
- You can query the budget through your owners' committee, demand the audited financials (you are entitled to them), and escalate genuine irregularities to RERA. What you cannot do is simply not pay. Unpaid charges block the developer NOC, which blocks any future sale, and can lead to legal recovery.
- Do service charges affect what my property is worth?
- Directly. Buyers and their agents increasingly price per-square-foot charges into offers, and investors compute net yield before bidding. A tower charging AED 10 above its neighbours suffers both on rent competitiveness and resale value: one of the quiet reasons 'identical' units trade differently.
- Look up your building's service chargeSearch your building, pull its real per-square-foot rate from DLD records, and see the annual and monthly cost.
- Rental yield in Dubai: the owner's guideWhat's normal area by area, from DLD records, and where service charges fit in the net.
- Rent increases in Dubai: the Decree 43 bracketsWhat the RERA index lets you raise, and how it interacts with rising charges.
- The real cost of owning in DubaiService charges in context with every other annual cost.
Don't guess the rate. Search your building by name, and see the real Mollak figure.
Pull my building's rate