VirmaniViewsDubai’s average gross rental yield is about 6.7 percent, and apartments average just over 7. London manages 3 to 4, Singapore 2 to 4, New York somewhere between 3 and 5 depending on who is counting. The comparison is true and it is also the most misleading number in the market, because nobody earns gross.
The walk from gross to net
Take a AED 1.5 million apartment renting at AED 105,000, a clean 7 percent. Now pay the bills. Service charges at AED 18 per square foot on 900 square feet are AED 16,200. Maintenance, call it 1 percent of value, another AED 15,000. One vacant month every two years is AED 4,400. A manager, if you use one, takes 8 percent of rent. What is left is closer to 4 percent.
- 4.0% you keep
- 1.1% service charges
- 1.0% maintenance
- 0.9% vacancy and management
The charge is the tower
Service charges are not a footnote, they are the single biggest lever on your net return, and they are set before you arrive. A plain mid-rise in Jumeirah Village Circle might run AED 10 to 14 per square foot. A branded tower on the canal with a pool deck, valet and three lifts per core can run AED 25 or more. Same rent per square foot, wildly different yield. The listing shows you the pool. The statement shows you what the pool costs.
Two other lines deserve a look before you fall in love with a gross number. Chiller charges, the district-cooling bills, which in some towers are billed to the owner rather than the tenant and can quietly add another half a percent. And the owners’ association’s reserve fund: a building that has not been saving for its own repairs will eventually send you the bill in one envelope.
Why it still wins
Because the mature cities lose the same slice and then lose another to tax. A London landlord’s 3.5 percent becomes about 2.5 after costs, and then income tax takes a third of what is left. Dubai’s 4 net is 4 in your pocket. The honest comparison is not 7 versus 3.5. It is 4 versus roughly 1.7, which is a better argument than the brochure makes, and a true one.
Seven percent is a marketing number. Four is a business. Buy the business.
One caveat
Yield is a photograph and you are buying a film. A 4 percent net today in a community where rents are rising 9 percent a year is a very different asset from 4 percent in a tower where rents have been flat since 2023. Pair every yield with the rent trend behind it, and with the supply arriving nearby in 2027. High yield in a district about to receive ten thousand new keys is the market paying you for a risk it can see and you cannot.
What I do with it
Ask for two years of service-charge statements before you ask for the price, and underwrite every purchase at net, not gross. A 7 percent tower with AED 25 charges loses to a 6 percent tower with AED 12 charges, every year, forever. The statements will tell you. The listing never does.
Sources. Engel & Völkers, Dubai rental yields 2026 · Grovy, net vs gross yields by area 2026 · Real Estate Club Dubai, Dubai vs Singapore vs London 2026 · Stake, Dubai market 2026
