How to Compute Net Rental Yield in Dubai (Service Charges, Voids and All)

Key takeaways: Gross yield is annual rent divided by purchase price, expressed as a percentage. Net yield subtracts the real costs of being a Dubai landlord — service charges, agency fees, maintenance, void periods, and DLD transaction fees amortised over your holding period. The gap between gross and net in Dubai is typically 1.5–3 percentage points. A 7% gross yield is often a 4.5–5% net yield once you do the arithmetic.

The gross yield calculation

The easy one:

Gross yield = (Annual rent in AED ÷ Purchase price in AED) × 100

If you buy a JVC studio for AED 600,000 and rent it for AED 45,000 a year, that's a 7.5% gross yield. Dubai's median gross yield across the apartment market sits around 6–7% — high by global standards, which is why Dubai attracts so much rental-investment capital.

The five things you have to subtract for net yield

1. Service charges

Every owner of an apartment in Dubai pays an annual service charge to the Owners Association (OA) for shared maintenance, security, pool, lifts, and reserves. RERA publishes these per project. They range from AED 8–15 per sqft per year in mass-market apartment communities to AED 30–60 per sqft per year in premium Downtown towers. For a 600 sqft studio at AED 15/sqft, that's AED 9,000/year — about 1.5 percentage points off your gross yield.

2. Agency fees (when you re-let)

Standard practice in Dubai is 5% of one year's annual rent as agency commission when a new tenant is signed. If your tenant turns over every 18 months on average, that's 5% × (12/18) = 3.3% of annual rent as a recurring annual cost — about 0.3 percentage points off your yield. Tenants on multi-year contracts reduce this.

3. Maintenance and voids

Annual maintenance for things the OA doesn't cover — AC servicing, appliance repairs, painting between tenants — typically runs AED 3,000–7,000/year for an apartment. Add a void period of about 2–4 weeks every time the property turns over (so ~3–6% of annual rent lost on average over a 2-year cycle). Together, another ~0.5–1 percentage points.

4. DLD fees, amortised

You pay 4% to the DLD on purchase and another 4% if you sell. If you hold for 7 years, that's 8% spread over 7 years = ~1.1% of purchase price per year. Subtract from the gross yield: about 0.2 percentage points on a 7% yielder, more on a low-yielder.

5. Income tax

There is no UAE personal income tax on rental income for natural persons. But if you're a resident of a country that taxes worldwide income (UK, US, Australia, most of Europe), your home tax authority taxes the rent. This isn't a Dubai-side cost — but it's a real cost to your net return. Check your home jurisdiction's rules before quoting "net yield" as if it were take-home.

Putting it together — a worked example

JVC studio. Purchase price AED 600,000. Annual rent AED 45,000. Building service charge AED 15/sqft on 600 sqft. Tenant turnover every 18 months.

• Gross yield: 45,000 / 600,000 = 7.5%
• Less service charges (AED 9,000): −1.5%
• Less agency fees (~AED 1,500/yr amortised): −0.25%
• Less maintenance + voids (~AED 5,000/yr): −0.83%
• Less DLD fees amortised over 7-yr hold: −0.20%
• Net yield: ~4.7%

That's the number to compare across communities — and the number to compare against your alternative use of capital. A 4.7% net yield in AED in a property is reasonable in 2026; tighter than two years ago, looser than two years from now if rents soften.

Where service charges actually bite

The communities that look highest-yielding on gross are not always the highest on net. Downtown Dubai apartments often have service charges of AED 25–40/sqft, which can eat 4+ percentage points off the yield. JVC and Business Bay tend to have lower service charges and so the gap between gross and net narrows.

The rental yield calculator on Dubuy does this arithmetic per community with the live service-charge data, so you can compare net to net rather than gross to gross. It's the only fair way to rank Dubai's apartment market for income.