Dubai rents, month by month
The official rent index, updated monthly. Rent growth has slowed in every single month of 2026.
This page tracks Dubai's official Residential Rent Price Index and is updated each time a new month is published.
At the latest reading, July 2026, the general index stood at 115.45 against a 2024 base of 100. Rents are about 15% above their 2024 average.
The level is not the story. The direction of travel is.
Rent growth has slowed every month this year
| Month, 2026 | Index | Rise on the month |
|---|---|---|
| January | 112.96 | |
| February | 113.65 | +0.69 |
| March | 114.20 | +0.55 |
| April | 114.62 | +0.42 |
| May | 114.97 | +0.35 |
| June | 115.22 | +0.25 |
| July | 115.45 | +0.23 |
Every month in 2026 has added less than the month before it. Not once has the increment gone back up.
Rents are still rising. They are rising more slowly every month, and the deceleration has been uninterrupted for seven months.
New lets and renewals have separated
This is the part almost nobody reports, and it is the most useful thing in the data.
The index splits into rents agreed on new tenancies and rents agreed on renewals. They have stopped moving together.
| Series | Peak | Latest, July 2026 | Off peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apartments, new lets | 117.48 in May 2026 | 117.30 | −0.15% |
| Apartments, renewals | 114.31 in July 2026 | 114.31 | at peak |
| Villas, new lets | 112.88 in April 2026 | 112.55 | −0.29% |
| Villas, renewals | 117.13 in July 2026 | 117.13 | at peak |
New-let rents have peaked and started falling. Renewal rents are still at their highest recorded level.
Villa new lets peaked in April and have fallen in three of the four months since. Apartment new lets peaked in May. Meanwhile both renewal series set a new high in July.
Why that gap matters
New lets are what the market will pay today. Renewals are what sitting tenants agreed to before, adjusted within the limits the index allows.
New lets move first because they are priced against current demand. Renewals follow later, because they are anchored to an existing contract and constrained by the rules on increases.
So a gap opening between them, with new lets softening while renewals still climb, is what a turning rental market looks like early. It is not proof of one. Two to four months of movement in a monthly index is a signal, not a conclusion, and it could reverse in the next release.
What it does mean, concretely:
If you are renewing, it is worth checking what the same building is actually letting for now rather than accepting an increase on the assumption that everything is still rising. The gap between what a new tenant pays and what you are being asked is narrower than it was, and in villas it has inverted.
If you are letting a property out, asking rents that were achievable in spring may not be now. Rents rose 8.8% in 2025 against 9.8% on prices, so yields have been compressing even while both were climbing.
What this index is and is not
- It measures agreed rents, not asking prices. Asking prices move first.
- The base is 2024 = 100, which is a different base from the property price index. The two are not directly comparable.
- Monthly data is noisy. One month is nothing. Seven consecutive months of deceleration is worth noticing.
- It is Dubai-wide. Your community may be doing something else entirely.
Method
Dubai Statistics Center, Residential Rent Price Index, base year 2024. Latest refresh 7 September 2026. Figures derived by a script kept with this site.
Updated monthly.