Emaar Properties in Dubai

Emaar is the developer everything else in Dubai is measured against. Founded in 1997 by Mohamed Alabbar and listed on the Dubai Financial Market since 2000, it built the Burj Khalifa, The Dubai Mall, Downtown Dubai and Dubai Marina, and it is the only developer on this site with an investment grade credit rating from both S&P and Moody’s.

In 2025 it reported revenue of AED 49.6 billion and property sales of AED 80.4 billion, and it closed June 2026 with a revenue backlog of AED 164.9 billion. If you want the lowest execution risk available in Dubai, this is where the conversation starts.

One ownership change worth knowing, because most sites have not caught up with it. In May 2026 Dubai Holding completed the purchase of ICD’s 22.27 per cent stake, taking its holding to 29.73 per cent and making it Emaar’s largest shareholder. Emaar remains separately listed; this is a shareholding, not a merger.

Emaar Properties at a glance

Track record

Take care with the delivery figure, because Emaar publishes two and they are not interchangeable. The group has delivered more than 130,900 homes since 2002 across Dubai and its international markets. Emaar Development, the UAE build to sell business, had delivered 82,723 homes in the UAE as at March 2026, with 2,100 of those in the first quarter alone. If you see 130,900 described as homes delivered in Dubai, that is wrong, and the number you want for a Dubai purchase is the second one.

The financial scale is in a different league from anything else here. For 2025 the group reported revenue of AED 49.6 billion, up 40 per cent, net profit before tax of AED 25.7 billion, up 36 per cent, and property sales of AED 80.4 billion. The first half of 2026 brought revenue of AED 23.9 billion and a revenue backlog of AED 164.9 billion. On the back of the 2025 results S&P upgraded it to BBB+ and Moody’s to Baa1, both stable.

That rating is the single most useful fact on this page. Investment grade means two independent agencies have looked at Emaar’s ability to finish what it starts and concluded it is strong. No other developer I list has that.

It launched 48 residential projects in 2025 and targeted eleven more in the first half of 2026, across Emaar South, Dubai Hills Estate, The Heights Country Club, The Oasis and Rashid Yachts and Marina. In June 2026 it announced an AED 200 billion masterplan of more than 4.5 million square metres for a projected population near 150,000. It has not been named yet, so treat anything you read calling it by a name as speculation.

Best known for

Delivery and handover

Emaar is the only developer here whose delivery capacity is independently assessed, through its credit ratings, and the only one publishing quarterly delivery numbers to a stock exchange. It does not publish an on time completion percentage, so I will not quote one, but 82,723 UAE homes over twenty four years with sixteen master plans running concurrently is the deepest record in the market.

Its investor disclosure also tells you something useful about how it funds construction: on average 60 to 70 per cent of homes in a project are pre sold, and 20 to 30 per cent of the cash on sold projects is collected before construction even starts. That is why an Emaar payment plan asks for more, earlier, than anyone else here. You are funding a developer that does not need to borrow against your deposit.

The one thing I would want you to know rather than discover later is that Emaar’s communities are delivered in phases over many years. Buying into phase one of a new masterplan means living on a building site for a while. Buying into Dubai Hills Estate, which is largely finished, does not. That difference matters more to a rental valuation than the developer name does.

Where Emaar builds

Wholly owned communities include Downtown Dubai, Dubai Marina, Emirates Living, Emaar Beachfront, Arabian Ranches, The Valley, The Oasis, The Heights Country Club and Wellness, and Grand Polo Club and Resort. It also holds joint venture and joint development interests in Meraas partnered Dubai Hills Estate, plus Dubai Creek Harbour, Emaar South, Rashid Yachts and Marina and Zabeel Square.

Of the seven Emaar schemes I list, two are at Emaar South beside the new Al Maktoum airport, two at Rashid Yachts and Marina on the Port Rashid waterfront, one at Dubai Creek Harbour, one at Dubai Hills Estate and one at The Heights Country Club. They sit at very different points in the build out cycle, and that, not the price, is usually what decides which one suits a given investor.

Its land bank was about 590 million square feet at June 2026, roughly 316 million of it in the UAE. Note that Emaar’s own documents quote land bank on several different bases, so the figure moves depending on which disclosure you read.

Area guides: Dubai Hills Estate, Dubai Creek Harbour and Emaar South.

Payment plans and what you pay up front

Every Emaar scheme I list runs 80/20: 80 per cent across booking and construction, 20 per cent on handover. Worth understanding what that actually means, because it is the most front loaded structure on this site. The 80 per cent is normally about 10 per cent on booking followed by around 70 per cent in staged instalments as the building goes up, as published on Grand Polo Club and Resort.

So the booking cheque is small, often the smallest here, but the instalments come steadily and you will have paid four fifths of the price before you own anything you can rent. Compare that with IMAN at 20/40/40, where half the money is still in your account at handover. Neither is better in the abstract. It depends entirely on whether your cash is sitting idle or working.

The Dubai Land Department registration fee is 4 per cent of the purchase price. On off plan it is normally paid when the sale is registered on the Oqood system, so budget for it alongside the booking deposit rather than at handover.

What it costs to run

Four things cost you money every year once the keys are handed over. The service charge, set per building and billed per square foot. District cooling, which in some towers is billed separately and in others sits inside the service charge. DEWA for water and electricity, plus a refundable deposit when you open the account. And if you let it, a management fee, usually 5 to 8 per cent of the rent on a long let and 15 to 25 per cent on a holiday let.

Service charges are the number most buyers never check and then complain about. Every community has a figure approved by RERA and published on the Dubai Land Department service charge index, which you can look up per building in the Dubai REST app. It is a per building lookup, not a developer average, and the whole developer ranges you see quoted online are not sourced from anywhere. I will pull the approved figure for any building you are serious about before you commit, because on a high amenity tower it is the difference between a gross yield that works and one that does not.

My view on Emaar

Who Emaar suits

It suits an investor whose first priority is that the building gets finished and holds its value, who is comfortable funding most of the price during construction, and who wants an address a tenant or a future buyer recognises. For a first Dubai purchase where you will not be visiting the site, it is the straightforward answer.

It suits you less if you are optimising for gross yield, if you need your capital to stay liquid during the build, or if you want to be in and out on a resale before completion. On yield, Binghatti or IMAN will do better.

How Emaar compares

Against every other developer on this site, Emaar is the low risk, lower yield option, and the only one with an investment grade rating. Against Sobha, its closest competitor on quality, Emaar has the scale and the ratings while Sobha builds and fits out its own buildings in house. Against Nakheel and Meraas, now its fellow Dubai Holding companies, Emaar is far more transparent because it is listed. Against DAMAC you are paying more up front for a materially lower risk of something going wrong.

Emaar Properties: common questions

Financial and delivery figures from Emaar’s own results releases and investor presentations, filed with the Dubai Financial Market, checked in October 2026.