Signing a lease is the easy part. Most of the money in a rental building is made or lost at renewal.
In Dubai, renewals run on a fixed legal clock. If you want to change the rent or any other term, you have to tell the tenant in writing at least 90 days before the lease ends. Miss that date and the lease rolls over on the same terms. You won’t get another chance to raise the rent for a full year.
That’s easy to manage with ten units. It’s much harder with 300 units, when renewals come in every week. Dubai registered more than 900,000 rental contracts in 2024, and every one of them has an end date.
This guide explains the renewal rules in plain language and gives you a simple day-by-day timeline your team can follow.
Quick answer: In Dubai, start each renewal about 120 days before the lease ends. Check the allowed rent increase on the Smart Rental Index, and send any written notice of changes before the 90-day mark. Aim to have the new terms agreed by around 60 days, and the renewed lease signed and registered on Ejari before the old one expires.
What is lease management in Dubai, and how is it different from rental contract management?
Contract management is about creating the lease: the template, the tenant’s details, the signatures and the registration.
Lease management covers everything that happens after that, for as long as the tenant stays:
- tracking when each lease starts and ends
- keeping payment schedules and cheques in line with the lease
- handling changes, such as a new occupant or a new payment plan
- planning and running renewals
- managing move-outs when a tenant leaves
In other words, contract management happens once per tenant. Lease management happens every day across the whole building. Renewals are where it matters most, because that’s where the law sets hard deadlines.
What happens if a landlord misses the 90-day notice for a rent increase in Dubai?
If you miss it, the tenant can keep the existing terms, including the existing rent.
Here’s how the rules work together:
- The notice rule. If either side wants to change any term of the lease at renewal, they must tell the other side at least 90 days before it ends, unless the lease says otherwise. This comes from Article 14 of Dubai’s tenancy law, as amended in 2008.
- The rollover rule. If the lease ends and the tenant stays on without the landlord objecting, the lease renews on the same terms, for the same period or one year, whichever is shorter.
- How disputes go. Where the notice was late or missing, the Rental Disputes Centre generally refuses the increase and treats the lease as renewed at the old rent.
What counts as proper written notice for a rent increase or lease change in Dubai?
The law defines a notice as written, sent through a notary public, by registered mail, by hand, or by other electronic means approved by law. Whatever method you use, keep proof of when it was sent and received. The notice should also state the new rent clearly. “Rent will go up in line with the market” isn’t specific enough.
If you are using a rental management software like ADDA, then these notices can be managed from the software itself.
How much rental income can a landlord lose by missing the 90-day renewal notice?
Take a building with 40 leases renewing in the same quarter, at an average rent of AED 90,000 a year. Say the Smart Rental Index allows a 5% increase on each.
That’s AED 4,500 per unit, or AED 180,000 across the 40 units. If the notices go out late, that income is gone for the next 12 months.
The figures are an example, not a market estimate. The point is that one missed date, repeated across a portfolio, becomes a line item the owner will notice.
How much can a landlord increase rent at lease renewal in Dubai?
Between 0% and 20%, depending on how far the current rent is below the average rent for similar units. The limits come from Decree No. 43 of 2013.
| How far current rent is below the average for similar units | Maximum increase at renewal |
| Up to 10% below | No increase |
| 11% to 20% below | 5% |
| 21% to 30% below | 10% |
| 31% to 40% below | 15% |
| More than 40% below | 20% |
Source: Decree No. 43 of 2013, confirmed by Al Tamimi & Company.
These are ceilings, not targets. A landlord can always ask for less, or keep the rent the same.
How does the Dubai Smart Rental Index decide the average rent for a building?
It comes from the Smart Rental Index, which the Dubai Land Department launched in January 2025. Instead of broad area averages, it uses a building classification system that looks at the technical and service quality of each building. (source)
In practice, two similar flats in the same area can now have different allowed increases if their buildings are rated differently. So check the index for each unit at renewal, not once a year for the whole area. You can do this on the Dubai Land Department website or the Dubai REST app.
What should a property manager do 120, 90, 60 and 30 days before a lease ends in Dubai?
The legal deadline is 90 days. Starting at 120 gives your team a month to prepare, so the notice goes out on time and with the right number in it.
| Days before lease ends | What to do | Why it matters |
| 120 | Pull every lease ending in the next four months. For each one, check the tenant’s payment record and look up the allowed increase on the Smart Rental Index. | You’re deciding on facts, not guesses, while there’s still time. |
| 105 to 95 | Agree the renewal terms with the owner, then send written notice of any change in rent or terms. Keep proof of delivery. | This gives you a buffer before the legal cut-off. |
| 90 | Legal deadline to notify changes, unless the lease says otherwise. | After this date, the tenant can insist on the current terms. |
| 60 | Aim to have the new terms agreed. If the tenant disagrees, talk it through early rather than leaving it to the last week. | If agreement can’t be reached, either side can go to the Rental Disputes Centre, and that takes time. |
| 30 | Prepare the renewal contract and the new payment schedule, whether that’s cheques or another method. | You avoid a gap where the old lease has ended and the new one isn’t ready. |
| 0 | Sign the renewal and register it on Ejari. Update your records so rent reminders and reports use the new terms. | Every lease and every change to it has to be registered with RERA. |
One more date sits outside this timeline. If an owner wants the unit back at the end of the lease, for example to sell it or live in it, the notice period is 12 months, not 90 days. That decision needs to be made much earlier, which is covered in the next section.
How far in advance should a rental building track upcoming lease expiries?
For a busy building, a rolling four-month view of upcoming expiries is the minimum. Many operators also keep a 12-month view, so owners can plan for sales or major works that need longer notice.
Can a landlord refuse to renew a tenant’s lease in Dubai?
Only for specific reasons, and only with 12 months’ notice. When a lease ends, a landlord can ask the tenant to leave in just four situations: (source)
- The owner wants to demolish and rebuild, or add new structures, and has the permits to do it.
- The property needs major repairs that can’t be done with the tenant living there, confirmed by a Dubai Municipality technical report.
- The owner wants the property for themselves or a first-degree relative, and can show they don’t own another suitable property.
- The owner wants to sell the property.
In each case, the tenant must be told the reason at least 12 months before the eviction date, through a notary public or by registered mail.
Why can’t a landlord in Dubai ask a tenant to leave just because the lease has ended?
Because Dubai’s tenancy law treats a rental as the tenant’s home, not a short-term arrangement. Once someone is living in a unit and paying rent, the law expects the lease to carry on unless there’s a real reason to end it. The landlord’s main lever at renewal is the rent, and even that is capped by the Smart Rental Index.
That doesn’t mean a tenant can stay no matter what. A landlord can seek eviction during the lease if the tenant doesn’t pay rent within 30 days of a formal notice, sublets without written permission, uses the property illegally or for a different purpose, causes serious damage, or doesn’t fix another breach of the lease within 30 days of being notified. (source) A tenancy can also end by mutual agreement, and many do. Often that’s a straightforward conversation, sometimes with an incentive such as help with moving costs.
In practice, most tenancies end because the tenant decides to move. For operators, that makes renewal the normal outcome, which is why getting the notice date and the rent right matters so much.
If an owner takes a home back for their own use, they can’t rent it to someone else for at least two years. If they do, the tenant can ask the tribunal for compensation.
Why do some websites say a Dubai landlord needs only 90 days’ notice to evict a tenant?
The original 2007 version of the law allowed 90 days’ notice for these situations. The 2008 amendment changed it to 12 months. Some websites still quote the old wording, so check the date of anything you read.
For a rental building, this means any plan to sell units or renovate a floor has to show up in lease planning a year ahead, not a quarter ahead.
Why do new build-to-rent buildings in Dubai get too many lease renewals at the same time?
Because most leases in a new building start in the same few months, so they also end in the same few months.
Picture a new 250-unit build-to-rent tower that fills up between March and May. With standard one-year leases, around 200 renewals land in March, April and May the following year. The rest of the year is quiet. Then the same crunch comes back every spring.
That causes three problems:
- Deadlines get missed. When dozens of 90-day notices are due in the same fortnight, a few slip through. Each one that slips keeps its current rent for another year.
- Move-outs cluster. If even 20% of those tenants leave, you have 40 empty flats to fill at once, all competing with each other.
- You depend on one season’s market. If rents in your area soften that spring, most of your building renews into a weak market together.
How can a rental building spread lease renewals more evenly across the year?
The fix is to break up the cluster over the first year or two:
- Offer different lease lengths at lease-up. Some tenants may prefer 12 months, others 15 or 18. Mixing lease lengths spreads out the end dates from day one.
- Use the first renewal to rebalance. When the first wave comes up, offer some tenants a slightly shorter or longer renewal term to move them into quieter months.
- Watch the calendar by month, not just the total. A building at 95% occupancy can still be exposed if half its leases end in one quarter.
- Plan the team around the peak. If a crunch is unavoidable, start the 120-day process earlier for that batch so notices aren’t all prepared in the same week.
Lease terms are agreed between landlord and tenant. Check any non-standard term with your legal team before offering it.
What should a lease expiry report include for a rental building in Dubai?
A good lease expiry report lets you see every renewal coming up and where each one stands. At a minimum, it should show:
- unit, tenant name and lease end date
- days left until the lease ends, and whether the 90-day mark has passed
- current rent, and the allowed increase from the Smart Rental Index
- whether notice has been sent, and on what date
- the tenant’s response: renewing, negotiating, leaving or no reply yet
- the tenant’s payment record over the current lease
- expiries grouped by month, so you can spot clusters early
If your team is tracking this in a spreadsheet, the risk isn’t that the sheet is wrong on day one. The risk is that it’s out of date by day 30, because leases, payments and notices are all updated in different places.
How does lease management software help rental buildings handle renewals?
When lease dates, rent schedules, cheques and tenant communication all live in one system, the renewal list builds itself. Your team gets reminders before key dates instead of discovering them afterwards, and the owner’s monthly report shows what’s coming up without anyone putting it together by hand.
That’s the role lease management software like ADDA Rental Manager plays for build-to-rent and rental building operators across the UAE. It keeps leases, renewals and rent collection connected, so the dates that matter don’t depend on someone’s memory.
Running renewals for a whole building? See how ADDA does it.
Frequently asked questions
How many days’ notice does a landlord need to give to increase rent in Dubai?
At least 90 days before the lease ends, in writing, unless the lease says otherwise. If the notice is late, the tenant can keep the current rent.
What happens if no one gives notice before a lease ends in Dubai?
If the tenant stays on and the landlord doesn’t object, the lease renews on the same terms. It renews for the same period or one year, whichever is shorter.
How much can a landlord increase rent at renewal in Dubai?
From 0% to 20%, depending on how far the current rent is below the Smart Rental Index average for similar units. If the rent is within 10% of the average, no increase is allowed.
When did the Smart Rental Index start?
The Dubai Land Department launched it in January 2025. It rates individual buildings, so the allowed increase can differ between buildings in the same area.
Can a landlord ask a tenant to leave when the lease ends?
Only for four reasons: demolition or rebuilding, major repairs that need the unit empty, the owner’s own use or a close relative’s, or a sale. The tenant must get 12 months’ notice through a notary public or registered mail.
Does a renewed lease need to be registered on Ejari again?
Yes. Dubai law requires every lease, and any change to it, to be registered with RERA. Renewing the Ejari registration is part of completing the renewal.
When should a property manager start the renewal process?
Around 120 days before the lease ends. That leaves time to check the index, agree terms with the owner and send notice before the 90-day deadline.
What is the difference between lease management and contract management?
Contract management is about creating the lease. Lease management covers everything after that, including payment schedules, changes, renewals and move-outs, for as long as the tenant stays.