Oqood in Dubai: off-plan registration, fees and handover

Off-plan sales in Dubai are registered through Oqood, the Dubai Land Department (DLD) portal where the developer enters each sale in the interim property register within 90 days of signing; DLD then emails the buyer a provisional registration e-certificate. On its initial-sale page, DLD lists 2% of the price from the seller, 2% from the buyer, and a knowledge fee and an innovation fee of AED 10 each.

What Oqood is

DLD's service page describes a process that lets a real estate developer "register units sold off-plan or land plots whose value has not been fully paid at the provisional register". The developer files through the Real Estate Developers Portal (Oqood) on DLD's website; Oqood is the name of that portal. The result is often called an "Oqood certificate", though DLD's own term is a provisional registration e-certificate.

The register rests on Law No. 13 of 2008 Regulating the Interim Property Register in the Emirate of Dubai, issued on 14 August 2008. Article 2 defines the Interim Property Register as the record "in which sale contracts, Off-plan Sales, and other off-plan legal dispositions of real property are registered prior to inclusion in the Property Register". Article 3(1) gives it force: any sale or other legal disposition that transfers or restricts ownership "will be void unless entered in that Register". Laws No. 9 of 2009, No. 19 of 2017 and No. 19 of 2020 amended it, and none of them changes Articles 3 or 8.

An Oqood registration is not a title deed. The deed comes later, from the Property Register, once the project is complete (see the handover section below).

On 3 September 2026 DLD launched an "Initial Registration" platform for developers, which it describes as joining project registration, real estate transaction registration and escrow account management. The announcement mentions no change to buyer fees or to the 90-day rule.

Oqood fees: what DLD lists

Illustration only: on an AED 1,000,000 sale, the two 2% lines come to AED 40,000 in total (1,000,000 × 2% = 20,000 for each side; 20,000 + 20,000 = 40,000), plus AED 10 + AED 10 = AED 20. Who pays which line is set by the sale agreement.

The page shows no service partner fee, no VAT line and no "admin fee", and it does not say whether the AED 1,000 developer fee applies per unit. Some guides quote an "AED 40 admin fee", "AED 250 to 500 administrative charges" or "AED 3,000 to 5,000" for registration; none of these is on DLD's initial-sale page. Payment is through a Noqodi wallet or deduction from the escrow account.

Who pays in practice

DLD's fee table splits the 4% evenly, 2% from the seller and 2% from the purchaser. That is how DLD lists the lines, not a rule about who bears them.

DLD's clearest statement on the point is a news item from 31 May 2021. It said the buyer or investor must settle DLD's property registration fees to the real estate developer, and that the 4% is "paid based on the agreement concluded between the seller and the buyer". The same item told developers to start paying DLD within a maximum period of 60 days, through the Noqodi developer wallet in Dubai REST, a deposit into the project's escrow account, or ePay. That 60-day direction dates from 2021 and concerns payment; the current service page sets a separate 90-day term for registration.

No official page we read says how the 4% is usually divided today. Read the payment clause in your sale and purchase agreement, and ask the developer to confirm in writing which registration fees you will be charged and when. Our guide to DLD fees sets out the full cost of buying.

Documents the developer submits

The developer files the request using the purchaser's documents. DLD lists the following.

A purchaser who is a decree holder needs a To Whom It May Concern letter from the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship. Buying from overseas? Our guide to buying property in Dubai as a foreigner covers the steps, and our residential sales page lists the extra checks for an off-plan purchase.

How to check your Oqood registration

Once the developer's request is processed, DLD sends the provisional registration e-certificate to the purchaser by email; the service time it gives is a business day. Keep that email with your contract.

DLD's Dubai REST app offers a real estate wallet for owners. For off-plan projects, DLD says the app shows the percentage of completion, photos of the project, the escrow account number and payments due on the owners.

The project itself can be checked on DLD's Project Status Enquiry, which shows its status, registration, start and completion dates, developer, and escrow account details. Before you sign, our off-plan checklist explains how to use it alongside the payment plan.

DLD's Verify Title Deed service covers deeds the Land Department has already issued, and its form does not list provisional or Oqood certificates. If you have not received the e-certificate, ask the developer for the registration and compare your contract date with DLD's 90-day deadline.

What happens at handover: Oqood to title deed

Article 8 of Law No. 13 of 2008 sets the next step: "Developers must enter completed projects in the Property Register maintained by the Department once they receive the completion certificate from the Competent Entities". That includes registering sold units in the names of purchasers who met their contractual obligations. DLD may also make that registration itself, either on its own initiative or at the purchaser's request, where the purchaser has fulfilled every obligation.

The DLD service for this is called "Request to complete the initial procedures data".

Illustration only: for an apartment, AED 250 + AED 250 + AED 10 + AED 10 = AED 520. The developer files this request. Whether the cost is passed on to the buyer depends on the sale agreement, and DLD's page does not say.

If an investor stops paying instalments, DLD's termination service lets the developer apply to deregister the provisional registration. The fee is AED 600, plus AED 10 each for knowledge and innovation. DLD's condition is that the buyer received or refused the developer's warning and did not pay within a period of not less than a month.

Our title deed guide covers what the deed is and how DLD verifies it.

Where off-plan sales are concentrated

In the 12 months to 31 August 2026, the off-plan share across Dubai was 74.7% of 166,659 home sales, and it differs sharply by community. In Dubai South, 90.9% of the 14,673 home sales over that period were off-plan. In Dubai Marina, it was 10.3% of 2,228.

We counted every residential apartment, villa and townhouse sale registered with DLD between 1 September 2025 and 31 August 2026 and show the share registered as off-plan (Oqood pre-registration); communities DLD cannot isolate cleanly are left out, and how we calculate the Dubai figures gives the full method. The confidence column is our rating of how cleanly DLD's records isolate each community; low-confidence communities are not shown.

• Six rows rest on fewer than 300 sales, so read them as small samples: Bluewaters Island (133), Arabian Ranches 2 (85), The Views (188), Tilal Al Ghaf (230), The Greens (282) and Arabian Ranches (285).
• Dubai Harbour contains Emaar Beachfront, so its figure includes Emaar Beachfront's 419 sales.
• Meydan's figure excludes District One and Sobha Hartland, which the name is sometimes used for.
• Five communities are left out because DLD registers too many of their homes as land or under non-residential use: District One, Jumeirah Golf Estates, The Lakes, DAMAC Hills 2 and DAMAC Lagoons. Emirates Hills, The Meadows and Mohammed Bin Rashid City are rated low confidence and left out.

A high off-plan share describes where recent sales were registered; it is not a recommendation to buy in a community. More on each area is in our Dubai area guides.

How we checked

This guide draws on DLD's initial-sale, title-deed completion, deregistration, Verify Title Deed, Dubai REST and Project Status pages, its 2021 and 2026 news items, and Law No. 13 of 2008 with its amending laws on the Dubai Legislation Portal, all read on 1 October 2026. The off-plan shares are our analysis of DLD open data, using the method on our About page. This guide describes DLD's published procedures and is not legal advice.

Common questions

If you plan to finance an off-plan purchase, our mortgage coordination page explains how to line up lender discussions with the payment plan. For questions about a specific project or contract, send the project name and your contract date to us using the enquiry form.

Cite as: Firswood Properties, Oqood in Dubai: off-plan registration, fees and handover, 2 October 2026.