Paying for Dubai property from abroad
From abroad, you pay for an off-plan home (one still being built) by bank transfer, straight into the project’s escrow account: a bank account that Dubai law keeps for that one project. A ready property is paid on transfer day by manager’s cheque, a cheque that a UAE bank issues against money already in the account. Ardara Estates is a RERA-licensed Dubai property broker. We guide you through every step of buying. We have never held a buyer’s money or cheque, and purchase money does not pass through our accounts. Every bank on the way will ask who you are and where the money comes from.
Ardara Estates is a property broker, and our fee comes from the sale. What we are, and what we are not.
Key facts, checked 4 October 2026
- Off-plan: each instalment goes by bank transfer from your own account into the project’s escrow account. You need no UAE bank account.
- Ready property: paid by manager’s cheque from a UAE bank on transfer day. Budget 4% for the Land Department’s fee.
- Crypto: the escrow account is a dirham bank account. You sell the crypto first and pay by bank transfer, and the purchase is reported.
- Cash: declare more than AED 60,000 at the border. A broker reports AED 55,000 or more paid in cash.
On this page: Who does what The route What it costs Crypto Cash The checks Must I come to Dubai? Who we can’t help Sources Questions
Who does what
The bank or licensed firm you choose moves your money. We explain each step, say which documents you need, and see the purchase through to the title deed.
| Step | Who does it |
|---|---|
| Choosing the property, the reservation and the Sale and Purchase Agreement (SPA) | Ardara Estates, as your broker |
| The list of documents your bank and the developer will ask for | Ardara Estates |
| Choosing who moves the money | You. Abroad: your own bank, or a payment firm your country’s regulator licenses. In the UAE: a bank or exchange house on the Central Bank’s register |
| The account, the transfer, any currency exchange, and the firm’s own checks | The bank or licensed firm you chose |
| Off-plan instalments | Paid into the project’s escrow account (Dubai Law No. 8 of 2007), from an account in your own name |
| Registering the sale with the Dubai Land Department | Ardara Estates prepares the file; the developer or a Land Department registration trustee registers it |
The route, step by step
- Gather the documents first. The bank checks you before it moves the money, so have these ready:
- your passport;
- proof of your home address;
- statements for the account the money will leave;
- papers that show how you built the money: a business sale, an inheritance, years of salary;
- for a company or a fund, who ultimately owns it.
- Off-plan: pay the escrow account from your own bank. Each instalment goes by international transfer from an account in your own name straight into the project’s escrow account, named in your SPA and the developer’s payment instructions. You do not need a UAE bank account for this. Before you send, ask your bank how many working days it takes and what rate and fee it charges. Send early.
- Ready property: the money must be in a UAE account first. The price is settled on transfer day at a Land Department registration trustee’s office, usually by manager’s cheque from a UAE bank. Some UAE banks open accounts for non-residents; the bank decides, and nobody can promise you an account or a date. No UAE bank account? Message us before you commit.
- Check the account before every transfer. Search the project’s name in the Land Department’s Project Status Enquiry; it needs no login. The project’s record has an “Escrow Account” tab with the bank’s name and the escrow account number, and a “Developer Details” tab with the developer’s phone number. If the bank or the account in your payment instructions is different, ask the developer why before you send. Then confirm the account name and IBAN (in the UAE it starts with AE and has 23 characters) by calling the developer on that number or one from its official website, never one from an email or a chat message.
- Register. The developer registers an off-plan purchase with the Land Department (Oqood) within 90 days of signing; a ready property transfers at the trustee’s office, where the Land Department’s fees are paid by ePay, Dubai Pay, Noqodi or manager’s cheque.
Pay from an account in your own name. If a relative or a company must pay, tell us and ask the developer in writing before anything is sent: the ministry’s guidance for brokers (March 2026) lists payments from accounts not held in the buyer’s name as a warning sign.
Your own country’s rules. Some countries limit or tax money sent abroad. Ask your own bank and an adviser at home before you send.
What it costs: the Land Department’s fees
These are the Dubai Land Department’s own figures for registering a sale. Its site was last updated on 30 September 2026; we read it on 4 October 2026.
| Fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Registration fee | 4% of the price. The Land Department lists 2% for the buyer and 2% for the seller; the buyer is usually asked to pay both, so budget 4% |
| Title deed | AED 250 |
| Map, for a villa or an apartment | AED 250 |
| Knowledge and innovation fees | AED 10 each, on each fee |
| Registration trustee’s office | AED 4,000 + VAT (AED 2,000 + VAT below AED 500,000) |
An example. An apartment at AED 2,000,000 (about USD 545,000): AED 80,000 + AED 250 + AED 250 + the small fees + AED 4,200 comes to about AED 84,800, or about USD 23,100 at the fixed rate of AED 3.6725 to the dollar. Land Department and trustee fees only.
Off-plan. The Land Department lists the same 2% and 2%, and the developer registers the sale.
If your money is in crypto or USDT
What we are, and what we are not
Ardara Estates is a property brokerage. Our licence, from Dubai’s property regulator RERA, covers brokering the purchase and sale of real estate (check our licence). Moving, exchanging or converting money, and any crypto service, need licences from the Central Bank, VARA or the Capital Market Authority. We hold none of them, so that work is done by the bank, exchange house, payment firm or crypto firm you choose. Our fee comes from the property sale: on a new project the developer pays it; on a resale the buyer’s commission is customarily 2%, agreed in writing before anything is signed. This guide is general information as at 4 October 2026, not legal, tax or financial advice. Banks, licensed firms, developers and the Land Department make their own decisions.
Crypto can lose part or all of its value. The property’s price is fixed in dirhams, so every instalment you pay out of crypto is a separate sale at that day’s price.
A Dubai property is paid for in dirhams. The project’s escrow account is a dirham bank account. It cannot receive Bitcoin, Ether, USDT, USDC or any other crypto. So you sell the crypto yourself, at a firm licensed in the UAE for virtual assets, into a bank account in your own name, and pay by bank transfer.
Already sold your crypto at home, and the money is in your own bank account? You pay by bank transfer like any other buyer. Keep the exchange statements. The purchase is still reported.
Why other sites say developers accept crypto. They mean that a payment firm the developer has appointed takes the crypto and pays the developer dirhams. The contract, the escrow payment and the title deed stay in dirhams. It is the one payment that does not go straight to the escrow account, and we take no part in it. If a developer offers it, get it in writing from the developer first.
Choosing the firm is your job. Three checks, all on the website of VARA, Dubai’s crypto regulator:
- Ask the firm for its legal name. The register lists legal names, and they often differ from the brand.
- Find that name on VARA’s public register, under “Licensed VASPs”. A firm listed only under “In-Principle Approval” may not serve clients yet.
- Look at VARA’s list of unlicensed firms as well.
Outside Dubai, the federal Capital Market Authority licenses these firms.
Warning signs the UAE’s regulators publish: no licence on a regulator’s register; no real office or business address; pressure to act quickly; contact you did not ask for. A firm with none of these signs is still not cleared. Only the register clears a firm.
What we will ask you for: statements from the exchange; the bank records that show how you first paid for the crypto; proof that the wallet is yours; a short note on how you built the holding; the receipt for the sale and the bank credit that followed. Your bank and the developer may ask for more.
It is reported. A broker must report any purchase where any part of the price is, or came from, crypto. It is the same report for every buyer who pays this way: the details.
If you travel with cash
- At the border, the figure is AED 60,000 (about USD 16,300). Declare anything above it when you enter or leave the UAE: cash in any currency, or the same value in negotiable financial instruments (a bearer cheque, for example), precious metals or stones. Declare in the Afseh app or at declare.customs.ae; it is free. Not declaring can bring a customs fine, or the money can be seized and the case passed to law enforcement. Declaring does not make cash lawful if it left your country against its rules. A bank will ask for the declaration and the source of the cash, and may still refuse it.
- At the purchase, the figure is AED 55,000 (about USD 15,000). A broker must report AED 55,000 or more paid in cash toward a property, in one payment or several.
The checks you’ll face
The UAE’s anti-money-laundering law (Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025, in force since 14 October 2025) requires banks, exchange houses and property brokers alike to check four things: who you are; who really owns the money; where this payment comes from; and how you built your wealth. The documents in step 1 answer them.
A broker must also file a Real Estate Activity Report with the UAE’s Financial Intelligence Unit, the national body that receives such reports. It is the same report for every buyer who pays this way: on any freehold purchase or sale where AED 55,000 or more is paid in cash, in one payment or several, or where any part of the price is paid in crypto or with money converted from or to crypto, whatever the amount. The rule is in Ministry of Economy Circular 5 of 2022 and in the ministry’s March 2026 guidance for brokers, which says the duty does not depend on risk. It is filed because of how a purchase is paid, not because anyone is suspected.
Must I come to Dubai?
- Off-plan: the developer registers your purchase online, from a copy of the signed agreement and your passport, and the Land Department emails you the certificate. Ask the developer how you sign from abroad.
- A ready property: the transfer is done at a registration trustee’s office by the buyer and the seller, or by their legally authorised representatives.
- If you cannot attend: your lawyer can advise you on a power of attorney limited to that one transaction. The Land Department decides which powers of attorney it accepts, so have the wording checked before you rely on it.
Who we can’t help
We turn these away, whatever the budget:
- Money that left its home country against that country’s rules, such as exchange controls or a ban on crypto. Passing through a UAE bank does not change where it came from.
- Money whose source you cannot document.
- Anyone, or any money, linked to sanctions.
- Sending crypto to a developer’s or a seller’s wallet. We take no part in a purchase paid that way.
What people get wrong
- Paying the price to anyone but the escrow account. Every off-plan instalment goes to the project’s escrow account named in your SPA. A request to pay a personal account, or a company account outside it, is the clearest warning sign in this market.
- Trusting bank details that arrive by email or chat. Confirm the account name and IBAN by calling the developer on a number from its official website.
- Sending the documents after the money. A transfer can wait at the bank until it has your source-of-funds documents. Send them first.
Tell us where you stand
Three choices write your first WhatsApp message. Skip any of them.
Sources
Official pages, each read on 4 October 2026. A figure we could not check there is not on this page.
- Dubai Land Department: registering a sale (fees, how they are paid); registering an off-plan sale; Project Status Enquiry; questions and answers (the escrow account).
- Central Bank of the UAE: the register of licensed banks and exchange houses.
- VARA: the public register and the list of unlicensed firms.
- The UAE’s regulators: joint guidance on unlicensed virtual-asset providers (the warning signs).
- Cash at the border: the UAE Government portal and the federal customs authority’s statement (7 February 2023).
- The broker’s report: Ministry of Economy Circular 5 of 2022 and the Ministry of Economy and Tourism’s guidance for brokers, March 2026.
- Who usually pays the 4%: PwC, UAE tax summary (reviewed 9 September 2026).
Common questions
No. We have never held a buyer’s money or cheque, and purchase money does not pass through our accounts. It goes from an account in your own name to the project’s escrow account or, for a ready property, to the seller and the Land Department.
Not for off-plan: you pay each instalment into the project’s escrow account from your own bank abroad. A ready property is usually paid by manager’s cheque from a UAE bank, so message us before you commit if you have no UAE account.
Dirhams must arrive: prices, instalments and the Land Department’s fees are all in UAE dirhams. The dirham is pegged to the US dollar at 3.6725, and your bank adds its own exchange margin and fee.
Ask your bank before you send: how many working days, what exchange rate and what fee. Each 1% of exchange margin on AED 2,000,000 is AED 20,000, so ask early and send early.
Pay from an account in your own name. If a relative or a company must pay, tell us and ask the developer in writing before anything is sent.
Not for off-plan: the developer registers the purchase online and the Land Department emails you the certificate. A ready property is transferred at a trustee’s office by you or by your legally authorised representative.
Not in crypto: the escrow account is a dirham bank account. You sell the crypto first and pay each instalment by bank transfer, and each sale is at that day’s price.
Not into the escrow account, which is a dirham bank account. Where other sites say a developer accepts crypto, a payment firm the developer appointed takes it and pays the developer dirhams; we take no part in that.
The contract, the payment and the title deed are all in dirhams. The purchase is still reported as funded from crypto.
Declare more than AED 60,000 (about USD 16,300) when you enter or leave the UAE. That does not make it lawful if it left your country against its rules, and a bank may still refuse it.
In some cases, by law: when AED 55,000 or more is paid in cash, or any part of the price is, or came from, crypto. It is the same report for every buyer who pays that way, not a sign of suspicion.
The property sale does: on a new project the developer pays our fee; on a resale the buyer’s commission is customarily 2%, agreed in writing before anything is signed.
Search its name in the Central Bank of the UAE’s register, at centralbank.ae/en/licensing. Do it before you send anything.
Still have a question about this?
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