Security Deposit Amounts in Dubai: 5% or 10%, and What the Law Actually Says

Ask any Dubai agent how much the security deposit is and you will get the same answer within a second: 5% unfurnished, 10% furnished. It is accurate as a description of the market. It is not what the law says, because the law does not say anything about the number at all.

Here is the short, complete picture: the convention, the legal position, what is negotiable, and how to pay a deposit so that twelve months later you can prove you paid it.

The convention: 5% and 10%

In practice, a Dubai landlord asks for 5% of the annual rent as security on an unfurnished property and 10% on a furnished one. On a AED 100,000 tenancy that is AED 5,000 or AED 10,000; on AED 200,000, double. The furnished premium reflects what the deposit is protecting: not just walls and floors but an inventory of sofas, appliances and fittings that a check-out will count item by item.

Almost every listing, contract template and agent conversation runs on these two numbers, and for most tenancies they are what you will pay.

The law: return is mandatory, the amount is not fixed

Dubai Law No. 26 of 2007, the tenancy law, is clear on one thing and silent on another. Clear: the deposit must be returned at the end of the tenancy, less only justified deductions for damage beyond normal wear and tear, unpaid rent or unpaid bills. Silent: how much it can be.

There is no statutory cap. France limits deposits to one or two months of rent, the UK to five weeks, Germany to three months of cold rent; Dubai sets no ceiling, which means the amount is whatever the contract says. A landlord asking for 8%, or a flat AED 15,000, is not breaking any law. He is making an opening position in a negotiation that ends the moment you sign.

The corollary matters: the number is negotiable before signature and binding after it. If the deposit requested sits above the convention, that is a pre-signature conversation, ideally alongside the cheque structure and the maintenance clause. After signature, the only argument left is at the end of the tenancy, over deductions, not over the amount.

Paying it so you can prove it

A surprising number of deposit disputes are not about deductions at all. They are about whether the deposit was paid, how much, and to whom. Three habits close that gap entirely:

Pay by a traceable method. Bank transfer or a cheque made out to the landlord named on the title deed, never cash without paper. The transfer record is your proof twelve months from now.

Get a receipt that names it. “Security deposit, AED 5,000, tenancy at [address], [dates].” A payment that is not labeled as a deposit can be reframed later as something else.

Make the contract say it. The deposit amount belongs in the contract as its own line, separate from the rent schedule, with the return terms stated. A deposit that exists only in a WhatsApp message is a deposit that exists only in a WhatsApp message.

And keep all three with your check-in report, because they are two halves of the same file: the payment proves what you gave, the condition record proves what you should get back.

The security-cheque trap

A related request appears in some Dubai tenancies and deserves its own warning: the security cheque. An undated or open cheque handed to the landlord “as security,” separate from, or instead of, a paid deposit.

The difference is not academic. A deposit paid and receipted is a defined sum, held against defined deductions, returnable under the law. An open cheque is a blank instrument in someone else’s hands, and its conditions of use are whatever the holder decides unless the contract spells them out. If a security cheque is requested, get its exact purpose, amount and return conditions written into the contract, and prefer to pay the deposit itself by transfer against a receipt. Whatever the agent says about it being “standard,” the version that protects you is the version that is written down.

The number that actually matters

Five percent or ten percent is the easy part. The deposit’s real value is decided at the other end of the tenancy, by whether a signed check-in report exists to measure deductions against. A AED 5,000 deposit with a baseline comes back on evidence in days. A AED 5,000 deposit without one comes back on the burden of proof, eventually, after months. Same money, different tenancy. Here is how to get it back, and here is how to make sure you never have to fight for it.