The median price of a large development plot in Dubai doubled between 2023 and 2025, from AED 576 to AED 1,211 per sq ft of plot. Part of that is a change in which plots sold. Looked at like for like, residential development plots rose by about half. In January–September 2026 the overall median was AED 1,084, and deal numbers fell sharply in the spring and have only partly come back.
Most of what DLD calls land isn't development land at all. Almost half the records are small villa and townhouse plots sold by master developers on payment plans. Below we separate the two, show where development plots changed hands, and check which of those areas went on to register projects. That last step is why a developer watches land in the first place.
The figures are land sale records registered with the Dubai Land Department from January 2023 to September 2026. Prices are AED per sq ft of plot area, not built area. DLD's public record feed changed in February 2026, so 2026 counts can't be compared with earlier years and we show them on their own.
What counts as a land deal in Dubai?
DLD files every sale with the property type "land" under one heading, and that heading mixes very different things.
Table: Dubai land sale records by plot size, 2025. Deferred-payment share = records registered as a delayed sale, typical of plots sold by master developers. Source: DLD registered sales, Peak Trust Research.
| Plot size | Records (n) | Share of land records | Median plot (sq ft) | Median price (AED) | Median AED/sq ft of plot | Sold on deferred payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 3,000 sq ft | 12,887 | 46.4% | 1,550 | 2,423,000 | 1,511 | 83% |
| 3,000–10,000 sq ft | 10,777 | 38.8% | 5,506 | 7,322,000 | 1,509 | 84% |
| 10,000–50,000 sq ft | 3,616 | 13.0% | 14,824 | 19,379,000 | 1,293 | 46% |
| 50,000 sq ft and over | 521 | 1.9% | 99,717 | 35,000,000 | 227 | 31% |
The first row is mostly homes. In 2025 the busiest areas for small plots were Al Yelayiss 1, Madinat Hind 4 and Al Hebiah Fifth, where the records carry project names such as DAMAC Islands, DAMAC Hills 2 and DAMAC Lagoons. A 1,550 sq ft plot is a townhouse footprint. Apart from the property-type label, these are off-plan villa sales.
The middle row mixes villa plots in established communities with small building plots. Development land sits in the bottom two rows, plots of 10,000 sq ft and more, and that is the series we track from here on. The 10,000 sq ft line is our own cut-off, not a DLD category.
How have Dubai development-plot prices moved?
Table: Dubai development plots (10,000 sq ft and over) by year. 2026 covers January to September and is not comparable in count with earlier years. Source: DLD registered sales, Peak Trust Research.
| Year | Sales (n) | Median AED/sq ft of plot | Median plot (sq ft) | Median price (AED) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 3,687 | 576 | 18,030 | 13,025,000 |
| 2024 | 3,483 | 725 | 18,385 | 17,475,000 |
| 2025 | 4,137 | 1,211 | 15,609 | 19,900,000 |
| 2026 (Jan–Sep) | 2,745 | 1,084 | 16,576 | 21,200,000 |
A citywide median depends on where the deals happened, and in 2025 more of them were on residential and mixed-use land. Splitting by permitted use gives a cleaner read. Residential development plots went from AED 800 per sq ft in 2023 to AED 1,207 in 2025. Multi-use plots went from AED 730 to AED 1,590.
Table: median AED per sq ft of plot for development plots (10,000 sq ft and over) by permitted use, uses with at least 50 sales in the year. Source: DLD registered sales, Peak Trust Research.
| Use | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (Jan–Sep) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential | 800 (n 1,308) | 816 (n 1,107) | 1,207 (n 1,103) | 1,072 (n 1,169) |
| Commercial | 560 (n 1,510) | 619 (n 1,268) | 750 (n 1,381) | 868 (n 951) |
| Multi-use | 730 (n 180) | 1,481 (n 395) | 1,590 (n 853) | 1,827 (n 343) |
| Industrial | 83 (n 221) | 110 (n 268) | 265 (n 261) | 167 (n 100) |
AGBI gives a citywide figure on a different basis. On 20 July 2026, citing DLD data, it reported that Dubai's median land price had risen 21% over six years to AED 5.9m, and the median price per sq ft 14% to AED 420. That covers a different mix of plots and a different period, so don't line it up against ours figure by figure. It points the same way.
What happened to land deals in 2026?
Development-plot deals fell hard in the spring. There were 362 in March and 99 in May. From June to September the monthly count settled between 144 and 194.
Table: Dubai development-plot sales (10,000 sq ft and over) by month, March–September 2026. Source: DLD registered sales, Peak Trust Research.
| Month (2026) | Sales (n) | Median AED/sq ft of plot |
|---|---|---|
| March | 362 | 1,119 |
| April | 224 | 1,111 |
| May | 99 | 1,267 |
| June | 167 | 1,082 |
| July | 194 | 785 |
| August | 144 | 583 |
| September | 176 | 745 |
Be careful with the lower medians from July to September. With fewer than 200 deals a month spread across very different locations, a handful of large or outlying plots can move the median a long way. We read the summer figures as a change in which plots traded. We'd want two more quarters before calling it a price fall.
Land feeds straight into launch costs. AGBI also reported that Dubai's construction cost index rose 5.2% year on year in Q1 2026, and that margins on mid to large projects run at 8–12%. Residential land that cost about half as much again per sq ft in 2025 as in 2023 leaves less room inside that margin.
Where did development land trade?
Table: development-plot sales (10,000 sq ft and over) by DLD area, 2023 to September 2026, areas with the most sales. Median AED per sq ft of plot shown where the year has at least 20 sales. Source: DLD registered sales, Peak Trust Research.
| Area (DLD name) | Sales 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (Jan–Sep) | Median AED/sq ft 2023 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me'aisem Second | 58 | 327 | 791 | 484 | 906 | 1,627 | 1,828 |
| Saih Shuaib 1 | 410 | 295 | 395 | 40 | 160 | 313 | 370 |
| Dubai South (Madinat Al Mataar) | 147 | 135 | 228 | 249 | 19 | 350 | 23 |
| Wadi Al Safa 3 | 238 | 178 | 136 | 34 | 919 | 1,261 | 1,801 |
| Palm Jebel Ali | 213 | 99 | 107 | 68 | 2,196 | 2,178 | 2,379 |
| Dubai Islands (Palm Deira) | 156 | 152 | 106 | 12 | 578 | 1,254 | – |
| Dubai Hills Estate | 127 | 96 | 104 | 84 | 1,701 | 1,964 | 2,944 |
| Warsan Fourth | 69 | 97 | 108 | 133 | 186 | 398 | 89 |
| Nad Al Sheba 1 (Nad Al Shiba First) | 122 | 118 | 107 | 29 | 770 | 1,312 | 1,404 |
Dubai South's median swings between AED 19 and AED 350 because its land record mixes huge master-plan parcels with ordinary building plots. Use its deal count, not its median. Warsan Fourth's 2026 median has the same problem.
Do land deals lead to launches?
Sometimes, and less neatly than you'd hope. We took the 15 DLD areas with the most development-plot sales in 2024 and 2025 and counted the projects DLD registered in each from January 2025 to September 2026.
Table: development-plot sales in 2024–2025 against projects registered in the same DLD area, January 2025 to September 2026. Homes = apartments plus villas on the project register. Source: DLD registered sales and DLD project register, Peak Trust Research.
| Area (DLD name) | Development-plot sales, 2024–2025 | Projects registered, Jan 2025–Sep 2026 | Homes in those projects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Me'aisem Second | 1,118 | 4 | 952 |
| Saih Shuaib 1 | 690 | 2 | 588 |
| Dubai South (Madinat Al Mataar) | 363 | 56 | 9,396 |
| Wadi Al Safa 7 | 323 | 1 | 473 |
| Wadi Al Safa 3 | 314 | 25 | 5,342 |
| Dubai Islands (Palm Deira) | 258 | 27 | 4,093 |
| Wadi Al Safa 5 | 244 | 27 | 6,935 |
| Nad Al Shiba First | 225 | 13 | 6,198 |
| Palm Jebel Ali | 206 | 2 | 434 |
| Warsan Fourth | 205 | 16 | 2,275 |
| Dubai Hills Estate | 200 | 3 | 598 |
| Saih Shuaib 4 | 189 | 0 | 0 |
| Al Hebiah Fourth | 184 | 4 | 1,356 |
| Al Jadaf | 136 | 9 | 3,082 |
| Saih Shuaib 2 | 133 | 13 | 2,545 |
Five areas turned busy plot markets into a wave of registered projects: Dubai South, Wadi Al Safa 3 and 5, Dubai Islands and Nad Al Sheba 1, with 13–56 projects each. Five others, with between 189 and 1,118 plot sales each, produced four projects or fewer. Me'aisem Second had the most development-plot sales of any area, nearly all on multi-use land, and four projects. Wadi Al Safa 7's plots were all zoned residential, and it registered one project. Saih Shuaib 1 and 4 are commercial and industrial land.
DLD's use label doesn't explain the split on its own. Dubai Islands' plots are recorded as commercial, yet it registered 27 projects. Timing is part of it, since a plot bought in late 2025 may not reach the project register until 2027. Who bought the plots matters too. In Palm Jebel Ali and Dubai Hills Estate the larger plots look like individual villa plots, which owners build on themselves and which rarely appear as registered off-plan projects.
Land works as a leading indicator only after filtering by plot size and checking the area's own register. A raw count of land deals tells you more about villa-community sales than about the next wave of apartment towers.
Our project register covers projects by registration date, and its older years haven't been shown to be complete. This table compares areas with each other. It doesn't compare 2026 with earlier years.
What it means for developers
- Filter land by size first, then by area. Plots under 10,000 sq ft are mostly homes being sold. Above that line, the area's own record of registrations tells you more than the use label does.
- Price land against today's level, not 2023's. Residential development land sold for a median AED 1,207 per sq ft of plot in 2025 and AED 1,072 in January–September 2026. The 2025 figure was about 50% above 2023's AED 800, while AGBI put construction cost inflation at 5.2% in the year to Q1 2026.
- Look at where plots changed hands 12–24 months ago. Dubai South, Wadi Al Safa 3 and 5 and Dubai Islands each had hundreds of plot sales in 2024–2025 and have since filled up with registered projects. The handover pipeline shows when those projects are due to complete.
- Don't lean on monthly land medians. Below a few hundred deals, the mix moves the figure more than price does.
Peak Trust advises developers on land, pricing and launch timing. See our work with developers.
Related: How off-plan project registration and escrow work in Dubai · Dubai market dashboard · Price growth by area