Is the fee refundable if I win?

No. Half of the fee paid on basic claims is refunded where the parties reach an amicable settlement, which is a different thing from winning a judgment. Nothing published says a successful claimant gets the fee back.

Can I file without an Ejari certificate?

A copy of the latest Ejari lease is listed as a required document for registering a claim. If the tenancy was never registered, that is the problem to solve first, and the related answer on Ejari explains who carries that obligation.

Does the 3.5% apply to a service charge dispute in a jointly owned building?

The Centre has handled jointly owned property disputes since 2019, and those sit under their own service pages with their own fee lines. Do not assume the rent-related scale above transfers to them.

Answers · Selling, ownership and legal

What does it cost to take a rent dispute to the Rental Disputes Centre?

Registering a rent dispute in Dubai costs 3.5% of the annual rent, with a floor of AED 500 and a ceiling of AED 20,000. Monetary claims are 3.5% of the amount claimed, capped at AED 15,000. Add AED 100 process service and AED 20 in knowledge and innovation fees at every stage.

Updated October 2026

Every stage, and what each one costs

These are the Centre’s own published figures, taken from its e-service pages on the day of writing.

Stage	What you pay	Floor and ceiling
Conciliation, rent-related claim	3.5% of annual rent or lease value	AED 500 to AED 20,000
Conciliation, monetary claim	3.5% of the amount claimed	AED 500 to AED 15,000
First instance lawsuit, rent-related	3.5% of annual rent or lease value	AED 500 to AED 20,000
First instance lawsuit, monetary claim	3.5% of the amount claimed	AED 500 to AED 15,000
Appeal	No percentage fee is published. A refundable security of half the amount awarded against the respondent, where the judgment carries a financial claim	None published
Execution of an eviction	1% of the annual lease amount	AED 5,000 maximum
On top, at each stage	Process service AED 100, knowledge fee AED 10, innovation fee AED 10, registration of a power of attorney AED 25 where one is used	n/a
If you file through a Real Estate Services Trustee centre	Partner service fee of AED 130, plus VAT on that fee	n/a
Each electronic request during execution	AED 20	n/a

Registration takes one business day at every stage, and every document has to be in Arabic or legally translated into it, with no hard copies accepted. You need the latest Ejari lease, an Emirates ID or a company’s commercial licence, a bank letter showing the claimant’s IBAN, and on an eviction claim the notarised notice with the notification officer’s report or the registered post receipt.

Why the fee tracks the rent rather than what you are arguing about

Here’s the issue with the way this gets explained. For an eviction, a lease renewal, a rent claim, a termination of a lease in force, or a return to premises you were evicted from for demolition and reconstruction, the 3.5% is calculated on the annual rent, not on the sum in dispute. Which means the cost of going to the Centre is set by what the unit rents for and not by how much trouble the other side is causing you.

For example, an owner evicting a tenant from a unit let at AED 120,000 a year pays AED 4,200 plus AED 120 of fixed charges, so AED 4,320, whether the argument is about one unpaid cheque or the whole year. At AED 600,000 a year the fee becomes AED 20,000, because 3.5% would be AED 21,000 and the ceiling catches it. Enforcement is then a separate 1% of the annual lease, capped at AED 5,000.

What people don’t realise is that the ceiling makes the Centre progressively cheaper as the rent rises, and the floor does the opposite at the bottom. A tenant chasing an AED 5,000 deposit is making a monetary claim, so 3.5% is AED 175 and the AED 500 floor overrides it. Add the fixed charges and you are at about AED 620 to chase AED 5,000, which is roughly an eighth of the money before anybody has argued anything.

Does the conciliation fee come off the lawsuit fee?

I could not find this published anywhere, and it matters more than any other number on the page, so I will say what I found rather than guess. The same 3.5% scale, with the same floors and ceilings, appears on the conciliation service and again on the registration of a first instance lawsuit, and neither page says whether the first payment is credited against the second.

What the Decree does say is that half of the fee is refunded where an amicable settlement is reached. So the refund is tied to settling, not to winning, and a dispute that goes through conciliation without settling and then into a tribunal is the case where a reader should ask the Centre directly before filing.

What happens if you lose

Two provisions decide this, and both sit in the Decree rather than on the fee pages. A first instance judgment on a claim of less than AED 100,000 is final, subject to a short list of exceptions, which means most ordinary tenancy arguments get one hearing and no appeal. Where an appeal is available it has to be filed within fifteen days from the day after the judgment, and if the judgment carries a financial award the appellant deposits half of that amount, refundable, though the chairman of the Centre may waive or reduce it.

Now think about that for a minute. An owner who loses a judgment of AED 150,000 and wants to appeal is being asked to put AED 75,000 on the table to do it. It comes back, and it still has to be found.

One more thing to note, and it is the one that sends some readers somewhere else entirely. The Centre’s jurisdiction is exclusive over rent disputes in the Emirate, including free zones, but the Decree carves out free zones that have their own tribunals or special courts, disputes arising from a lease finance contract, and disputes arising from long-term leases under the 2006 registration law. If your unit sits in one of those, none of the figures above apply to you, and the DIFC answer sets out what governs a lease inside that free zone instead.

My take

Now if you ask me, the number that should change somebody’s behaviour here is not the 3.5%, it is the AED 500 floor sitting next to the AED 100,000 finality threshold. For an owner with real money at stake the Centre is cheap, fast and capped, and I would use it without hesitating. For a tenant chasing a deposit or a few thousand dirhams of overcharge, the fee is a meaningful fraction of the claim, the judgment is final at first instance, and half the fee only comes back if the other side agrees to settle. That is a system built for substantial disputes, and it is being recommended to people with small ones.

So the honest advice splits by size. Above roughly AED 50,000 of exposure, file, because the cost is small against the amount and the process is quick. Below about AED 10,000, treat the conciliation stage as the whole plan rather than the first step, because settling is the only route that gives you half your fee back.

Of course there is a downside to everything, and the downside of the view above is that it tells somebody with a genuine small claim to accept less than they are owed, which is not a comfortable thing for me to write. The Centre’s own figures are what they are, though, and by the end of the day a reader is better off knowing the arithmetic before they file than after.

One point on sourcing, because it is the sort of thing worth saying out loud. The Decree leaves the Centre’s fees to a resolution of the Chairman of the Executive Council, and says that until it issues, the fees in a Local Order of 2004 continue to apply. I could not reach that Local Order. The figures above are the Centre’s own published fees, which is the better source for what you will actually be charged either way.

Where to go next

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Common questions

Is the fee refundable if I win?: No. Half of the fee paid on basic claims is refunded where the parties reach an amicable settlement, which is a different thing from winning a judgment. Nothing published says a successful claimant gets the fee back.
Can I file without an Ejari certificate?: A copy of the latest Ejari lease is listed as a required document for registering a claim. If the tenancy was never registered, that is the problem to solve first, and the related answer on Ejari explains who carries that obligation.
Does the 3.5% apply to a service charge dispute in a jointly owned building?: The Centre has handled jointly owned property disputes since 2019, and those sit under their own service pages with their own fee lines. Do not assume the rent-related scale above transfers to them.

Sources

If you want me to look at the numbers on a specific dispute before you file, text me on WhatsApp at Text me on WhatsApp and tell me the annual rent and what you are claiming, and I will tell you what the filing will cost you.

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