Renewing Ejari in Dubai costs AED 177.75 through the Dubai REST app or the Dubai Land Department website, or AED 220 at a Real Estate Services Trustee Centre. You submit the signed Unified Tenancy Contract, pay, and the e-Contract Registration Certificate reaches you by email. Dubai Land Department publishes no grace period.
Here is how it usually goes wrong. Your landlord says he will "sort the renewal", the contract quietly rolls past its expiry date, and five weeks later a residency file or a school admission stalls because the tenancy proof attached to it is out of date. Nobody fined you. Nobody phoned you. The paperwork simply stopped being current — and you find out standing at a counter, holding a queue ticket, with a deadline already behind you.
Renewal is not registration and it is not cancellation. Renewal is the twenty minutes that decides whether the next twelve months of your life in Dubai are administratively boring or administratively expensive. Here is exactly what Dubai Land Department publishes, and the part of the law that protects you when your landlord goes quiet.
⚡ The short version
- Renewal fee: AED 177.75 online, AED 220 at a trustee centre. Same service, different counter.
- Dubai Land Department publishes no grace period, no deadline and no late fee for renewing Ejari.
- If your landlord will not register it, you can — Dubai Land Department publishes a tenant route with its own document list.
- If your tenancy simply runs on and nobody objects, Article 6 renews it automatically on the same terms.
How do you renew Ejari in Dubai?
Renewing Ejari in Dubai means re-registering the new tenancy contract with the Real Estate Regulatory Agency under Dubai Land Department's service, which is published under one name for both jobs: "Register / Renew Tenancy Contract". You and your landlord sign the Unified Tenancy Contract for the coming term first. Only then does Ejari get involved.
Dubai Land Department publishes priced channels for the renewal, and the real difference between them is whether you do it from your sofa or from a chair at a counter.
Through the app the sequence Dubai Land Department publishes is short: log in, pick the service, fill in the details and upload the contract, pay, wait for a Dubai Land Department employee to review and approve it, then receive the e-Contract Registration Certificate by email. At a trustee centre the same certificate is handed to you across the counter. A third route exists where a licensed property management company already holds Ejari access — in that case the company files the renewal and you never touch the system. If this is your first Ejari rather than a renewal, the full first-time walkthrough sits in our guide to what Ejari is and how to register it in Dubai.
How much does it cost to renew Ejari in Dubai?
Renewing Ejari in Dubai costs AED 177.75 online or AED 220 at a trustee centre, and Dubai Land Department publishes that total as separate line items rather than a single charge. The registration charge itself is identical on both routes. What moves is the fee paid to the service partner who processes it.
Paying the higher figure buys you a human at a counter and a 25-minute service time. Paying the lower one buys you a queue you cannot see. Dubai Land Department accepts a credit card or the Noqodi wallet online, and cash or card at a trustee centre. Anything charged above these numbers is somebody's convenience fee, not a government fee — and it is worth asking, out loud, what exactly it pays for.
Is there a grace period for Ejari renewal in Dubai?
Dubai Land Department publishes no grace period for Ejari renewal in Dubai. Its "Register / Renew Tenancy Contract" service card sets out fees, documents, channels, eligibility terms and a 25-minute service time — and states no deadline, no late fee and no window after expiry. Every blog that quotes you a grace period in days is quoting itself.
The obligation is attached to the contract rather than to a date. Law No. 26 of 2007, as superseded on this article by Law No. 33 of 2008, says at Article 4(2): "All Lease Contracts related to Real Property which is governed by the provisions of this Law, and any amendments thereto, will be registered with RERA." There is no clock in that sentence. There is also no exit from it.
⚠️ "No grace period" is not the same as "no consequence"
Nobody issues an Ejari late fine in Dubai. What happens instead is quieter: your e-Contract Registration Certificate carries dates, and every counter that asks for it reads those dates — a sponsorship file, a school admission, a utility account transfer. An expired certificate does not trigger a penalty — it triggers a rejection, on somebody else's timetable, usually the week you can least afford it.
What documents do you need to renew Ejari in Dubai?
The document list for renewing Ejari in Dubai depends on which counter you use, and Dubai Land Department publishes a separate list for the case most guides skip entirely: the tenant filing the registration because the landlord has not.
Two details on that list sink more renewals than anything else. The original contract matters: Dubai Land Department states that where the original is not provided, the transaction is not accepted. And the DEWA meter matters, because on the tenant route the invoice has to be in the tenant's own name — which is a problem worth discovering now rather than at the counter.
Is Ejari mandatory for visa renewal in Dubai?
Ejari registration is mandatory in Dubai for the tenancy contract itself, whatever your visa situation. Dubai Land Department's own Tenancy Guide states plainly that "the registration of tenancy contracts through EJARI is mandatory", and describes Ejari as the RERA programme for recording tenancy contracts "pursuant to Law No. 26 of 2007, as amended by Law No. 33 of 2008". Registration in Dubai is not a visa formality; it is the legal status of the contract itself.
Residency files in Dubai are a separate authority's business. Visa and sponsorship applications are handled by the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs, not by Dubai Land Department, so the document list for a residence renewal comes from GDRFA Dubai — check it there, or through your typing centre, before you assume which version of the certificate your file needs. What Dubai Land Department does publish is the proof itself: the e-Contract Registration Certificate.
💡 You can pull your own Ejari certificate for free
Dubai Land Department runs a Download Rental Certificate tool on dubailand.gov.ae. You enter your Ejari contract number plus either your nine-digit DEWA premise number or your Dubai Municipality number and sub number, and the certificate downloads on the spot. If an agent in Dubai offers to "retrieve your Ejari certificate" for a fee, that is a fee for a free government download.
What happens if your landlord will not sign the Ejari renewal?
A landlord in Dubai who goes silent at renewal does not end your tenancy — the law renews it for you. Article 6 of Law No. 26 of 2007 was not among the articles superseded by Law No. 33 of 2008, so it stands exactly as issued.
💡 Article 6, Law No. 26 of 2007 — word for word
"Where the term of a Lease Contract expires, but the Tenant continues to occupy the Real Property without any objection by the Landlord, the Lease Contract will be renewed for the same term or for a term of one year, whichever is shorter, and under the same terms as the previous Lease Contract."
Two more provisions do the rest. Article 14 requires either party who wants to amend any term at renewal to notify the other at least 90 days before the contract expires — so a rent increase sprung on you in the final fortnight has missed its deadline. And Dubai Land Department's Tenancy Guide puts the filing duty on the landlord in writing: "The landlord undertakes to authenticate the lease contract at RERA and present the documents and tenant information for each contract (lease or renewal)."
Where the landlord still does nothing, register it yourself on the tenant route, then escalate. Dubai Land Department publishes the order of operations for a landlord-tenant dispute, and the order matters: register the lease contract first, then refer the matter to the competent authority — in Dubai, the Rental Disputes Centre, established by Decree No. 26 of 2013. Walking in with a registered contract is a different conversation entirely. On money rather than paperwork, read how much a landlord can legally increase rent in Dubai before you sign anything.
Renewing, or is this the year you move?
Renewal forces a decision most tenants in Dubai postpone until it makes itself. You either sign for another twelve months, or you spend AED 177.75 registering a contract somewhere better. Rent renewal season is also the only moment of the year when your landlord is genuinely negotiable — and the 90-day notice rule means you are entitled to know his intentions three months out, not three weeks.
If the answer is move, the expensive mistake is leaving it to the last fortnight, when every decent mover in Dubai is already booked and the only quotes left are the ones nobody else wanted. Get three real quotes while the calendar is still on your side, compare them line by line, and hire on the number and the paperwork rather than on who answered the phone first.
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Ejari renewal in Dubai: your questions answered
How much does it cost to renew Ejari in Dubai?
Renewing Ejari in Dubai costs AED 177.75 through the Dubai REST app or the Dubai Land Department website, and AED 220 at a Real Estate Services Trustee Centre. Both totals cover the same AED 100 registration charge, a AED 10 knowledge fee and a AED 10 innovation fee. Only the service partner fee differs between the two channels.
Can a tenant renew Ejari in Dubai without the landlord?
A tenant in Dubai can register the renewal when the landlord has not. Dubai Land Department's own Tenancy Guide sets out a tenant route and asks for the tenant's passport copy, the original contract or a copy, last month's electricity and water invoice with the meter in the tenant's name, and a copy of the land map or title deed.
How long does an Ejari renewal take in Dubai?
An Ejari renewal at a Real Estate Services Trustee Centre in Dubai takes 25 minutes of counter time, excluding waiting, according to Dubai Land Department's published service time. Through the Dubai REST app there is no published duration, because a Dubai Land Department employee reviews the submission before the certificate is emailed to you.
Do you need a new DEWA bill to renew Ejari in Dubai?
A DEWA bill is not on Dubai Land Department's document list for renewing Ejari through the app or a trustee centre in Dubai. Last month's electricity and water invoice is required only on the tenant route, where the landlord has not registered the contract, and the meter must be in the tenant's own name.
Where do you download your Ejari certificate in Dubai?
Dubai Land Department publishes a free Download Rental Certificate tool at dubailand.gov.ae. You enter your Ejari contract number plus either your nine-digit DEWA premise number or your Dubai Municipality number and sub number, and the rental certificate downloads immediately. Nobody in Dubai needs to charge you to retrieve your own Ejari certificate.
Can you renew Ejari in Dubai if the rent has changed?
A rent change in Dubai is agreed before the Ejari renewal is filed, not during it. Article 14 of the tenancy law requires either party who wants to amend a term to notify the other at least 90 days before the contract expires. Ejari then registers whatever figure the signed contract carries.
Fees and procedures are those published by Dubai Land Department on its "Register / Renew Tenancy Contract" service card and in its Tenancy Guide, and legal text is quoted from Law No. 26 of 2007 as amended by Law No. 33 of 2008 on the Government of Dubai Legal Affairs Department portal. Government fees change — confirm on dubailand.gov.ae before you pay. Last updated: September 2026.
