Filing a rent case at Dubai's Rental Disputes Centre costs 3.5% of the annual rent, with a minimum of AED 500 and a maximum of AED 20,000. Monetary claims are charged at 3.5% of the amount claimed, capped at AED 15,000. Add AED 100 process service, AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees.
The AED 500 floor is the number that catches people out, and the search results are not going to warn you about it. On 8 October 2026 a page ranking second for rental dispute centre dubai told readers that "the listed government fee is AED 50 plus AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees; Centre fee is AED 130". Budget from that and you arrive at the counter with roughly AED 200 for a case whose minimum registration fee is AED 500. The AED 50 is real — it is the Centre's fee for an Offer and Deposit motion, a completely different filing — and it has been attached to the wrong service.
Every charge below is the Rental Disputes Centre's own published figure, read from its service pages on 8 October 2026. Every deadline below is quoted from Decree No. 26 of 2013, by article number, from the legislation compilation the Centre publishes itself. Where a figure is arithmetic rather than a published number, it says so, and where nothing is published at all, that is said too.
What are the RDC charges in Dubai?
The Rental Disputes Centre charges a percentage of what the case is worth, bounded at both ends. For eviction, lease renewal, rent claims, termination of a lease in force, and return to premises you were evicted from for demolition and reconstruction, the fee is 3.5% of the annual rent or lease value, not less than AED 500 and not more than AED 20,000. For a purely monetary claim the rate is the same 3.5% but the ceiling is AED 15,000. The table below works that rate against real annual rents.
Those middle rows are arithmetic on the Centre's published rate, not quoted figures. The two bounds are quoted: AED 500 and AED 20,000 are the Centre's own words. Dividing one by the other shows where each bound bites — 3.5% reaches AED 500 at an annual rent of about AED 14,300, so every tenancy below that pays the same AED 500, and 3.5% reaches AED 20,000 at about AED 571,000, above which the fee stops rising.
What extra fees does the Rental Disputes Centre add?
Four fixed charges sit on top of the percentage, and one more applies only if you file in person rather than online.
How do you file a rental dispute in Dubai?
Dubai's Rental Disputes Centre takes cases through its own website or through a Real Estate Services Trustee centre, and the online route is the cheaper of the two. The Centre states that registration takes one business day to complete.
- Create an account on the Rental Disputes Centre website, or take your documents to a Real Estate Services Trustee centre.
- Choose the service — Register First Instance Lawsuit (Rental) for a landlord-tenant claim, or Register Dispute Lawsuit — Amicable Settlement to start with conciliation.
- Enter the case data and upload the documents, each one in Arabic or legally translated into Arabic.
- Pay the fee after the electronic lawsuit verification, by Noqodi, debit card, credit card, or cash at a Real Estate Service Centre.
- Attend the hearing through the tele-litigation system, then receive the judgment through the website.
What documents does the Rental Disputes Centre require?
The Centre publishes a short, specific list for a first-instance rental case, and the bank letter on it surprises people. The claim cannot be registered without an account the Centre can pay a judgment into.
✓ A copy of the latest lease — your Ejari registration
✓ A copy of the Emirates ID for individuals; for a company, the commercial licence plus the manager's or owner's photo ID
✓ A letter from the bank, or a bank statement, showing the claimant's IBAN
✓ For an eviction claim, a copy of the notarised notice with the notification officer's report, or registered post with the receipt of notice acknowledgement
✓ Any document that supports the claim — a power of attorney, a management contract, correspondence, notices, electricity and water bills, cheques, letters
Notice that the lease has to be an Ejari registration, not a signed agreement sitting in a drawer. A Dubai tenancy that was never registered with Ejari has no document to put at the top of that list, which is a reason to register it long before any argument starts. Our guide to what Ejari is and how registration works covers that step.
How long does an RDC case take in Dubai?
Dubai law puts a published ceiling on each stage of a rent case rather than an average duration. Decree No. 26 of 2013 gives the conciliation stage a limit of 15 days and the first-instance tribunals a limit of 30 days, both extendable. The table below is the statutory timetable, article by article.
Read together, the statutory path from a registered claim to a first-instance judgment is about six weeks at the published maxima, and roughly three months if both extensions are used. One clause is worth knowing if a deadline is pressing: under Article 10(e), time-bar and limitation periods are suspended from the date the dispute is registered with the Mediation and Conciliation Directorate, so registering stops the clock running against you.
Do you have to go to court, and when does your committee sit?
Hearings at Dubai's Rental Disputes Centre run as video calls, not in a courtroom. The Centre publishes its full sitting schedule, and on 8 October 2026 that schedule listed 28 judicial committees — eleven first-instance rental committees, a twelfth for Dubai Government lawsuits, two for jointly-owned property, five appeal panels, and the rest handling grievances, enforcement disputes and the nullification of arbitration awards.
Every one of those 28 committees sits Monday to Thursday only, and every sitting falls between 12:00 and 16:00. Most first-instance rental committees sit twice a week, either Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday, at 15:30. Every row in the published schedule carries a Microsoft Teams link, which is how the tele-litigation system the service pages refer to actually works. A tenant in Dubai does not need to take a day off to attend a rent hearing, but does need to be free on a weekday afternoon.
Each first-instance committee is a panel of three under Article 13 — a chair, who must be a judge, and two members with legal and real-property expertise. An appeal panel under Article 14 is two judges plus one real-property expert, and its judgments are final.
How do you check an RDC case status?
Dubai's Rental Disputes Centre runs a free Track Your Case service that returns a result instantly, and it publishes no fee for it. Enter either your mobile number or the case number and press Inquiry. The service runs on the Centre's own website and inside the Dubai REST app, so the case number is not strictly required if the Centre has your mobile number on file.
Two further lookups are free and instant on the same site. Judicial Judgements returns a judgment when you search by lawsuit number, and the Centre publishes its session schedule and judicial notifications as open data. The Centre's contact line is 800 4484, its counters sit in the Dubai Land Department building on Baniyas Road, and its published hours are Monday to Thursday 07:30 to 15:30 and Friday 07:30 to 12:00, with phone, email and chat support until 16:30 Monday to Friday.
Can you appeal a Dubai rent judgment?
Most small Dubai rent judgments cannot be appealed at all. Under Article 17(a) of Decree No. 26 of 2013, a judgment in a rental claim worth less than AED 100,000 is final and not subject to any form of appeal. Article 17(b) then lists six exceptions that reopen the door below that threshold, and the first is the one that matters most to tenants: an eviction judgment is appealable whatever the claim is worth. The others cover breaches of jurisdiction, relief that was never requested or requests never addressed, judgments against a party who was not duly represented or properly served, judgments resting on documents later declared false, and a party concealing decisive evidence.
An appeal carries no percentage fee — only the AED 100 process service, AED 10 knowledge, AED 10 innovation and, where used, the AED 25 power of attorney. What it does carry is a deposit. Under Article 18(b), to have an appeal on a financial claim admitted, the judgment debtor must deposit half the judgment amount with the Centre until the appeal is decided, and the Centre describes that appeal security as refundable. The chairman may admit an appeal without the deposit, or on part of it.
What does conciliation save you at the Rental Disputes Centre?
Conciliation works the other way and pays you back. Claims are evaluated by the Conciliation Department before they reach a first-instance committee, and half the court fee is refunded if the parties reach a settlement — stated on the Centre's amicable-settlement service page and again in Article 10(i) of the Decree, which are two independent sources for the same rule. A settlement signed by the parties and approved by the supervising judge has the force of a writ of execution under Article 10(g), so it is enforceable in the same way a judgment is. On a AED 90,000 tenancy, settling rather than litigating puts roughly AED 1,575 back.
What the Rental Disputes Centre does not publish
Five things a reader would reasonably want are not published by the Rental Disputes Centre or by Dubai law, and naming them is more honest than estimating them.
- How long a real case actually takes. The Decree publishes maxima and allows extensions. The Centre publishes no average duration, so no average appears above — only the statutory ceilings and the arithmetic on them.
- What a fee exemption requires. The Centre lists a service for exemption or postponement of lawsuit fees, and on 8 October 2026 its required documents, service terms, fees and service time fields were all blank. The people most likely to need it have the least to go on. Call 800 4484 and ask.
- How long enforcement takes. Article 21 assigns enforcement of final judgments to the Centre's Judgment Enforcement Directorate and sets no period for it.
- Lawyer's fees. Not a government charge, not published by the Centre, and not included in any figure above. Representation is optional — the AED 25 charge is only for registering a power of attorney if you use one.
- Which committee hears your case. The schedule names all 28 and their sitting times; the allocation is the Centre's to make under Article 13(b).
Win the argument, then get the place sorted
A rent case ends one of two ways, and both of them end with a property to deal with. You stay, and the flat still needs the maintenance the argument was about. You leave, and you have a move to run and a deposit to protect — which means a handover a landlord cannot pick holes in, booked before the keys change hands rather than after.
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Frequently asked questions about Dubai's Rental Disputes Centre
What are the RDC charges in Dubai?
Dubai's Rental Disputes Centre charges 3.5% of the annual rent to register a rental claim, with a minimum of AED 500 and a maximum of AED 20,000. Monetary claims are charged 3.5% of the amount claimed, capped at AED 15,000. On top sit AED 100 process service, AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees.
How do I file a rental dispute in Dubai?
File through the Rental Disputes Centre website or a Real Estate Services Trustee centre in Dubai. Upload your Ejari lease, Emirates ID, a bank letter showing your IBAN and any supporting evidence, all in Arabic or legally translated, then pay the fee. The Centre accepts no hard copies, and registration takes one business day.
How do I check a rental dispute case status in Dubai?
Use the Rental Disputes Centre's Track Your Case service, which is free and returns a result instantly. Enter your mobile number or your case number and press Inquiry. The service runs on the Centre's own website and inside the Dubai REST app, and a separate free lookup returns judgments by lawsuit number.
How long does an RDC case take in Dubai?
Dubai publishes limits rather than averages. Registration takes one business day, conciliation is capped at 15 days from the parties' appearance, and a first-instance tribunal must decide within 30 days of referral — extendable once by the same period under Article 16 of Decree No. 26 of 2013. Appeals must be filed within 15 days.
Where can I file a complaint against a landlord in Dubai?
Landlord-and-tenant disputes in Dubai go to the Rental Disputes Centre, the judicial arm of Dubai Land Department. The Centre holds exclusive jurisdiction over every rental dispute over property in the Emirate, free zones included, under Decree No. 26 of 2013, and its contact line is 800 4484.
Can I appeal a Rental Disputes Centre judgment in Dubai?
Not usually below AED 100,000. Article 17 of Decree No. 26 of 2013 makes a judgment in a rental claim worth less than AED 100,000 final and unappealable, with six exceptions — the first being an eviction judgment, which is always appealable. Appeals must be filed within 15 days of the judgment hearing.
Related reading:
Sources: Rental Disputes Centre service pages for First Instance Lawsuit (Rental), Amicable Settlement, Appeal (Rental), Offer and Deposit, Track Your Case and Contact Us, read on 8 October 2026; the Centre's published session schedule, read the same day; and Decree No. (26) of 2013 Concerning the Rental Disputes Settlement Centre in the Emirate of Dubai, quoted by article from the legislation compilation published by the Centre. Fees are published government charges. Last updated: October 2026
