Abu Dhabi rents by area (2026): what tenants pay by district and building

Abu Dhabi rents are set out officially by the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC), which registers every tenancy in the emirate's Tawtheeq system and publishes what those contracts show. Its H1 2026 market report, released on 18 August 2026, gives rents per square metre for individual buildings on the three islands where most foreign buyers look, and lease values for the emirate's main districts.

The picture is clear enough to plan with. Apartments on Al Reem Island rented for about AED 1,200 to 1,400 per square metre a year in H1 2026, on Yas Island for AED 1,200 to 1,500, and on Saadiyat Island for anything from AED 800 in older blocks to AED 1,900 at Mamsha Al Saadiyat. New-lease prices were up 17% for apartments and 9% for villas on a year earlier.

Since 2 June 2026 a rent freeze has applied across the emirate outside ADGM. This guide sets out the figures by area and by building, how to turn a rate per square metre into an annual rent, and what the freeze means for a landlord who buys off-plan today.

This guide is about rents. For what those rents mean as a return on a purchase price, see our separate guide to Abu Dhabi rental yields.

From registered leases. Every residential tenancy in Abu Dhabi is meant to be registered in Tawtheeq, the emirate's official system for registering and managing tenancy contracts, and ADREC builds its rent statistics from those registrations.

ADREC reports rents in three ways, and it helps to know which one you are reading:

• Lease value. The total annual rent on active registered leases, in dirhams. It shows where rent is paid, and it rises with the number of homes as well as the rent on each one. ADREC reports it by district.
• Average lease price per square metre. The annual rent divided by the leased area, averaged for a building or project. It is the closest official figure to "what does a home here rent for", and ADREC reports it for leading projects on Al Reem, Yas and Saadiyat.
• The repeat lease index. It tracks the rent on the same unit from one contract to the next, so it measures how rents are moving rather than what they are. A unit enters the index from its second contract.

ADREC also runs an interactive rental index map on its website. It shows the average rental value for the area a unit is in, and ADREC describes it as a general guide to rental prices across the emirate.

Rent per square metre is highest on Saadiyat, then Yas and Al Reem, with a wide spread inside each island. The figures below are ADREC's average annual lease prices for H1 2026, for apartments unless stated.

Al Reem Island

Al Reem is the most consistent of the three islands. Every apartment building in ADREC's H1 2026 snapshot sits between AED 1,200 and 1,400 per square metre a year. The island's figures are supplied by ADGM, the free zone that administers much of it.

Building	AED per sqm a year	AED per sq ft a year (our conversion)
Reem Five	1,400	130
One Reem Island	1,400	130
Pixel	1,300	121
Radiant Square	1,300	121
Oasis Residences	1,200 to 1,300	111 to 121
Reflection	1,200 to 1,300	111 to 121
Shams Meera Towers	1,200	111
Canal Residence	1,200	111
Marina Rise Tower	1,200	111
RDK Towers	1,200	111

ADREC's snapshot also shows Nalaya Villas, on the island's villa enclave, at AED 800 per square metre. See all projects and prices on our Al Reem Island page.

Yas Island

Yas has the clearest split between apartments and villas. Apartment buildings ran from AED 1,200 to 1,500 per square metre, while villa and townhouse communities ran from AED 700 to 1,500.

Project	Type	AED per sqm a year	AED per sq ft (our conversion)
Ansam	Apartments	1,200 to 1,500	111 to 139
Mayan	Apartments	1,400	130
Water's Edge	Apartments	1,200	111
Yas Acres	Villas and townhouses	800 to 1,500	74 to 139
Noya	Villas and townhouses	1,100	102
West Yas	Villas	700	65

A lower rate per square metre does not mean a cheaper home. A villa has far more floor area than an apartment, so the annual rent is higher even at half the rate. Our Yas Island page lists the off-plan projects on the island.

Saadiyat Island

Saadiyat has the widest range in the emirate. Apartment buildings run from AED 800 to 1,100 at Saadiyat Beach Residences to AED 1,600 to 1,900 at Mamsha Al Saadiyat, the highest building figure in ADREC's report.

Project	Type	AED per sqm a year
Mamsha Al Saadiyat	Apartments	1,600 to 1,900
St Regis	Apartments	1,400
Qaryat Al Hidd	Apartments	1,000 to 1,400
Ajwan Towers	Apartments	1,100
Saadiyat Beach Residences	Apartments	800 to 1,100
Park View	Apartments	900 to 1,000
Hidd Al Saadiyat	Villas	900 to 1,600
St Regis	Villas	900
Saadiyat Beach Villas	Villas	900
Saadiyat Reserve and The Dunes	Villas and townhouses	900
Jawaher Saadiyat	Villas	800

The spread follows age, position and specification. Newer beachfront and cultural-district buildings let at the top of the range; older blocks set back from the beach let at the bottom. Off-plan projects in the island's newer districts are on our Saadiyat Cultural District and Marsa Al Saadiyat pages.

Al Danah, the downtown district, by a wide margin. ADREC puts its lease value at AED 2.48 billion over the 12 months to June 2026, almost all of it from apartments. Al Reem Island is second at AED 1.58 billion.

Read this chart as a map of where tenants live, not as a ranking of rents. Al Danah and Al Zahiyah are dense apartment districts in the old city; Khalifa City and Mohamed Bin Zayed City are large villa suburbs, where villas carry most of the value. Yas Island and Saadiyat are smaller by total value because they have fewer homes, even though their rents per square metre are among the highest.

Fifteen districts carried 86% of the Abu Dhabi Region lease market over the period. Five of them, Al Danah, Al Reem Island, Al Zahiyah, Al Raha and Mohamed Bin Zayed City, carried 58% of apartment lease value. For villas, five districts carried 51%: Khalifa City, Mohamed Bin Zayed City, Yas Island, Al Saadiyat Island and Al Muntazah.

Quickly until mid-2026, then more slowly. ADREC's new-lease index was up 17% for apartments and 9% for villas in H1 2026 against a year earlier. In the investment zones, where foreigners can own freehold, the rises were steeper: 21% for apartments and 16% for villas.

Monthly growth peaked at about 1.6% in December and January. Across the emirate, residential lease value reached AED 9.3 billion in H1 2026, 8% more than a year earlier, while the number of contracts rose only 2%. That gap matters: almost all of the growth came from higher rents, not from more homes being let.

There were 233,000 active residential leases across the emirate at the end of June. In the Abu Dhabi Region, 69% of occupied homes were rented rather than owned.

Villas are scarce and expensive to rent

Villas and townhouses were about 14% of leased homes in the Abu Dhabi Region in H1 2026 but 26% of lease value. ADREC describes villas as the rental market's scarce asset, letting at more than twice apartment rents per home. Since 2022, apartments have made up about 87% of the net new active leases.

From 2 June 2026, ADREC froze rental increases across the emirate. Renewals are registered at a 0% increase, and a home let to a new tenant is held at the value of the preceding contract. Communities administered by ADGM are excluded and continue to price freely.

ADREC says it will review the measure against the data rather than the calendar. In June, the first month under the freeze, new-lease growth eased to 0.5% for apartments and villas were flat. ADREC notes that one month is not a trend.

What it means for an off-plan buyer. A home bought off-plan has no previous lease, so its first rent is set by the market at handover. The freeze matters later: if it is still in force when your first tenant renews, the rent stays where it started. Price your first lease carefully, and do not assume the steep rises of 2025 and early 2026 will apply to your renewal.

Most apartment leases in the investment zones are in the middle bands, but the top bands are growing fastest. In H1 2026, 32% of apartment lease value and 33% of apartment leases were in the AED 800 to 1,000 per square metre band.

The shift towards the top is the clearest change. The band above AED 1,200 per square metre rose from 19% to 24% of apartment lease value, and the AED 1,000 to 1,200 band from 17% to 21%. Together, bands above AED 1,000 now carry 45% of apartment lease value, up from 36%.

ADREC attributes part of this to new premium buildings entering the rental market. The cheapest band, under AED 700, held steady in absolute terms. For villas, 40% of lease value is in homes renting above AED 1,000 per square metre, but by number most villa leases sit between AED 500 and 700.

Multiply the rate by the home's area in square metres. ADREC reports rents per square metre per year, so the sum is direct, and it is the quickest way to sense-check a rent you are quoted.

Home	Area	Building rate (ADREC)	Annual rent (our arithmetic)
One-bedroom apartment, Al Reem Island	80 sqm (861 sq ft)	AED 1,300 per sqm	About AED 104,000
Two-bedroom apartment, Yas Island	120 sqm (1,292 sq ft)	AED 1,200 per sqm	About AED 144,000
Two-bedroom apartment, Saadiyat	120 sqm (1,292 sq ft)	AED 1,600 per sqm	About AED 192,000
Four-bedroom villa, Yas Island	350 sqm (3,767 sq ft)	AED 1,100 per sqm	About AED 385,000

Three cautions apply. ADREC's building rates are averages across all unit sizes, and small units usually let for more per square metre than large ones. They are rounded to the nearest AED 100, which moves an annual rent by several thousand dirhams. And they describe leases signed in H1 2026; a rent agreed under the freeze can sit below a building's average.

To convert to square feet, divide a per-square-metre figure by 10.764. AED 1,200 per square metre is about AED 111 per square foot a year, and AED 1,400 is about AED 130.

Foreigners can own freehold in Abu Dhabi's investment zones, which ADREC defines as designated areas where non-UAE nationals and foreign entities may own freehold interests. Al Reem Island, Yas Island, Saadiyat Island, Al Raha Beach, Al Maryah Island and Masdar City are among them.

The old-city districts that top the lease value chart, such as Al Danah, Al Zahiyah and Al Khalidiyah, are outside the main investment zones listed above. For an investor, the rents that matter are the investment-zone figures above. Our guide to buying property in Abu Dhabi as a foreigner explains the zones and the purchase process.

In the investment zones, 74% of occupied homes were rented in H1 2026: 78% of apartments and 54% of villas. Apartments made up 84% of the occupied stock in those zones.

ADREC's pipeline shows about 70,800 more homes across the emirate by 2030, with the total stock growing by an average of 3.8% a year from H2 2026. About 95% of the new units are in the Abu Dhabi Region.

New supply is the main force that can slow rents where it lands. Much of it is on the same islands where foreign buyers are active, and many of those homes will be let by their owners after handover. When you set an expected rent for an off-plan home, check how many units are due in the same district in the same year.

For the projects themselves, browse off-plan projects in Abu Dhabi by area, or the new launches page for the latest releases.

A rent today is not your rent at handover. An off-plan home in Abu Dhabi is typically two to four years from completion, and the rent you achieve will depend on the market, the freeze and the supply delivered by then.

Use the official figures in three ways:

1. As a reality check on a sales pitch. If a projected rent for a new Yas Island apartment works out at well above AED 1,500 per square metre a year, ask how it was reached. The top building average on Yas in H1 2026 was AED 1,500.
2. As a comparison between areas. If two projects cost the same per square metre to buy but one is on an island where buildings let for AED 200 more per square metre, that difference compounds every year.
3. As a floor and a ceiling. The range within an island, AED 800 to 1,900 on Saadiyat, shows how much a building's age and position matter. A new, well-placed building should let near the top; a weaker position may not.

Turning those rents into a return on the purchase price is a separate exercise, covered in our Abu Dhabi rental yields guide. Our payment plans guide explains how instalments line up with handover, when the first rent arrives.

1. Is the figure from registered leases (ADREC or Tawtheeq) or from asking rents on listings?
2. Is it per square metre or per home, and per year?
3. Does it describe the building, the project or the whole district?
4. When was it measured: before or after the 2 June 2026 freeze?
5. Is the home in an ADGM community, where the freeze does not apply?
6. How much new supply is due in the same area in your handover year?
7. Have you allowed for service charges, which the landlord pays, before comparing rents?

• ADREC. The Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre, the regulator that registers sales and leases and publishes the official market reports. Our ADREC guide explains its role.
• Tawtheeq. Abu Dhabi's official system for registering and managing residential tenancy contracts.
• Lease value. The annual rent on active registered leases over a period, in dirhams.
• New lease. A contract registered for a unit with a new tenant, as opposed to a renewal with the same tenant.
• Repeat lease index. An index of rent changes for the same units across successive contracts.
• Investment zones. Designated areas where non-UAE nationals and foreign companies may own freehold.
• ADGM. Abu Dhabi Global Market, the free zone that administers much of Al Reem Island and Al Maryah Island; its communities are outside the 2026 rent freeze.

Browse Abu Dhabi off-plan projects or start with the Al Reem Island and Yas Island pages, save homes to your shortlist, or contact us for help comparing rents across projects. None of this is personal financial or legal advice.