Buying property in Dubai from Ireland

The short version

If you live in Ireland and are domiciled here, a property in Dubai is taxed in Ireland — much like a property in Ireland, with fewer reliefs.

• Rent from Dubai is taxed in Ireland at your normal rates, with the Universal Social Charge (USC) and often PRSI, the social insurance contribution. There is a tax treaty, but the UAE does not tax an individual’s rent from an ordinary tenancy, so there is nothing to credit. If you are not domiciled in Ireland, you pay Irish tax only on the rent you bring into Ireland, directly or indirectly.
• A loss on the Dubai apartment can only be set against rental profits from abroad — from your other foreign lettings, or from the apartment itself in later years. It cannot reduce the tax on your salary or on rent from Ireland.
• Interest on a loan for the apartment is deductible only while it is let — not while it is being built.
• The rent goes on your Irish tax return. If your income outside PAYE is more than €5,000 after costs and allowances, or more than €30,000 before allowances and losses, you file a Form 11 and pay by 31 October after the tax year.
• When you sell, Ireland taxes the gain at 31% after the first €1,270 a year, worked out in euro. The exchange rate alone can create a taxable gain, even if the price in dirhams did not change.
• Irish inheritance tax reaches the apartment if you or the person who inherits it is resident or ordinarily resident in Ireland. Who inherits it is decided under UAE rules; if you are not Muslim, a will registered in Dubai lets you decide.
• Moving to Dubai does not end Irish tax at once. You are usually resident for the whole year you leave, and “ordinarily resident” for the three tax years after it. Until then, Irish tax on the Dubai rent, on a sale and on what you leave or give can continue.
• You may not need to fly in. For off-plan, the developer registers the purchase; ask whether you can sign remotely. For a finished property, someone can sign for you on an Irish power of attorney. It needs a notary, an authentication stamp from the Department of Foreign Affairs, attestation by the UAE Embassy in Dublin and the UAE foreign ministry, and an Arabic translation. Dubai also checks its wording and age.
• Your price is in dirhams and your money in euros. In every three-year stretch since 2015, the euro’s highest month-end rate was at least 12% above its lowest.

Figures are those that apply from 7 October 2026, after Budget 2027. A Budget can change them, sometimes from the next day.

“Tax-free” is not true for you

There is a tax treaty between Ireland and the UAE, and it does not make your rent tax-free. The treaty — formally, the convention signed in Dubai on 1 July 2010, in effect in Ireland since 2011 — lets the UAE tax income and gains from property in the UAE. It obliges Ireland to allow UAE tax on that income or gain as a credit against the Irish tax on it.

The UAE “does not levy income tax on individuals”. Its corporate tax leaves out an individual’s income from selling, leasing or renting out property in the UAE, as long as this is not done, and does not have to be done, under a licence. Using a letting agent does not change that. Letting a holiday home under a permit in your own name does. That counts as a licensed business, and UAE corporate tax can apply once your business turnover in the UAE exceeds AED 1 million in a calendar year. With an ordinary tenancy, there is no UAE tax to credit, and you pay the full Irish tax on your rental profit.

In Revenue’s words: “If you are resident and domiciled in Ireland, you must pay Irish tax on income that you receive from renting out a foreign property.” That holds whether or not the money comes to Ireland.

If you are resident here but not domiciled here, you can claim to pay only on the rent you bring into Ireland, but then on all of it, with no deductions. Domicile, in Revenue’s words, “broadly means living in a country with the intention of living there permanently”. Everyone starts with a “domicile of origin” at birth, usually the father’s, and keeps it until they clearly make another country their permanent home. Some routes count as bringing rent into Ireland even though it stays abroad: using it abroad to repay a loan made in Ireland, for example, or passing it to your spouse or civil partner, who then brings it in.

For you, an apartment in Dubai is taxed in Ireland like an apartment in Limerick — with fewer reliefs. “Tax-free” is true in Dubai and wrong in Ireland.

Some cases are different in both countries: a property held through a company, a holiday home let under your own permit, and commercial property. Rent from an office or a shop also carries UAE VAT at 5%. Your tenant pays it, and it is not a tax on your income, but you may have to register for VAT in the UAE. Take these cases to your tax adviser before you buy, not after.

How the rent is taxed

Rent from abroad is taxed separately from rent in Ireland. It falls under a different heading of Irish tax (Case III of Schedule D, not Case V) and has its own lines in the tax return. Its taxable profit is the rent due for the year, less allowable costs: managing the property, insurance, repairs, service charges you pay that the tenant does not repay, and interest on the loan. Costs count only for the time the apartment is let. Costs before the first letting or after the last are lost, except the costs of finding the first tenant, such as letting, advertising and legal fees. You cannot deduct capital spending — the price, the costs of buying, improvements — or travel to the apartment, your own labour, or anything for a period when you or others stay there rent-free.

Furniture is not deducted at once. You claim capital allowances of 12.5% of the cost a year over eight years, for furniture and fittings you own that are in use at the end of each year.

Interest counts only while the apartment is let. Interest on a loan used directly to buy, improve or repair the apartment is deductible, and you must be able to show that the interest relates to that property. Interest on the part of a loan that paid stamp duty, legal fees or other costs of buying — such as the Land Department’s fee or agents’ fees — is not. If the loan also paid for something else, or you later replace it, only the interest you can trace to the price or the works counts. Interest between buying and the first tenant — for an off-plan apartment, possibly years of construction — is not deductible, and neither is interest for a period when you or others stay there rent-free.

Euro. Revenue wants every figure in euro. Agree with your adviser which exchange rate you use for rent and costs, and keep to it.

The rates. The rental profit is added to your other income and taxed at 20% or 40%, with USC. PRSI is due on it too if you are self-employed, or if you are an employee or occupational pensioner under 66 and a “chargeable person” (see What you report in Ireland). The PRSI rate rose from 4.2% to 4.35% on 1 October 2026; on 2026 income you declare yourself, the Department of Social Protection applies a blended 4.2375%. It rises again, to 4.5%, on 1 October 2027. With a total income above €70,044, each extra euro of rental profit costs 40 cent income tax and 8 cent USC — and with PRSI, about 52 cent: more than half.

Losses stay with your lettings abroad

A loss on a property abroad can be set only against rental profits from property abroad: from your other foreign lettings in the same year, and from any foreign letting, the same apartment included, in later years. It cannot be set against rent from a property in Ireland, against your salary, or against your spouse’s or civil partner’s income.

Most costs before the first letting are not deductible at all — the service charge on an apartment that stands empty after handover, interest during construction. A cost you cannot deduct never becomes a loss you can carry forward.

What you report in Ireland

No Irish stamp duty. You normally pay no Irish stamp duty when you buy a property abroad.

A bank transfer to Dubai needs no permission. EU law prohibits restrictions on moving capital, also to countries outside the EU. Cash is different: if you carry €10,000 or more in cash, or the same value in another currency, into or out of the EU — on a flight from Dublin to Dubai, for example — you must declare it to Customs. Revenue says you must have fully declared, for tax, all the money you use to buy a property abroad — and, if you borrow, the money you use to repay the loan. Your bank, the receiving UAE bank and your broker will want to see where it came from — see Proving where your money came from.

The rent goes on your tax return. If you are taxed through PAYE, and your income from outside PAYE — the Dubai rent included — is no more than €5,000 after costs, capital allowances and losses, and no more than €30,000 before allowances and losses, you declare it in myAccount, and Revenue collects the tax by reducing your tax credits. Otherwise you are a “chargeable person”: you register for self-assessment, file a Form 11 and pay by 31 October after the tax year — for 2026, by 31 October 2027. Revenue usually extends that to mid-November if you both pay and file through ROS, its online service. Each 31 October you also pay “preliminary tax”, an advance on the current year’s tax. In your first year you usually owe none; in your second, 31 October can bring a full year’s balance and an advance together. Once you are a chargeable person for a source of income, you stay one while that source exists, even if allowances or losses bring the income down to nil.

A bank account in the UAE. Irish law asks a resident who opens an account abroad to give its details in the tax return for the year it is opened: the bank’s name and address, the opening date, the first deposit and anyone who helped open it. There is an exception if, in that year, you are not otherwise a chargeable person and owe no Irish stamp duty, gift or inheritance tax — and the account is in a country that exchanges account data with Ireland and is not on the EU’s list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. The UAE meets both conditions today. If you are a chargeable person anyway in the year you open the account, give the details in that year’s Form 11, and ask your adviser where to enter them.

Selling: capital gains tax, in euro

Irish residents pay capital gains tax on gains wherever the property is. The rate is 31% for disposals from 7 October 2026 (33% before; Budget 2027), after an exemption of €1,270 a year per person; a spouse’s or civil partner’s unused exemption cannot be transferred. The UAE does not tax an individual’s gain on selling property unless the sale is part of a licensed business, so again there is nothing to credit. If you are resident or ordinarily resident but not domiciled in Ireland, you pay only on gains you bring into Ireland, and a loss abroad does not count.

Your gain is worked out in euro, not dirhams. What you paid is converted into euro at the rate when you bought, and what you receive at the rate when you sold. So the exchange rate alone can create a gain or a loss. The euro moves against the dirham as it moves against the dollar; see The currency.

Costs count. The costs of buying and selling — such as the Dubai Land Department’s registration fee and agents’ and lawyers’ fees — are added to what you paid or taken off what you receive. Mortgage interest, the costs of arranging the loan and insurance are not. Nor are running costs such as the service charge and repairs, even for months when you could not deduct them from the rent.

Off-plan instalments. If you pay for an off-plan unit in instalments over several years, ask your adviser which date’s rate applies to each payment, and keep a record of the rate on the contract date and on every payment date.

Deadlines. For a sale between 1 January and 30 November, you pay the tax by 15 December of the same year; for a sale in December, by 31 January of the next year. Unlike income tax, you do not pay it with your return the following year, and Revenue’s November extension for online filers does not change these dates. You declare the gain by 31 October of the year after the sale, even if no tax is due: on your Form 11 or on a paper Form 12. The online Form 12 in myAccount has no place for it; if you file that, or no return at all, you use Form CG1, which exists only on paper. The date that counts is the date of the contract, not the day the property is handed over or transferred.

Selling before handover. A sale under a contract is dated to the day the contract is made or, if it is conditional, the day the condition is met. If you sell your off-plan contract before the building is finished — “flipping”, in Revenue’s word — you pay Irish capital gains tax on the gain, and if buying and selling property is your business, Revenue may treat the gain as income.

If you cannot complete and the developer keeps some or all of what you paid, Irish law treats a forfeited deposit like an option you gave up: you lose the money, and you cannot set it against other gains. Whether that covers everything a Dubai developer may keep on cancellation is a question for your adviser.

Your own home abroad. Principal private residence relief can apply to a home outside Ireland, for the time it was your only or main residence; the last 12 months of ownership always count. If it was your main home for only part of the time, only that part of the gain is exempt. You can have only one main residence at a time, and the relief does not apply to a property bought wholly or mainly to sell at a gain.

Inheritance: Irish tax, Dubai rules

Irish inheritance tax looks at your heirs as well as at you. Capital acquisitions tax (CAT) applies to the whole inheritance — the Dubai apartment included — if you are resident or ordinarily resident in Ireland when you die. It also applies if the person who inherits is resident or ordinarily resident in Ireland when they inherit. So an apartment left to a child who lives in Ireland is within Irish CAT, even if you lived in Dubai. (“Ordinarily resident” is explained under Moving to Dubai.) If the person concerned is not domiciled in Ireland, they count only if they were resident in Ireland in each of the five tax years just before the year of the death or gift, and are still resident or ordinarily resident then.

The rate is 33% on what each heir receives above their tax-free threshold. The threshold takes into account the taxable gifts and inheritances they have already received in the same group since 5 December 1991: €420,000 from a parent to a child; €44,000 for close relatives such as a brother, sister, niece, nephew or grandchild; €22,000 for anyone else, an unmarried partner included. These thresholds apply to gifts and inheritances taken from 7 October 2026 (Budget 2027). A spouse or civil partner inherits free of CAT. There is no inheritance tax treaty between Ireland and the UAE, and the UAE government’s list of its taxes includes no inheritance tax, so there is nothing to credit.

Giving the apartment away during your life works differently. The same CAT rates and thresholds apply, and gifts of up to €3,000 a year from each person are free of CAT. But a gift is also a disposal for capital gains tax, at market value. The person who receives it can usually set your capital gains tax against their CAT, but loses that credit if they sell, give away or otherwise dispose of it within two years.

Who inherits the apartment is decided under UAE rules. UAE law applies to a foreigner’s will about property in the UAE, and Irish law agrees: it leaves succession to land abroad to the law of the place where it lies. Without a will, UAE rules point in different directions for an owner who lives abroad. One points to the law of your nationality, another to the law in force in Dubai for property in the emirate. The UAE’s law for non-Muslim foreigners living in the UAE sets a fixed split: half of the estate to the spouse, half to the children in equal shares. No official text we found settles which applies.

A will registered in Dubai settles it. If you are not and have never been Muslim, the courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) register wills for people with assets in the UAE, including people who do not live there. You can attend the appointment online. A will covering up to five properties costs AED 7,500. Dubai Courts keep a register of non-Muslim wills too. Make sure your Irish will and your Dubai will do not contradict each other.

Moving to Dubai does not end Irish tax at once

Irish tax residence follows your days in Ireland. You are resident for a tax year if you spend 183 days or more in Ireland in that year, or 280 days or more across that year and the one before. A year in which you spend 30 days or fewer in Ireland does not count towards the 280. A day counts if you are in Ireland at any time during it. In the year you leave you are usually resident for the whole year: splitting the year applies to income from a job only.

You stay “ordinarily resident” for three more tax years. After three tax years in a row of residence, you are ordinarily resident from the fourth. You remain so until you have been non-resident for three tax years in a row — so for the three tax years after the year you leave. During those years:

• Gains. If you are domiciled in Ireland, you remain within Irish capital gains tax on gains anywhere, a sale of the Dubai apartment included.
• Rent. Your Dubai rent stays taxable in Ireland if your income from abroad — apart from a job or business carried on wholly abroad — is more than €3,810 in the year. Then all of it is taxable, not just the excess.
• Inheritance tax. If you are domiciled in Ireland, CAT reaches everything you leave or give during those years; if you are not, the five-year rule under Inheritance decides. After that, it still reaches what people resident or ordinarily resident in Ireland inherit or receive from you, and anything situated in Ireland, whoever receives it.

The treaty rarely helps. Under its protocol, an individual counts as resident in the UAE only as a UAE national present there for at least 183 days in the year, or as a person who pays income or corporate tax in the UAE because of their domicile, residence or a similar link there. Even for someone who counts, the treaty still lets Ireland tax a gain under Irish law if the person was resident in Ireland at any time in the five years before the sale. That covers the whole time you stay ordinarily resident, so for a sale of the apartment the treaty changes nothing.

Income from Ireland, such as rent from an Irish property, stays taxable in Ireland whatever your residence. If you are planning a move, talk to your adviser before you go.

Buying without flying in

Off-plan. The developer registers your purchase with the Land Department through its developer portal, Oqood. For a non-resident buyer, the Land Department lists a copy of the sale and purchase contract and a copy of a valid passport, and the sale must be registered within 90 days of signing. The Land Department’s description does not ask you to be there in person. Whether you can sign the contract remotely is the developer’s practice, not a published rule — ask before you reserve.

A finished property is transferred at a registration trustee office licensed by the Land Department, between the parties “or their legally authorized representatives”. If you are not there, someone signs for you on a power of attorney.

An Irish power of attorney goes through five steps before you can use it in Dubai. The UAE is not a party to the Apostille Convention. So for the UAE, Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs does not issue an apostille but an “authentication stamp” — and that is only one of the steps:

Since July 2025, Dubai also checks the paper, the wording and the age. The Land Department’s Circular No. 29/R/2025 is known from Dubai law firms’ summaries. One of them reports that the Land Department wants to see the original paper document, not an uncertified electronic or scanned copy, and accepts a power of attorney issued abroad only if it names the transaction explicitly — for a purchase, wording such as “purchase for oneself with explicit specification of the ownership share”. General wording like “full authority to manage property” can be rejected. If the UAE side attests your document digitally, it is not settled whether the Land Department accepts that together with the original. Before you start, ask the embassy how it attests, and the developer or the trustee office whether they accept it.

How old it may be is less settled. The law firms read the circular as two years for any transaction. The Land Department’s own FAQ gives two years for selling, mortgaging or gifting a property and five years from the date of notarisation for buying one. Assume two years: sign it close to when it will be used, not when you reserve, and have the wording checked in Dubai before you sign it in Ireland.

If you later sell on a power of attorney, the same law-firm summaries say the circular also controls the money. The sale price is paid by manager’s cheque — a cheque issued by the bank itself, like a bank draft — in your name as the owner on the title deed. A cheque to your representative is possible only on conditions, for example a receipt stating that it was received on your behalf. One firm reports that, in practice, cheques are again made out to the representative where both the sale contract and the power of attorney say so. So have both say who may receive the money. See Proving where your money came from.

The currency: your price is in dirhams, your money in euros

The dirham is pegged to the US dollar at 3.6725 (Central Bank of the UAE). The rate that moves your price is the euro against the dollar.

Since January 2015, the month-end rate has ranged from 3.599 dirhams to the euro (September 2022) to 4.557 (January 2018). For a property priced at AED 1.5 million, that is the difference between €416,782 and €329,164 — €87,618 for the same apartment.

An off-plan payment plan runs for years. Over every 36-month stretch since 2015, the highest month-end rate was at least 12% above the lowest — typically about 18%, and up to 25%. In the last three years alone, the same AED 1.5 million cost €394,529 in December 2024 and €344,748 in January 2026.

You can fix a rate in advance with a forward contract through your bank; it binds you to the amount and the date. Or you convert each instalment when it falls due and accept the swing. Either way, plan your instalments in euros with room for that swing, not at today’s rate. The exchange rate also counts when you work out your capital gain.

Questions for your tax adviser

• How do I declare rent from Dubai, and which costs can I deduct — the service charge, furnishing, the interest on my loan?
• Once the apartment is let, how do I carry a loss forward?
• I am borrowing against my Irish home to pay for the apartment. Does that interest count, and from when?
• Which exchange rate do I use for the rent, for each off-plan instalment and for the sale — and what records should I keep?
• If I keep rent or sale money in dirhams, is there a further gain or loss when I change it?
• If I sell my purchase contract before handover, how is that taxed — and could it count as trading?
• Should I hold the property myself or through a company — and what would Irish and UAE tax mean then?
• We are buying jointly. How are the rent and the gain split between us?
• Am I domiciled in Ireland?
• My children live in Ireland. What would CAT mean for them, and what if I give them the apartment during my life? How should my Irish will and a Dubai will fit together?
• If I move to Dubai: when do I stop being resident and ordinarily resident, and what stays taxable until then?

Questions and answers

Related guides

• Proving where your money came from
• What can go wrong when you buy off-plan in Dubai
• What a guaranteed return is actually worth
• What buying property in Dubai costs on top of the price
• Getting a Golden Visa through Dubai property
• Dubai property terms, explained
• Property scams in Dubai: how they work, and the checks that stop them