Furnished or Unfurnished: What the Dubai Rental Data Shows

Property Finder's February 2025 data shows around 64% of apartment tenants in Dubai preferring furnished against 34% unfurnished, while villa and townhouse tenants lean the other way, at roughly 58% searching for unfurnished. Dubai has no published dataset showing how much more rent a furnished unit earns, which is the number most landlords want.

No published Dubai source gives a furnished rent premium percentage. DLD and RERA do not publish a furnished versus unfurnished rent differential. Treat any specific percentage you see as unsourced.

What is published is demand data.

What the demand data says

Property Finder's February 2025 analysis of tenant search behaviour reported a split by property type:

• Apartments: roughly 64% of tenants looking for apartments preferred furnished, against 34% unfurnished. The same release says furnished apartment searches rose to 59%, compared to 45% in 2024; the two figures are presented separately in the release.
• Villas and townhouses: around 58% searched for unfurnished units and 42% for furnished, the reverse of the apartment pattern.

The data shows a difference in search preference by property type, but it measures searches, not tenants' reasons. Unit size, household type, intended tenancy length, relocation circumstances and existing furniture ownership can all influence the decision.

One adjacent point: short-term holiday-home accommodation is ordinarily offered furnished, so owners considering that market need to assess furnishing and operating costs separately from a conventional annual tenancy.

Do furnished units rent for more?

Furnished units may be advertised at higher rents than comparable unfurnished units, but no published Dubai-wide dataset isolates the furnishing premium while controlling for building, unit size, condition and location. Compare genuinely comparable units within the same building or development before modelling a premium. Two identical layouts on the same floor, one furnished and one not, will tell you more about your specific asset than any citywide average.

Better benchmark: same building, same layout, similar floor and condition, furnished versus unfurnished.

The same applies to letting speed. No Dubai days-on-market or turnover data by furnishing status is published, so the claim that furnished units let faster is an inference rather than a measured fact.

Does furnishing affect the Smart Rental Index?

DLD's January 2025 announcement of the Smart Rental Index describes a building classification system that considers technical and structural characteristics, quality of finishes and maintenance, strategic location, and services and facilities. Furnishing is not among the listed criteria.

Landlords should not assume that adding furniture creates a separately protected rent component, or allows increases outside the applicable tenancy rules. For an existing tenancy, any proposed rent change should still be checked against the current DLD and RERA rules and against the tenancy contract.

On the underlying mechanism: Decree No. 43 of 2013 sets the permitted increase percentages on renewal, and Article 3 of that Decree delegates the benchmark to the rent index approved by RERA, which the Smart Rental Index now provides. The percentages and the benchmark are two different things, set by two different instruments. Our guide to rent increases and disputes covers the mechanism.

The costs to model

Furnishing is a capital decision with a recurring tail. These are the items to price.

• Initial furnishing cost: furniture, appliances, window treatments, kitchenware.
• Replacement and maintenance: furniture and appliances may require repair or replacement during the ownership period, creating an ongoing cost that should be included in the furnishing model.
• Inventory management: a detailed photographed inventory is useful wherever furniture is included in the tenancy.
• Storage or disposal: relevant if the letting strategy later changes.
• Sale treatment: do not assume furnishing expenditure will be recovered through a higher sale price. Whether furniture is included, and what value a buyer attributes to it, depends on the transaction.

How should a landlord work out whether furnishing is worthwhile?

Rather than a rule, use a calculation you can run on your own unit:

• Establish the achievable unfurnished rent from genuinely comparable units in the same building.
• Establish the achievable furnished rent from the same comparison set.
• Take the annual incremental rent between the two.
• Subtract annualised furnishing cost, replacement and maintenance. If you have reliable unit or building-level evidence of a difference in vacancy or tenant turnover, include that as well.
• What remains is the incremental return from furnishing.

There is no universal result, because the inputs are unit-specific. The formula is the useful part.

Which properties are more likely to suit furnished or unfurnished letting?

The search data suggests furnished demand is stronger for apartments, while unfurnished preference is stronger for villas. That is a useful starting signal, but the decision should be made at building and unit level. Before furnishing, compare current listings and achieved rents for similar units, expected tenancy length, furniture cost, replacement requirements and the likely tenant profile for the specific community.

Studios and one-bedroom apartments may justify closer analysis of a furnished strategy, because apartment search preference currently leans furnished. Villas and larger homes merit the opposite check, because villa searches currently lean unfurnished. Neither should be treated as an automatic rule. For base rent levels by district, see our guide to average rents by area.

If you are buying off-plan

For buyers considering an off-plan property, the furnishing decision does not need to be made at purchase. Monitoring comparable rental stock as handover approaches gives a better basis for deciding whether to furnish. Explore Pearlshire's residences in Arjan and DLRC.