The Real Cost of Buying Property in Dubai as an Indian: LRS, TCS, and Fees Nobody Mentions

Every Dubai property listing shows one number: the price. Getting that property into your name from India involves at least three more layers of cost, and most buyers only find out about them after they’ve already started the process.

Layer 1: the RBI remittance limit

Resident Indians can remit a maximum of USD 250,000 per person per financial year under RBI’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS). It’s a consolidated cap too, covering every foreign remittance you make that year, not just this one property purchase. At current exchange rates that’s roughly ₹2.1-2.2 crore per person, which rules out higher-value properties unless you take one of a few routes:

• Bring in a co-investor, such as a spouse or family member, to combine two LRS limits
• Spread payments across two financial years (April to March) if it’s an off-plan property with a multi-year schedule
• Fund through an NRI or OCI relative’s foreign account, since that route isn’t subject to LRS at all

Layer 2: TCS, the cost almost nobody plans for

This is the one that catches people off guard. Under current rules, Tax Collected at Source (TCS) applies at 20% on any amount remitted above ₹10 lakh in a financial year for investment-related transfers, and buying overseas property falls squarely into that bracket.

Take a concrete example. Remit ₹80 lakh to fund a Dubai purchase, and the math plays out like this:

• First ₹10 lakh: no TCS
• Remaining ₹70 lakh: 20% TCS, which works out to ₹14 lakh collected upfront

That ₹14 lakh isn’t gone for good. You can claim it as a credit against your income tax liability for the year, or get it refunded if you don’t have enough tax due to offset it. But you still need that ₹14 lakh available on top of the ₹80 lakh purchase amount, and it sits with the tax department until you file your return and claim it back. Budget your cash flow assuming that money is unavailable for months, not assuming it comes straight back.

Layer 3: the Dubai-side transaction fees

Once your money actually lands in Dubai, the property price still isn’t the final number.

Fee	Typical rate	On a ₹3.5 Cr (AED 1,500,000) property
DLD transfer fee	4% of price	~₹14 lakh
Trustee/admin fee	Flat fee (~AED 4,000)	~₹94,000
Agency commission (resale only)	~2% of price	~₹7 lakh (nil on most off-plan)
Mortgage registration (if financing)	~0.25% of loan + flat fee	Varies

These Dubai-side fees typically add up to 6-7% on top of the headline price, and that’s separate from the Indian-side TCS cost above, not instead of it.

Putting all three layers together

For a property priced around ₹3.5 crore, a Resident Indian funding it from India should realistically budget for three things: the ₹3.5 crore purchase price (within the LRS cap for one person, or split across co-investors if it isn’t), roughly 20% TCS on whatever portion of the remittance goes past ₹10 lakh (recoverable, but still a real upfront cash need), and another 6-7% in Dubai-side transaction fees, which aren’t recoverable.

Add those together and you get a meaningfully larger number than the listing price alone suggests. It’s exactly why a lot of people’s first Dubai property budget ends up short.

See your own numbers

Doing this math by hand for every community and unit size gets old fast. The Dubai Real Estate Strategy Portal works out the full DLD fee, trustee fee, agency commission, and mortgage registration stack for your specific budget and community choice, in both AED and INR, under Cost & yield snapshot. It won’t calculate TCS for you, since that depends on your total remittances for the year and only you know that, but having the Dubai-side fees pinned down precisely takes care of half the budgeting problem.

Related reading

• Dubai Real Estate for Indian Investors: The Complete Guide
• NRI vs Resident Indian: how the funding rules differ