Off-plan outside Dubai 2026: what the other five emirates actually cost

583 off-plan projects sit outside Dubai, and they are not evenly spread.

269 in Abu Dhabi, 118 in Sharjah, 131 in Ras Al Khaimah, 35 in Ajman and 30 in Umm Al Quwain. Between them they carry 10,125 priced unit records, 19% of the priced stock in the corpus. What separates them is publication rather than size. Umm Al Quwain averages 74.3 priced units per project against Abu Dhabi's 6.5, so an emirate with 11% of Abu Dhabi's project count publishes more priced inventory than it does. Towers on a single waterfront publish full unit tables; villa and low rise books mostly publish a from price and stop there.

Largest book first. A priced unit is a unit record carrying an asking price, not a unit built or sold. Units per project measures how completely developers in that emirate publish their inventory, not how large their buildings are.

Every emirate has its own benchmark page under emirates, and the full filterable list is in the project index.

Price per sqft spans 3.6x across the emirates, and Dubai is not at the top.

Ras Al Khaimah asks a median AED 2,721 per sqft, +35% against Dubai's AED 2,021. Umm Al Quwain sits at AED 2,599, +29%. At the other end Ajman asks AED 764, which is 3.6 times cheaper than the top of the table. The emirate border is doing more work here than any single feature of the buildings.

Two of the three dearest emirates are the two smallest books. That is not a paradox, it is what a concentrated book looks like: when 73% of an emirate's projects sit on one waterfront address, the emirate median is that address's median.

Dearest first. The UAE median of AED 2,008 is computed across all 52,882 priced units in the corpus, including the two emirates too thin to benchmark on their own.

Abu Dhabi is cheaper per square foot than Dubai and more than twice the ticket.

Abu Dhabi asks AED 1,981 per sqft against Dubai's AED 2,021, -2%. Its median asking price is AED 4.58M against Dubai's AED 1.91M, which is 2.4 times larger. The entire difference is floor area: the median Abu Dhabi unit in the corpus is 2,210 sqft, the median Dubai unit 916 sqft.

This is the single most misread number in UAE off-plan. Abu Dhabi is not a more expensive market per unit of space, it is a market that sells more space per unit. Comparing headline tickets across the two emirates without normalising for size gets the direction of the price gap backwards.

Entry ticket is the lowest published from price anywhere in that emirate, a single listing rather than a level: it says what exists, not what is typical.

The same size effect inside Dubai is scored by bedroom in the bedroom note.

Booking deposits halve outside Dubai: 10% is the norm in 4 of the five.

Dubai asks a median 20% on booking across 3,315 published plans. Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah and Ajman all ask a median 10%. On a AED 1.68M Sharjah median that is roughly AED 168K to reserve, against AED 382K on the Dubai median. The cheque that starts the purchase is the clearest structural difference between Dubai and everywhere else in the country.

Medians are taken per stage across the plans that publish that stage, so a row does not have to total 100%. A post-handover segment is drawn only where more than half the emirate's plans carry a tail, which is why five of the six rows end at handover; the tails themselves are finding 06. Base counts are on each label.

Sharjah asks the least before the keys: 40% against Dubai's 60%.

Pre-handover share is the number that decides how much of the purchase is financed by the buyer rather than the bank. Sharjah runs a median 40% across 179 plans, 20% lighter than Dubai. On a median ticket that is a difference of roughly AED 337K of cash held back until completion on the same purchase.

Lightest before handover first. A tail means any part of the price falls due after the keys.

What a given plan costs month by month is on the payment plan calculator, and the Dubai plan structure is scored in the payment plan note.

Ajman writes post-handover tails on 52% of its plans, 3.1x Dubai.

Across 56 published Ajman plans, 52% let some part of the price run past handover, against 17% of Dubai's 3,315. The median Ajman tail defers 49% of the price. That is a financing product, not a discount: the same money, later, on terms the developer sets rather than a bank.

The pattern rewards reading. Deferred payment is heaviest exactly where the resale market is thinnest, which is where a buyer most needs the option and least wants to need it.

Who writes tails in Dubai, and on which handover years, is in the post-handover note.

One address can be the whole emirate.

Umm Al Quwain Marina carries 22 of Umm Al Quwain's 30 tracked projects, 73%. Dubai's largest single community, Jumeirah Village Circle, carries 13%. Developer concentration follows: Sobha Realty alone accounts for 26 of Umm Al Quwain's 30 projects, 87% of the emirate, where Dubai's largest developer holds 14% of its own.

The practical consequence is that a small emirate median is a project decision, not a market signal. If the anchor scheme reprices, the emirate reprices. Dubai's median moves when 135 communities move.

Most concentrated first. Developer names are as published, so a group operating under several brands is counted as several developers.

Stock left over runs from 3% sold out to 59%.

Sharjah has the most picked-over book: 116 of 195 projects are recorded sold out or out of stock, 59%. Umm Al Quwain sits at 3% across 30 projects, essentially a book that has only just opened. Dubai runs at 42%.

Sold-out share is a supply reading rather than a demand one. A young emirate book looks available because it launched recently, and an old one looks scarce because what did not sell has quietly stopped being listed.

The Dubai equivalent, cut by delivery year, community and build stage, is the sell-through note.

Every emirate has a different peak handover year, and they do not queue politely.

Dubai's published book peaks in 2027 with 750 projects scheduled. Abu Dhabi peaks in 2029, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah in 2028, Ajman as early as 2025. The country therefore does not have one completion wave, it has five, spread over 2025 to 2029. Ajman's crests before Dubai's and Abu Dhabi's two years after it, so a buyer reading national handover commentary is reading an average of five schedules that never line up.

Scheduled completion as published by the developer, which is a plan and not a forecast. Projects with no published date are not in these bars.

The Dubai wave in full, by year and quarter to 2030, is in the pipeline note.

The bedroom curve inverts outside Dubai: in Ajman a 2 BR asks 47% less per sqft than a studio.

Dubai charges a premium for small: a studio asks AED 2,280 per sqft against AED 2,027 for a 2 BR. That premium is not universal. In Ajman the 2 BR asks AED 690 against AED 1,300 for a studio, so the small unit is the expensive square foot by a wide margin. In Ras Al Khaimah the curve is nearly flat, 2,683 against 2,873, which is what a book concentrated on one address looks like: tower after tower on the same waterfront, priced off the same level whatever the layout.

For a buyer this decides which rung is worth taking. Where the curve is flat, extra bedrooms cost what they weigh; where it slopes, the cheapest square foot and the cheapest ticket are two different products.

Median asking price per sqft on the labelled unit records in each emirate. Bases differ by orders of magnitude between Dubai and Umm Al Quwain, and a rung with few records moves on very little.