Dubai issued a new law in 2026 that will eventually touch every building in the emirate, and almost nobody buying or renting a Dubai apartment has heard of it. Law No. 3 of 2026 Concerning the Quality and Safety of Buildings creates a mandatory structural inspection regime for older buildings, enforced by a certificate that has to be renewed for the life of the building.
Most coverage of it, where there is any, reads as a safety story. That is not the part that will cost owners money. The part that will cost owners money is a single sub-paragraph in the penalties article allowing the authorities to suspend the attestation of tenancy contracts for units in a non-compliant building. A building that fails to comply does not merely collect a fine. It can stop being rentable.
This guide covers what the law requires, who actually has to do the work in an apartment building, the enforcement mechanism, and the new route by which a tenant can be required to vacate.
What the Law Covers
The scope is deliberately total. Article 3(a) applies the law to all buildings in the emirate, including those in Special Development Zones and Free Zones such as the Dubai International Financial Centre, and expressly regardless of whether they were constructed before or after the law took effect. There is no grandfathering. Article 3(b) leaves the Chairman of the Executive Council a power to exempt individual buildings, which is a discretionary escape hatch rather than a category exemption.
The instrument at the centre of it is the Quality and Safety Certificate, defined in Article 2 as a document issued by the Competent Entity confirming the quality, safety and suitability for use of a building after assessing its structural condition. The Competent Entity is Dubai Municipality for most of the emirate, and the authority supervising the zone for Special Development Zones and free zones, DIFC included.
Critically for anyone who owns an apartment rather than a whole building, Article 2 defines Owner to include the owner of a real property unit in a building governed by Law No. 6 of 2019, the jointly owned property law. Individual unit owners are inside the regime, not outside it.
The Trigger Is Twenty Years, Measured From the Completion Certificate
The obligation in Article 9(a)(1) is to obtain a Quality and Safety Certificate after the lapse of twenty years from the date on which the building's Completion Certificate was issued. Where no Completion Certificate exists, the Competent Entity estimates a completion date from available data under Article 6(4).
Worth flagging if you read the law yourself: the definition of Building in Article 2 of the official English translation is garbled, describing a building completed at least twenty years before the date of issuance of the Completion Certificate, which inverts the sequence. Article 9(a)(1) is the operative obligation and reads the sensible way round, twenty years after the certificate. The translation carries the standard notice that the Arabic text prevails in case of conflict, so the Arabic is the version to rely on.
Buildings under twenty years old are not untouched. Article 9(a)(4) separately requires owners to perform periodic maintenance on them, on their own initiative or when asked, and to rectify defects posing a risk to structural safety. The certificate regime starts at twenty years; the maintenance duty starts immediately.
Once issued, the certificate does not last forever. Article 13 sets two validity periods, renewable for the same period.
| Age of building | Certificate validity |
|---|---|
| Completion Certificate issued less than 40 years ago | 10 years |
| Completion Certificate issued 40 years ago or more | 5 years |
So a 1990s tower in Bur Dubai or Deira is on a ten-year cycle now and moves to a five-year cycle as it passes forty, meaning inspections get more frequent precisely as the building ages.
Who Does the Work, and Who Pays
This is where apartment owners need to read carefully, because the answer is split.
Article 10(a) assigns the owner's tasks under this law to the Management Entity designated under Law No. 6 of 2019 for jointly owned buildings. Your owners association management company obtains the certificate, contracts the engineering firm, and contracts the contractor to rectify defects. You do not individually commission a structural survey of your tower.
Article 10(b) then keeps the money and the responsibility with you. The obligations imposed on the owner apply to the Management Entity without prejudice to the owner's liability for the payment of any fees, charges, amounts or security deposits prescribed under the law, or to the owner's responsibility to monitor the Management Entity's performance of those tasks. In plain terms, the management company does the work, the cost reaches you through service charges, and supervising whether they actually did it is legally your problem.
For anyone buying into an older building, that makes two questions part of due diligence that were not before. When was the Completion Certificate issued, and has the building obtained or applied for its Quality and Safety Certificate? A tower approaching twenty years with no plan and no reserve fund is carrying an unpriced liability, and rectification works identified in a technical report are not optional.
The technical report itself is broad. Article 7(d) requires it to cover structural integrity, the integrity of all types of exterior cladding, the condition of electrical and mechanical installations in external and common areas, the condition of windows, doors and security barriers on external facades and in common areas, Civil Defence safety requirements, and CCTV requirements set by the Security Industry Regulatory Agency. Cladding and facade work on a tall tower is expensive, and it falls squarely inside the checklist.
The Enforcement Clause That Actually Bites
Article 16(a) sets fines from AED 100 to AED 1,000,000, doubled on repetition of the same violation within two years, capped at AED 2,000,000. The specific acts and their specific fines are left to a resolution of the Chairman of the Executive Council, so the fine schedule is a separate instrument to watch for rather than something you can read today.
The fines are not the mechanism to worry about. Article 16(c) lets the Competent Entity, in coordination with other government entities, also take either of two measures against a violator. The first is suspending the issuance or renewal of building permits for that building until the violation is remedied. The second is suspending consideration of, or rejecting, any applications relating to that building submitted to government or private entities, including the suspension of the attestation of Lease Contracts for real property units in that building, for a period set in coordination with the Dubai Land Department.
Read that second one slowly if you are a landlord. Lease attestation is Ejari. Without a registered tenancy contract a tenant cannot reliably obtain a DEWA connection, sponsor residency, enrol children in some schools, or renew a visa. A suspension at building level does not distinguish between the owner who voted for the remedial works and the owner who blocked them. Every unit in the building loses its ability to be let on a registered contract until the building is compliant.
That is a far sharper incentive than a fine, and it lands on service-charge payers collectively.
Tenants Can Be Required to Vacate for the Works
The law also creates a vacating route that sits outside the familiar tenancy rules, and it is easy to miss.
Article 12(b)(3) requires occupants to vacate a building within three months from the date of the Competent Entity's approval of the Technical Report, where that report indicates maintenance works and rectification of defects are prerequisites for obtaining the certificate. Article 12(c) provides that if an occupant fails to vacate within that period, the owner may pursue eviction through judicial channels, and that the Rental Dispute Settlement Centre must consider the claim on a summary basis with a decision providing for immediate enforceability.
Set that against the ordinary position. Eviction at the end of a tenancy in Dubai normally runs on a twelve-month notarised notice under the amended Law No. 26 of 2007, as the archive's tenancy guide sets out. This is a different track with a three-month clock, triggered by an engineering report rather than a landlord's intention, and expressly fast-tracked at the RDC.
There is a real protection on the other side of it. Article 15(b) gives an occupant who vacates under this law priority to return to the building after reconstruction or completion of the works, at the same rent agreed in the lease contract before vacating, unless the parties agree otherwise. A tenant displaced for structural works has a right of return at the old rent, which in a rising market is valuable. Where the building is to be demolished instead, Article 15(a) applies the ordinary Law No. 26 of 2007 eviction provisions.
Demolition, and the AED 50,000 Deposit
An owner is not forced to certify a building that is not worth certifying. Article 14(a) exempts an owner from obtaining the certificate where the Competent Entity decides to demolish the building because of serious structural defects, or where the owner elects to demolish instead of starting the certification process. In the second case the entity may grant up to one year from approval to carry out the demolition.
That election is secured. Article 14(b) requires a refundable cash security deposit of AED 50,000, forfeited if the deadline passes without demolition, unless the owner proves the delay was outside their control, in which case up to a further six months may be granted. Article 14(c) adds that forfeiting the deposit does not release the owner from the obligation to obtain the certificate, so walking away from a demolition plan puts the building straight back into the regime.
Timing, and How to Challenge a Decision
Article 25 provides that the law comes into force sixty days after publication in the Official Gazette. It was issued in Dubai on 27 February 2026. Article 22 then gives all owners, contractors and engineering firms to whom it applies one year from the date the law comes into force to comply, extendable by the Chairman of the Executive Council for the same period. That places the first compliance deadline in 2027 rather than now, and the fees under Article 21 await their own Executive Council resolution. Confirm the gazette date with your conveyancer before relying on any specific deadline.
If a decision goes against you, Article 19 allows any affected party to submit a written grievance to the Director General within thirty days of being notified. A committee formed by the Director General decides it within thirty days, and that decision is final. Thirty days is short, and the finality means the grievance stage is the stage that matters.
Questions Owners Ask
Does Law No. 3 of 2026 apply to my apartment or only to whole buildings?
It applies to both. Article 2 defines Owner to include the owner of a real property unit in a building governed by Law No. 6 of 2019, so individual apartment owners are within scope. In practice, Article 10 assigns the actual work of obtaining the certificate to the owners association management entity, while leaving owners liable for the fees and responsible for monitoring that the management entity performs.
When does a Dubai building need its first Quality and Safety Certificate?
Article 9(a)(1) sets the trigger at twenty years from the date the building's Completion Certificate was issued. Where no Completion Certificate was ever issued, the Competent Entity estimates a completion date from available data. Separately, buildings younger than twenty years still carry a periodic maintenance obligation under Article 9(a)(4).
How long is a Dubai Quality and Safety Certificate valid?
Ten years for buildings whose Completion Certificate was issued less than forty years ago, and five years for buildings at forty years or more, under Article 13(a). Both periods are renewable for the same length, with renewal conditions to be set by Executive Council resolution.
What happens to a building that does not comply?
Fines run from AED 100 to AED 1,000,000 under Article 16(a), doubling on repeat violations within two years up to AED 2,000,000. More seriously, Article 16(c) permits suspension of building permits for the building and suspension of the attestation of tenancy contracts for its units, which can stop the building being let on registered contracts until the violation is fixed.
Can a tenant be evicted so repair works can be carried out?
Yes, by a route specific to this law. Article 12(b)(3) requires occupants to vacate within three months of the Competent Entity approving a technical report that makes works a precondition for the certificate, and Article 12(c) sends refusals to the Rental Dispute Settlement Centre for summary, immediately enforceable determination. Article 15(b) gives the tenant priority to return afterwards at the same rent.
The Short Version
Law No. 3 of 2026 puts every Dubai building on a structural certification cycle starting at twenty years from its Completion Certificate, with ten-year renewals that shorten to five once the building passes forty. Free zones and DIFC are included and pre-existing buildings are not grandfathered.
For apartment owners the work is done by the owners association management entity, but the cost arrives through service charges and the duty to supervise is yours. The compliance clock runs one year from the law's entry into force, which puts it in 2027, and the fee schedule and fine schedule are still to come by Executive Council resolution.
The clause to understand is Article 16(c). A building that does not comply can have the attestation of its tenancy contracts suspended, which converts a maintenance dispute into a loss of rental income for every owner in the building at once. If you are buying into a tower built in the 2000s or earlier, ask for the Completion Certificate date and the building's certification status before you sign.
