Cornerstone guide
The Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan, Explained
Dubai's 2040 Urban Master Plan is the city's official plan for how it grows. It sets where people will live, how much land becomes green space, what sits near transit, and which districts are meant to become the next centres.
If you are weighing up a project, that is the useful part: is it built where the city is heading, or against it?
Registered, not projected
What the five centres have actually done since the plan
The centres the plan created from nothing have outrun the ones it inherited. Dubai Silicon Oasis is up +150% per square foot since 2021, against +67% in Downtown and Business Bay. The five centres together account for 19.6% of every home sale Dubai has registered since the plan was published.
Deira and Bur Dubai
No 2021 baseline, first priced 2022
- Sales since 2021
- 13,591
- Share of all Dubai
- 1.7%
- AED/sqft 2021
- No figure
- AED/sqft 2025
- AED 2,335
The historic centre, to be regenerated around its existing density. Counted: Dubai Islands · Jumeirah Garden City. Most of the historic core is not freehold, so it barely appears in the sales register. These figures cover the two parts that do: the Dubai Islands reclamation and Satwa's Jumeirah Garden City redevelopment.
Downtown and Business Bay
+67%
- Sales since 2021
- 70,228
- Share of all Dubai
- 8.6%
- AED/sqft 2021
- AED 1,505
- AED/sqft 2025
- AED 2,515
The established financial and business centre. Counted: Downtown Dubai · Business Bay.
Dubai Marina and JBR
+57%
- Sales since 2021
- 27,005
- Share of all Dubai
- 3.3%
- AED/sqft 2021
- AED 1,388
- AED/sqft 2025
- AED 2,180
The tourism and leisure centre. Counted: Dubai Marina · JBR.
The Expo 2020 centre
+140%
- Sales since 2021
- 38,227
- Share of all Dubai
- 4.7%
- AED/sqft 2021
- AED 652
- AED/sqft 2025
- AED 1,564
The new growth centre around Expo City and Al Maktoum International. Counted: Expo City · Dubai South · Dubai South Residential District.
Dubai Silicon Oasis
+150%
- Sales since 2021
- 11,583
- Share of all Dubai
- 1.4%
- AED/sqft 2021
- AED 559
- AED/sqft 2025
- AED 1,399
The technology and knowledge centre. Counted: DSO.
Every figure is registered sales from the Dubai Land Department, scoped to the named communities rather than to the DLD district they sit in, because one district blends markets that trade three times apart. 2021 is the plan's own year and 2025 is the last complete one, so the current year is left out of the comparison rather than being compared part-year against a full one. A centre's price per square foot is the median of everything that sold in it, so it moves with the mix as well as with prices, and a median over fewer than thirty sales is not shown at all. Register read through 2026-11-04.
Want the same figures for one community rather than a whole centre? Every community in the register.
What the plan itself promises by 2040
These are the plan's own published targets, not our figures.
- 3.3M → 5.8M
- Population projected to grow to 5.8 million residents by 2040 (7.8 million including daytime/visitor population)
- 5
- Planned urban centres: Deira & Bur Dubai, Downtown & Business Bay, Dubai Marina & JBR, Expo 2020 District, Dubai Silicon Oasis
- +105%
- Green and recreational space to increase, roughly doubling
- 55%
- Of the population will live within 800 metres of a main public transport station
- +25%
- Increase in space allocated for education and health facilities
- 1.7B sq ft
- Of land dedicated to industrial and economic activities
- 60%
- Of Dubai's total land area to be nature reserves and natural areas
- +400%
- Increase in public beach length
- +134%
- Increase in space for hospitality and tourism activities
The 2040 plan, with what the register says each area costs
The five urban centres the plan names, and every Dubai community we hold registered sales for, placed by its own coordinates. Median registered price per square foot over the last 12 months.
Tap any community for its registered figures. Circle size is how many homes were registered as sold there in the last 12 months.
Figures from Dubai's 2040 Urban Master Plan, underpinned by a new National Housing Program and Urban Planning Law.
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