Loan to value
Loan to value, or LTV, is how much of a property’s value a bank may lend you. The rest is your deposit.
It is a percentage. If the limit is 80%, a bank may lend up to 80% of what the property is worth. You put in the rest.
The regulation words it precisely: the ratio of the amount of the loan outstanding to the appraised value of the residential property. Two things in that sentence do real work, and the second one catches people out.
Two related words you will meet. Your down payment is the money you pay up front towards the price, which reduces the loan against the property. Your equity is the property’s value less everything owed against it, which is why releasing equity from a home you already own is a different transaction from buying one.
This page explains the limit. If what you really want to know is whether you can borrow at all, and roughly how much, what UAE lenders assess answers that directly.
Because it sets two numbers you care about.
It decides the most a bank could lend on that property. And what it does not cover is your deposit, which you pay in cash.
So the limit is not an abstraction. Move from one group to another and your deposit moves with it, on the same property, at the same price.
On the valuation. Not on the price you agreed with the seller.
An independent valuer decides what the property is worth. If that figure matches the price, you will never notice the difference. If it comes in lower, the limit is worked out on the lower figure, and the shortfall is yours to pay, in cash.
This is not something to argue with your bank about. The ratio is measured against the valuation by definition.
Because everything hangs on that figure, the rules are specific about how it is produced.
Before any irrevocable commitment to lend, an independent on-site valuation must be undertaken by a suitably qualified professional third party. That valuer must be independent of the borrower, the seller, the developer or contractor, and the loan decision process. Each bank must also keep a board-approved list of valuers, chosen against clear criteria.
One more rule tells you a lot about the UAE market. Appraisals must be realistic and substantiated, and appraisal reports must not reflect expected future house price appreciation. A valuer prices the property as it is today, not as a rising market suggests it will be. In a fast-moving market, that is exactly when a valuation and a price come apart.
These are the limits the regulation sets. They are the highest a bank may go, not what you will be offered.
85% where the value of the property is less than or equal to AED 5 million, and 75% where it is more than AED 5 million.
80% where the value of the property is less than AED 5 million, and 70% where it is more than AED 5 million.
65% for UAE nationals and 60% for expatriates, whatever the property is worth.
50%, regardless of purpose, value, or category of purchaser. The regulation gives its reason: buying before a building is finished takes a long time and carries a higher risk that it is never completed.
One detail if your property sits right on the threshold. The two groups are worded with different comparators. The UAE national limit reads less or equal to AED 5 million; the expatriate limit reads less than AED 5 million. Both upper limits read more than. So a property valued at exactly AED 5 million falls between the two expatriate bands as the text is drafted. We state what the text says rather than resolving it, and in practice a bank will apply its own policy there.
A property bought off plan follows a different limit, and the cash you fund before handover changes the picture; how an off-plan mortgage works covers both.
The rules set the two out separately, with a different maximum for each. It is the first thing that decides which line you are reading.
Each group splits at AED 5 million, with a lower maximum above it. The split is on what the valuer says the property is worth, not on the price you agreed.
The first-home rate is the higher one, and each borrower can only claim one property under it.
These share a single maximum that does not move with the value. Above AED 5 million that can leave you better off than the first-home limit would.
Off plan overrides everything else, at 50% regardless of purpose, value, or category of purchaser.
Each bank sets its own maximum for each kind of loan, under a policy its board has approved. The rules draw the outer edge. They do not decide what your bank will lend you.
Because it is allowed to, and often will.
The mortgage regulations set minimum standards. Banks are encouraged to apply higher standards, and nothing in the regulations prevents them from adopting more conservative limits where they deem it appropriate.
Every bank must also hold a board-approved lending policy, setting the maximum loan to value it allows for each kind of loan. So there are two ceilings: the regulatory one, and your bank’s own, which sits at or below it.
A bank offering you less than the maximum is not breaking the rule. It is doing what the rule expects. The limit describes what may be lent, not what you will be offered.
This is the case worth seeing in numbers, because it is where people get caught short.
Example
You agree a price of AED 2,050,000 on a first home. You are an expatriate, so the limit that applies is 80%.
The valuer puts the property at AED 2,000,000, slightly under the price.
The limit is worked on the valuation, so the most that may be lent is 80% of AED 2,000,000 = AED 1,600,000.
You cover the rest: AED 2,050,000 − AED 1,600,000 = AED 450,000. That is AED 400,000 of deposit, plus AED 50,000 because the valuation came in under the price. Registration, trustee, mortgage registration, valuation and bank fees all sit on top of that.
Example only. Your actual borrowing depends on your circumstances, the property and the lender. The figures are illustrative and are not an offer.
The point is the AED 50,000. It appears at the end, it is not part of the deposit you planned for, and no amount of negotiating moves it.
There is one, and it is narrow. Where a loan to a UAE national to construct or purchase a property for owner occupation under a local government housing programme is guaranteed, the maximum loan to value allowable may be increased to 85% when the value of the property is AED 5 million or less.
Every part of that matters: a UAE national, for owner occupation, under a local government housing programme, and guaranteed. The same article adjusts the income-side limit for those loans too, which how the debt burden ratio works covers rather than this page.
No. And assuming it is, is the most common way a purchase runs short at the end.
Putting the property in your name carries a government charge. It is paid in cash and cannot be added to the loan.
The transfer is completed at a registration trustee centre, which charges its own fee.
Securing the loan against the property is a separate step from buying it, with a separate charge.
Your bank arranges an independent valuer, and the fee for that report is normally paid by you.
An agent’s fee where one is involved, and whatever your bank charges to arrange the mortgage.
If the valuation comes in under the price you agreed, that difference is yours to cover, on top of the deposit.
None of these can be borrowed inside the ratio, because the ratio measures the property, not the transaction. What a Dubai purchase involves sets out the charges that apply there, each one attributed to whoever publishes it.
Loan to value is one limit of three, not the limit.
Alongside it sit a ceiling on how much of your income can go to debt repayments, which the debt burden ratio explains, and a cap set as a multiple of annual income. You are held to whichever of the three is lowest for you.
Knowing which one binds tells you what to do about it. If the property limit is binding, a bigger deposit or a different property helps and more income does not. If an income limit is binding, the opposite is true. The calculator works out each limit and tells you which one is holding you back.
For the wider picture, mortgages in the UAE is the overview this page sits under.
Four things, in this order.
CredMe applies the limits that fit your situation and shows which one is holding you back. That is an initial assessment, not a lending decision. A CredMe Mortgage Consultant goes through it with you before any bank is approached, and the lender underwrites the application and makes the final decision. CredMe is not a bank and cannot approve or decline a mortgage.
Written by CredMe Team
Based on CredMe's mortgage assessment methodology and verified regulatory sources
Last reviewed 18 August 2026
Every limit and every rule here comes from the sources below, each opened and read on the date shown. The only AED figure outside the worked example is the AED 5 million threshold, because that threshold is part of the rule. The example uses made-up figures to show how the limit is applied.
Indicative guidance only. Not a formal offer of finance and not a lending decision. The limits described here are regulatory maximums; each bank applies its own criteria within them, and every figure depends on full underwriting by the lender. CredMe is not a bank and cannot approve or decline a mortgage. See our disclaimer.
How UAE lenders decide what you can borrow: income, existing commitments, residency, employment type and the property itself. Understand your position before you approach a bank.
The UAE debt burden ratio explained: what counts as income, what counts as debt, why 50% is a ceiling rather than an entitlement, and how the stress test changes the answer.
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