Reviewed by Roksolana Pyrtko
The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority, DMCCA, is the public body that regulates the DMCC free zone, licenses every company operating inside it, and leases office and retail space directly in Jumeirah Lakes Towers and, more recently, in Uptown Dubai. A company’s right to operate in either district runs through one document: a DMCCA licence that, under the Licensing Rules, rests on a valid lease or freehold in the company’s own name.
A DMCC free zone licence rests on a valid lease from issue to closure
Under the DMCC Licensing Rules, Version 3, effective 10 October 2024, a valid lease or freehold is a condition of holding a DMCC licence. Rule 3.2.3 requires it to be in the name of the DMCC entity. Rule 3.2.1 applies unless the Registrar specifies otherwise, and Rule 3.2.2 allows a written exemption on grounds approved by DMCCA; the Freelance Licence sits outside Rule 3.2.3.
The chain runs through the whole life of the licence, not only its start. Renewal under Rule 3.3.3(c) needs evidence that the entity is not in arrears on “any fees, any other charges, or any fines or penalties” payable to DMCCA or any other person “in connection with its Lease or Freehold or any other matter relating to the DMCC Free Zone”. Voluntary closure under Rule 4.3.2 needs evidence that any lease “has been terminated with no amounts outstanding.” A company also cannot sub-lease or share its premises without the Registrar’s prior written approval, which the Registrar may refuse and which, if granted, carries an annual fee on top of the licence fee (Rule 2.3).
The rules name five licence categories, Trading, Service, Commercial, Industrial and Freelance, and let the Registrar add others. For a tenant the category matters less than the lease, because Rule 3.2.1 sets the same lease condition for every person operating in the free zone.
What DMCC’s Schedule of Charges prints for office, retail and business-centre space
The Schedule of Charges prints charges for space as bands, not single figures, in three blocks: Business Centre, Office and Retail. Only the Retail block names locations, One JLT, Almas, AU, AG and JGX; the Business Centre and Office blocks name no tower or district. The table shows each published band as printed, with the unit the schedule gives for it.
| Space type | Unit | Published range (AED) |
|---|---|---|
| Flexi-Desk, Business Centre | on start of tenancy | 16,000–19,000 |
| Serviced Desk, Business Centre | on start of tenancy | 22,000–35,000 |
| Serviced Office, Business Centre | on start of tenancy | 35,000–140,000 |
| Office, Core & Shell | per sq ft | 60–150 |
| Office, Fitted | per sq ft | 75–180 |
| Retail, Core & Shell (One JLT, Almas, AU, AG, JGX) | per sq ft, indicative | 100–200 |
| Retail, Detached | per sq ft, indicative | 125–140 |
Base for every row: DMCC’s Schedule of Charges, checked on 7 October 2026. The page prints no rent period beside any band. For the Business Centre rows it says that admin charges, deposit and rent are paid in one instalment in advance at the start of the tenancy; for the Office and Retail rows, that deposit and rent are paid in two instalments in advance. Every figure is “subject to change by DMCC without prior notice”, with updates posted on the same page.
Uptown Dubai’s new towers: 560,000 sq ft of office and 82,000 sq ft of retail
On 22 April 2026 DMCC announced One Uptown Place and Two Uptown Place, towers of 21 and 15 storeys. The release puts the office addition at more than 560,000 square feet of Grade A space, which takes Uptown Dubai’s total commercial footprint beyond one million square feet, with a further 82,000 square feet of retail.
Office units will range from 2,100 to 17,600 square feet, some floors combined across levels for larger tenants, with more than 1,600 parking spaces and completion targeted for the first quarter of 2028. Leasing is expected to open in the second half of 2026, and the release says DMCC is already accepting expressions of interest from prospective tenants ahead of formal leasing.
DMCC’s Annual Report 2025 gives a different figure for the same two towers: 62,000 sqm of “premium office, F&B, and retail space”. At 10.764 square feet per square metre that is about 667,000 square feet, against more than 642,000 square feet in the 22 April release (more than 560,000 office plus 82,000 retail), a gap of at most about 25,000 square feet (author’s calculation). The Annual Report lists food and beverage alongside office and retail, which the 22 April release does not break out, and neither document reconciles the two totals, so the figures are shown separately and not averaged.
No asking rate for either tower appears in DMCC’s Schedule of Charges, in the releases cited here or on its property portfolio page as of 7 October 2026, and none is offered here. The AED 60–150 per square foot office band names no tower or district, and carrying it over to the Uptown towers would assume a match that nothing on those pages confirms. DMCC’s Uptown Dubai offices page says its offices are “fully leased” and invites a wait-list, without saying whether that covers the two new towers and without naming a rate.
Sweid One: 500,000 sq ft of Jumeirah Lakes Towers office, due in the fourth quarter of 2026
DMCC’s release of 4 May 2026 puts Sweid One, developed by Sweid & Sweid, at 500,000 square feet of Grade A office space in Jumeirah Lakes Towers, 78% complete on the date of the release and expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2026.
DMCC’s Annual Report 2025 mentions Sweid One as “on track for completion — adding approximately 500,000 sq ft of Grade A office space”, a figure that matches the 4 May release.
BAY360 at Lake D is a different kind of project. DMCC’s release of 3 February 2026 describes a mixed-use lifestyle destination anchored by a 22,000-square-foot Spinneys supermarket, and the developer’s managing partner says in it that he looks forward to completion “towards the end of 2027”. The Annual Report 2025 describes the project as “progressing towards plot handover”.
What three DMCC pages report about its space, and what they omit
DMCC’s Annual Report 2025 reports more than 26,000 registered companies after 2,300 joined during the year, an 89% licence retention rate and more than 100,000 people living and working across Jumeirah Lakes Towers and Uptown Dubai combined. It does not split the people count between the two districts, and the retention rate carries no stated denominator.
Three things are missing from those pages for the space DMCC leases directly. The Annual Report 2025, the Schedule of Charges and the property portfolio page give no occupancy or vacancy rate; the report carries a licence-retention rate and headcounts, not a vacancy series. None of the three gives a market-rent index: the schedule lists what DMCC itself charges, and the portfolio page prints starting rents, some with a stated period, for existing offices and business centres, not rents achieved across the free zone. And the schedule lists no rate for space still under construction, including the Uptown towers. For a buyer rather than a tenant, the Retail block of the schedule lists a Title Deed NOC fee of AED 2,700 per unit and tells the client to process the application directly with the Land Department.
DMCC and DMCCA: the 2020 law, its 2022 amendment and the authority’s property powers
DMCC and DMCCA are not the same thing. Law No. (3) of 2020 applies to the DMCC, the free zone established under a resolution of 1 May 2002, and to the DMCCA, which supervises it. Article 3, as replaced by Law No. (15) of 2022, describes the DMCC as the free zone “owned by the ICD”, the Investment Corporation of Dubai, and the DMCCA as “a public authority having legal personality, financial and administrative autonomy”.
Article 5 of the 2020 law lists eighteen duties and powers of the DMCCA over the zone, from licensing activities to constructing buildings. Two of them explain why the authority is also a landlord: it may “undertake the construction of residential, commercial, and hotel buildings and facilities whether by itself or through real estate developers”, and it may “purchase, take lease of, and own the movable and immovable property required for performing its duties”. The 2022 text also extends the law to “any other zone or land plot” that becomes subject to DMCCA supervision under a resolution issued by the Ruler. Neither law names the resolution, if any, that brought Uptown Dubai under the DMCCA, but the power to add ground beyond Jumeirah Lakes Towers is written into the law the DMCCA works under.
Article 23, as replaced in 2022, is blunt about the licence itself: “No person or entity may conduct any Activity within the DMCC unless it is licensed by the DMCCA to conduct that Activity.” The Licensing Rules, the Schedule of Charges and the press releases cited here are published under the DMCC name on dmcc.ae.
Opening and completion dates published for DMCC’s newest space
DMCC’s releases carry four dates for its newest space: leasing for One Uptown Place and Two Uptown Place is expected to open in the second half of 2026, Sweid One is expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2026, BAY360’s developer expects completion towards the end of 2027, and the Uptown towers are targeted for completion in the first quarter of 2028.
No date is published for two further items as of 7 October 2026. No date for DMCC’s 2026 annual results appears on its news page, and the Schedule of Charges has no calendar trigger: by its own terms it changes “without prior notice”, so a revision shows only on the page itself.
This material was reviewed by Roksolana Pyrtko, who is the CEO of the Lviv shopping and entertainment centers “Roksolana” and “Spartak”, an attorney, and a specialist in commercial real estate analytics and development.
This material is informational in nature and does not constitute legal, tax or financial advice.