UAE mortgages for Egyptian buyers.

If you're a UAE resident

Egyptian nationals resident in the UAE can borrow up to 80% of the property value on a first home (70% above), on the same terms as any UAE resident.

If you're buying from abroad

Buying from Egypt, you can finance UAE property as a non-resident, generally up to 50–75% of the value, with a larger deposit and a slightly different document set.

How we help Egyptian buyers

• Finance as a UAE resident (up to 80% LTV) or as a non-resident from Egypt (typically 50–75%).
• Salaried and self-employed applicants are both financeable — the documents differ.
• Buy remotely through a Power of Attorney if you are not in the UAE.
• For many long-term residents, a mortgage payment compares well with rising rents.

Currency: what the dirham peg means for you

If you've held income or savings in Egyptian pounds over recent years, you'll already have a feel for how much a floating currency can move. The dirham gives you none of that uncertainty against your mortgage, because it has stayed fixed to the US dollar at 3.6725 since 1997. The pound sits on the other side of that line — it floats against the dollar, and that movement passes straight through to a dirham-denominated loan.

On an AED 1,150,000 apartment, for example, the dirham instalment itself doesn't change month to month, but the pounds you need to convert to fund it will, tracking wherever EGP/USD happens to sit at the time. If the pound weakens against the dollar, that same instalment draws more pounds from your income; if it strengthens, it draws fewer.

Given the scale of moves the pound has seen, several of our Egyptian clients treat this as a planning question rather than an afterthought — putting down a larger deposit than the minimum to shrink the dirham balance exposed each month, or choosing a shorter term so the exposure doesn't run for the full 25 years. Either narrows the risk without removing it.

We'll stress-test your affordability against more than one exchange scenario so you're not planning around a single best-case number. We won't forecast where the pound is headed — that's guesswork dressed up as advice, and we don't do it.

Buying from Egypt without flying over

A Power of Attorney lets you name someone in the UAE — usually your broker or a lawyer — to sign the mortgage application, the purchase agreement and the transfer paperwork for you, so the transaction itself doesn't require you to be physically present for every stage.

Cairo and Dubai sit close together, an hour or two apart depending on the time of year, so unlike buyers further afield, arranging a call or a signing window rarely means someone is working unsociable hours.

What still needs you directly is executing the POA itself: it has to be signed and formally attested before it's usable for a UAE property transaction, and that step is done in Egypt, not remotely.

It's worth having the POA drafted with the mortgage, the purchase contract and the transfer named specifically, rather than worded generally. A narrowly scoped document tends to raise fewer questions when the bank or land department actually relies on it.

One thing to plan for: the UAE is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so an apostille on its own is not enough — a document signed abroad needs the full consular chain: authentication at home, attestation by the UAE embassy in that country, then attestation by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, plus a certified Arabic translation by a Ministry of Justice–licensed translator. For property specifically, the Dubai Land Department expects its own standard POA template naming the property (by plot, title deed or Oqood number) and the exact transaction it authorises; custom-drafted POAs are routinely rejected, and the document must be registered with the Dubai Courts Notary Public even when it was notarised overseas. Start this early — it is the step that most often delays a remote purchase.

Documents, and where applications usually slow down

For UAE residents, the file is the standard one: residence visa, Emirates ID, salary certificate or trade licence, and recent bank statements — no different from any other resident applicant, salaried or self-employed.

Applying from Egypt as a non-resident adds passport, proof of address, and income evidence from an Egyptian employer or your own business, alongside source-of-funds documentation for the deposit and the income that will service the loan. Every non-resident applicant is asked for this, regardless of where they're from.

If you're self-employed, be ready with a trade licence active for at least two years, two years of audited financials and six to twelve months of account statements; self-employed income is generally assessed at a discount to the figure on paper, so confirm your likely borrowing early.

Where Egyptian applications commonly slow down is the paperwork trail itself — documents issued in Arabic need translation, and depending on where they were issued, some will need formal attestation before a UAE bank accepts them. Neither step is unusual or a red flag; both simply take time, so starting them alongside the rest of the application, rather than after the bank asks, keeps the file moving instead of stalling in week three.

Tax: what the UAE charges, and what to check at home

On the UAE side, ownership is straightforward: no personal income tax, no annual property tax, and no capital gains tax for individuals when the property is sold — none of that changes because you're Egyptian rather than any other nationality.

What we can't tell you is how Egypt treats a property you own overseas, or rental income from it, for your own tax position. That depends on Egyptian tax rules and your personal residency status, and it's a question for a tax adviser familiar with Egyptian law rather than for a UAE mortgage broker.

If you're planning to rent the property out, raise it with that adviser before you complete rather than after, so you know where you stand from day one.

Compare lenders & costs

We compare every major UAE bank for your profile — see also our Dubai mortgages guide, the calculators, and the full cost of buying. Whether you're resident or investing from abroad, we manage it end to end.