Dubai New Launches 2026: AED 75bn on Sale, AED 200bn Announced

By Mohammad Garousi, Property Consultant — Emaar villa communities · Reviewed 21 September 2026

Dubai’s new-project pipeline passed AED 275 billion in the first half of 2026, a record — but only AED 75 billion of it, across 250 projects, was launched and registered with the Dubai Land Department by end-May. The other AED 200 billion is one Emaar masterplan announced on 11 June 2026 with no name, price or sales date yet.

• Registered and on sale by end-May 2026: 250 projects, about AED 75 billion, roughly 59,400 homes of which about 10,800 are villas — W Capital survey, reported by Zawya, June 2026.
• The 2025 baseline: 648 projects, AED 463 billion, about 167,000 homes — same survey. That is about 54 projects a month in 2025 against about 50 a month so far in 2026.
• Actually completed in H1 2026: 104 projects worth AED 111 billion and 24,537 homes, up 36% on a year earlier — Dubai Land Department data, Khaleej Times, 20 August 2026.
• Scheduled for handover in 2026: 96,585 homes, 82.9% already sold; only 5,376 are villas, and 95% of those are sold — fäm Properties data, Gulf News, 21 August 2026.
• New developers: 186 development companies registered between January and mid-August 2026, about 25 a month — Dubai Land Department, Gulf News, 15 August 2026.

Announced, launched or delivered: which one is the headline counting?

Three different events get called a “launch” in Dubai, and the difference is worth money. An announcement is a developer stating a plan: a value, a resident count, a set of renders. A launch, in the sense the Land Department counts it, is a registered project. Developers must register a project with the DLD before signing a sale agreement or collecting a payment, open a dedicated escrow account for it under Article 6 of Law No. 8 of 2007, and hold a RERA permit before advertising it. A delivery is a completion certificate and a handover.

The AED 275 billion headline mixes the first two. AED 75 billion of it is registered and on sale; AED 200 billion of it is an announcement. Both are real; only one can be bought.

How big is 2026’s launch wave, really?

Measured on registered projects, 2026 is running at 2025’s pace rather than above it: 250 registered projects by end-May against 648 for the whole of 2025. What is unprecedented is the announced value, and that is a single company’s press release.

Demand is still absorbing the supply: first-half sales reached AED 286.4 billion across around 86,000 sales transactions. But the sellers are multiplying faster than buyers can vet them — 186 new development companies in seven and a half months. A developer’s published results are the fastest way to check which of them has finished a building before; we explained how to read them using Emaar’s own numbers.

Developer by developer: announced, on sale, or being handed over

Emaar

Announced: the AED 200 billion masterplan of 11 June 2026 — a projected population of nearly 150,000, more than 4.5 million square metres of floor area, five zones including a gated villa enclave of five- and six-bedroom homes. No name, no location, no prices; Gulf News and The National both reported the full unveiling as “imminent”, and Emaar’s half-year results in August still described it as an announced masterplan.

On sale: Emaar’s H1 2026 results list 11 launches across Emaar South, Dubai Hills Estate, The Heights Country Club, The Oasis, Rashid Yachts & Marina and Expo Living, with AED 26.6 billion of property sales and a revenue backlog of AED 164.9 billion. Every one of the 11 is a phase inside a community that already has roads, schools and neighbours — Dubai Hills Estate is the clearest case, and our note on Creek Haven shows what an Emaar phase launch looks like when it is real.

Damac

Selling: Damac reports 5,706 off-plan sales worth AED 15.6 billion in H1 2026, first in the market by volume, citing Land Department data. Delivering: it is targeting more than 8,800 handovers in 2026 — around 6,300 at Damac Lagoons, where infrastructure has passed 80% completion, and more than 1,500 villas at Damac Hills 2. For a Damac buyer 2026 is a delivery year as much as a launch year; the useful question is how each handover compares with the date first quoted.

Sobha Realty

Announced and opened: Sobha Sanctuary, AED 50 billion across about 37.5 million square feet off Al Ain Road — roughly 20,000 homes, about 18,000 apartments and 2,000 villas, delivered over four to eight years, first handovers expected from the third quarter of 2029. The first release was about 250 homes from AED 3.99 million. Delivering: Sobha says it plans to hand over 6,819 units in Dubai in 2026. A 20,000-home community with a 2029 first handover is a product for the next decade; the 250-home release is what exists today.

Binghatti

Launched: Mercedes-Benz Places – Binghatti City in Nad Al Sheba — 12 towers, more than 13,000 homes, studios from AED 1.6 million, completion in about three and a half years; 6,321 of the homes are studios and 4,963 are one-bedrooms. In the first quarter alone Binghatti launched five projects worth AED 8.58 billion, 4,696 units. This is an apartment-investor story; for a family that wants a villa, it is not the product.

Nakheel (Dubai Holding)

Launched: on 24 June 2026 Nakheel put 222 beachfront residences at Palm Jebel Ali on sale — one-bedrooms from AED 2.7 million, townhouses from AED 14.9 million — with completion scheduled by September 2030, and awarded contracts worth more than AED 3.5 billion for 544 villas. A 2030 completion date on a 2026 purchase is four years of instalments; the clause that matters is the one about delay, not the render.

Aldar and Dubai Holding

Announced: on 6 February 2026 the joint venture added two plots — nearly 14,000 homes with a development value above AED 38 billion. The family community opposite Nad Al Sheba, on about 4 million square metres, is targeted for launch in 2026; the Palm Jebel Ali plot will not open for sale until 2027. As announced, neither was yet a registered project — the Nad Al Sheba one is the launch to watch before the year ends.

What is actually being handed over in 2026?

The Land Department’s completion count for the first half is 104 projects, AED 111 billion and 24,537 homes. The full-year schedule, per fäm Properties, is 96,585 homes due for handover, with 564,072 homes under construction across the city, 75.5% of them already sold.

Put the two beside each other — our arithmetic, not either source’s — and a second half equal to the first would land about 49,000 homes against the 96,585 scheduled: roughly half. The two figures come from different sources and may not count identically, but the gap is the point. A scheduled handover is a plan; a completion certificate is a delivery. Ask which of a developer’s earlier phases have crossed from the first list to the second, and when.

How we read a launch before we recommend it

In our advisory work in Emaar’s villa communities — Dubai Hills Estate, Dubai Creek Harbour, Arabian Ranches and The Oasis — the first question we ask of a “launch” is not which developer, but which of the three states it is in. An announcement is not a product. Until a project has a Land Department registration, a named escrow account and a price list, there is nothing to evaluate and nothing to reserve, whatever a broker’s message says. Mohammad delivered two apartment projects of his own before he sold a home in Dubai; the construction schedule gets read here before the brochure.

The phase matters more than the brand. Emaar’s 11 first-half launches are phases inside communities that already exist; the AED 200 billion masterplan is a plan. A phase in Dubai Hills Estate has a completed neighbour you can walk through; a new masterplan has a render. Either can be right for a particular client; they are not the same risk.

Villas are the thin end of the pipeline. Of the 96,585 homes due in 2026, 5,376 are villas and 95% of them are already sold, against 91,209 apartments. That is why villa phases go quickly — and why, for a family that wants to move in this year, a completed villa on the secondary market inside the same community is often the better answer than the next launch.

Before a client reserves anything off-plan, we check five things: the DLD project registration and the escrow account, named in the contract rather than described; the RERA advertising permit on the listing; instalments tied to construction milestones rather than calendar dates; the developer’s last completed handover against the date it originally quoted; and the delay clause. The five questions are written up here, and the inventory we can actually show you is on our projects page.

Ask Mohammad which of this year’s launches he would actually recommend — and which he would not. A 20-minute call, in English or Farsi: arrange a consultation.

Figures are as reported by the outlets linked inline, re-checked on 21 September 2026; W Capital, fäm Properties and the developers’ statements are those parties’ own counts. This is general information, not investment advice; confirm any project’s registration with the Dubai Land Department before you commit.

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