Answers
How much mortgage can I get on my salary?
A short answer, with the article it comes from.
The answer
At most seven times your annual income as an expatriate, or eight times as a UAE national. On AED 20,000 a month that ceiling is AED 1,680,000 for an expatriate. The debt burden test usually sets a lower figure, because all your repayments must fit within 50 percent of gross income at a stressed rate.
CBUAE Circular 31/2013 Articles 3.1 and 3.4, checked 2 October 2026.
The income multiple in Article 3.4 is a ceiling, and it is the easy part. AED 20,000 a month is AED 240,000 a year, and seven times that is AED 1,680,000. For a UAE national on the same income, the ceiling is AED 1,920,000.
The binding test is usually the debt burden ratio. Every monthly repayment, the new mortgage and any car loan, personal loan or card included, must stay within 50 percent of gross monthly income, which on AED 20,000 is AED 10,000. The mortgage is tested at 2 to 4 percentage points above the current rate, not at the rate you will pay, and our panel assesses at about 7.3 percent in practice.
The loan to value cap applies as well, so the price you can buy at also depends on your deposit. That makes three limits, and the lowest one wins.
This page stops short of a single "you can borrow" figure on purpose, because that number depends on your existing debts, what the bank counts as income, your age and the bank's own assessment rate. Our eligibility calculator names the rate it uses, and a specialist can give you the figure for your own file.
The 7.3 percent assessment rate is observed across lenders, not regulation. The figures above are regulatory ceilings, not an eligibility result.
Rules are the easy part. Your file is the question.
Want the figure for your own file? Talk to a Specialist.