Dubai Off-Plan Handovers 2026–2028: Which Projects Are Due When

Short answer: Profound lists 588 off-plan projects with a developer-scheduled handover in 2026, 2027 or 2028: 157 dated 2026, 236 dated 2027 and 195 dated 2028. Of the 2026 dates, 80 have already passed and 77 fall in November or December. Dubai Islands (65) and Jumeirah Village Circle (53) lead the areas, and Emaar leads developers with 74.

Every date in this article is the handover date a developer has scheduled, as recorded in the project's Profound listing in October 2026. It is not Dubai Land Department (DLD) completion data, and it can change. Use the dates as a guide to timing, then confirm the current date with the developer before you plan around it.

• 588 projects listed on Profound have a scheduled handover between 2026 and 2028, spread across 76 areas and 228 developer names as recorded.
• 236 of the 588 are scheduled for 2027, the busiest of the three years, against 157 for 2026 and 195 for 2028.
• 80 of the 157 projects dated 2026 have a date that has already passed; the listing does not show whether they are complete or delayed. The other 77 are due in November or December 2026.
• 117 projects are scheduled from November 2026 to March 2027: 77 in the last quarter of 2026 and 40 in the first quarter of 2027.
• About 80% of the 588 dates fall on the last day of a quarter, and 31% fall on 31 December.

By developers' scheduled dates, 157 projects listed on Profound are dated 2026 (80 of those dates have passed), 236 are dated 2027 and 195 are dated 2028. The fourth quarter is the busiest in each year.

The 2026 row needs care. Its first three quarters (80 projects) are behind us: those dates fell between January and September 2026. Some of these buildings may have been handed over; others may be running late. A scheduled date on a listing cannot tell us which, so we do not count them as upcoming. Only the 77 projects in the last quarter of 2026, all dated November or December, are still ahead.

The fourth-quarter peak may partly reflect how dates are written. Of the 588 dates, 182 (31%) are 31 December, and about 80% fall on the last day of March, June, September or December. This suggests that many developers enter a year end when they expect to finish "some time in 2027", rather than a planned key-collection day. That is why we report quarters rather than days.

The 588 projects are not every listing on Profound. Of the 2,378 live projects with a public page, 887 have no handover date at all, and others are dated before 2026 or after 2028. Neither group is counted here.

Dubai Islands has the most projects dated 2026–2028, with 65, followed by Jumeirah Village Circle with 53 and Dubailand with 42.

The 18 areas below (District 11 and The Valley tie for 17th place) hold 379 of the 588 projects, about 64%. The 2026 column includes dates that have already passed, and the next column shows how many.

The leading areas peak in different years. Dubai Islands is weighted towards 2027, with 34 of its 65 projects dated that year. Dubailand has only 4 projects dated 2026 and 38 across 2027 and 2028. Jumeirah Village Circle is spread more evenly, with 13 in 2026, 23 in 2027 and 17 in 2028.

Other areas lean earlier. Business Bay has 12 of its 28 projects dated 2026, although 7 of those dates have passed. Downtown Dubai has 8 of 13 dated 2026 and Palm Jumeirah, just outside the table, 6 of 9; in each, 3 of those dates have passed.

Elsewhere, 2027 and 2028 dominate. Al Furjan has 12 of its 17 projects scheduled for 2027 and Town Square 7 of 11. Mina Rashid and The Valley each have 6 projects scheduled for 2028.

Emaar has by far the most, with 74 of the 588 projects, more than three times as many as the next developer, DAMAC Properties, with 24.

The 12 developers below each have 8 or more projects and together account for 222 of the 588, about 38%. The rest are spread thinly: 145 of the 228 recorded developer names appear on just one project each. As in the area table, the 2026 column includes dates that have already passed.

Emaar's pipeline is weighted to 2028, with 37 of its 74 projects dated that year. Majid Al Futtaim is the reverse: 6 of its 8 projects are dated 2026 (two of those dates have passed), and four of the projects it has due by March 2027 are in Tilal Al Ghaf, among them Plagette 32 and Lanai Islands. Nshama Group has 7 of its 12 projects in 2027, and Object 1 9 of its 14.

Handover is when the developer, with the building finished, gives buyers their keys; the scheduled date is the developer's plan for when that will happen.

Official steps sit behind the keys. DLD's frequently asked questions say the law requires developers to register completed projects with DLD as soon as they receive a certificate of completion from the competent authorities. Once a completed unit is fully paid for, it moves from the initial register to the Real Estate Registry and the buyer receives the title deed.

Dubai's Law No. (8) of 2007 on escrow accounts dedicates each project's escrow account exclusively to building that project. Article 14 requires the escrow agent to hold back 5% of the account once the developer obtains the completion certificate, and to release it to the developer one year after the units are registered in buyers' names.

Scheduled dates can move. The same DLD FAQ confirms that a large project can be partially completed, so one part of a large development may be finished before another.

The data gives two further reasons to treat any date as provisional. Many dates are rounded to a quarter or year end, as shown above. And 223 of the 588 dates were entered in a bulk upload in November 2024, so they may not match the developer's latest schedule.

Your sale and purchase agreement is the document to check: look at the handover date it states and what it says about delays. Our guide to judging a developer (coming soon) covers what to look at beyond the date.

Start with DLD's own record of the project, then compare it with the developer's latest update and your contract.

• DLD Project Status Enquiry. DLD's project status service lets you search a project by name or number and shows its status, completion details, developer and escrow bank. DLD says the service, called Mashrooi, is also available in its Dubai REST app.
• A completion report. DLD's FAQ says an investor has the right to obtain a report showing a project's percentage of completion, prepared by the technical auditor at the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA), after paying an audit fee of AED 15,000.
• Your Oqood registration. DLD's initial sale registration page says developers use the Oqood portal to register units sold off-plan in the provisional register, and that the sale and purchase contract must be registered within 90 days of signing. The output is a provisional registration e-certificate, so ask for yours.
• The date in your contract and the developer's latest notice. If the listing, the contract and the developer's update give different dates, ask the developer in writing which one is current.
• Snagging before you accept the keys. Inspect the unit for defects before you sign off. Our guides to escrow, Oqood registration and snagging (coming soon) explain each step in more detail.

117 projects listed on Profound are scheduled from November 2026 to the end of March 2027: 77 in the fourth quarter of 2026 and 40 in the first quarter of 2027.

Dubai Islands has the most of these, with 13, including Sunset Bay and Amali Island. Jumeirah Village Circle follows with 11, then Business Bay with 7 and Downtown Dubai with 6, where St. Regis Residences and Mercedes-Benz Places are both scheduled for the last quarter of 2026. Emaar has 14 projects in the list, from Elvira in Dubai Hills Estate to Sunridge in Mina Rashid.

Most of these dates are period ends: 66 are 31 December 2026 and 22 are 31 March 2027. And 63 of the 117 were entered in the November 2024 upload, so confirming the current date matters most here. The table is sorted by scheduled date, then by project name. Where Profound has no developer page, the developer's name appears without a link, or "Not stated" if none is recorded.

The figures come from Profound's own listings: live project listings with a public page on profoundproperties.com, taken in October 2026. Of the 2,378 such listings, we kept the 588 whose scheduled handover date falls in 2026, 2027 or 2028. The 887 listings with no handover date, and those dated outside those years, are excluded. Areas and developers are as recorded on each project page. The 228 developer names include four placeholder entries (blank, "None" and two spellings of "a private developer"), which we count as given.

The dates are developers' scheduled handover dates as listed on Profound. They are not DLD completion records, and they change. We report quarters rather than days because about 80% of the dates fall on a quarter end. A date counts as passed if it fell before our October 2026 data pull; the listing cannot tell us whether those projects have been handed over. 223 of the 588 dates, including 63 of the 117 due by March 2027, were entered in a November 2024 bulk upload and may since have changed, so confirm the current date with the developer.

This is Profound's listings data, not DLD records or the whole Dubai market, and the counts will change as projects launch, revise their dates or hand over. This article is general information, not financial or legal advice.