Dubai prices: what a trip costs, and whether Dubai is really expensive
What things cost in Dubai: meals, taxis, metro fares, attractions and hotels, plus realistic daily budgets from backpacker to luxury.
- Currency
- AED (dirham)
- Cheap meal
- Under AED 40
- Metro fare
- From AED 3
- Observation deck
- From AED 169
Dubai is expensive if you follow the version of it that appears in advertising, and reasonable if you do not. The gap between those two trips is larger here than in almost any comparable city, because the same day can be spent in a hotel beach club or in the souks and both are entirely normal ways to visit.
Three things carry the cost: the hotel, alcohol, and paid attractions. Food, transport and a large share of the sightseeing are cheap. Reduce the first three and Dubai stops being an expensive destination fairly abruptly.
What individual things cost
A full meal at a cafeteria in Deira runs under AED 40; a mid-range restaurant is AED 80 to 150 a head; a hotel dinner with wine climbs steeply from there. A metro journey is a few dirhams, a taxi across town is modest, and the Burj Khalifa observation deck starts around AED 169 off-peak.
Hotels swing hardest by season. The same room can cost several times more in January than in August, which is the single biggest lever on the total.
Realistic daily budgets
On roughly €50 a day, excluding the hotel, you eat well in the creek district, use the metro, and see the free attractions. On €100 a day you add a paid attraction most days and eat mid-range. On €200 a day you are in hotel restaurants, taking taxis by default and adding a desert trip or a beach club.
Above that the ceiling is essentially unlimited and no longer reflects the city so much as the venue.
Where the savings actually are
Sleep inland, not on the coast, use the metro instead of taxis, eat in Deira at least once a day, and pick one paid attraction, not three. Those four choices together can halve a trip cost without removing anything memorable from the itinerary.
Travelling in summer halves it again on the hotel line, at the cost of an itinerary rebuilt around indoor hours.
A worked example of a three-day budget
Take three days, two people, excluding flights and the hotel. Transport across the whole trip on the metro and tram comes to a few tens of dirhams per person, plus perhaps two taxis. Food at one cafeteria lunch and one mid-range dinner per day sits around AED 150 to 200 a head daily.
Add one observation deck at AED 169 each and one desert half-day at AED 180 each, and the paid activity for the whole trip lands near AED 700 for two. Everything else on a standard three-day plan (the fountain, the souks, the historic quarter, the beach, the abra) is free or nominal.
That puts a realistic three-day figure for two people at roughly AED 2,000 to 2,600 before accommodation, which is the number most visitors are surprised by in the downward direction. The hotel is where the trip becomes expensive or does not.
What the very top of the market costs
Two numbers give the ceiling. A five-star beach resort on Palm Jumeirah in January runs to several thousand dirhams a night, and the Armani Hotel inside the Burj Khalifa (the only hotel in the tower) is in the same territory without a beach attached.
Neither belongs in a budget, but they are useful as an upper bound: if a rate looks close to those and the property is not on the coast or in the tower, it is priced on brand, not on what it offers.
How prices move through the year
Almost everything on this page has a season attached to it. Hotel rates are the extreme case and can double between August and January for the same room, which makes any single figure misleading unless the month is attached to it.
Attraction tickets and restaurant prices are considerably more stable, moving little across the year. Transport does not move at all: the metro, the tram and taxi meters are the same in July as in January.
The practical consequence is that the shoulder months are not a slightly cheaper version of winter, they are a substantially cheaper version of it, and the saving comes almost entirely from the room, not from the days.
The single largest saving available to any visitor is the choice of month, and it dwarfs every other line on this page.
Dubai prices — common questions
Is there a tourist tax in Dubai?
A tourism fee is charged per room per night by hotels and is usually not in the headline rate. VAT of 5% applies to most purchases and is reclaimable by visitors on qualifying goods at the airport.
Is Dubai expensive for tourists?
It depends almost entirely on the hotel, the alcohol and the number of paid attractions. Food, the metro and much of the sightseeing are cheap, so the same city supports both a modest and a very expensive trip.
How much cash should you bring to Dubai?
Enough for the souks, the abra and a few cafeteria meals: cards cover almost everything else. ATMs are plentiful and usually beat the exchange desks on rate.
What is the most expensive part of a Dubai trip?
The hotel, by a wide margin, followed by alcohol in licensed venues. Attractions are a distant third and transport is close to negligible.
Is Dubai expensive?
It depends almost entirely on the hotel, the alcohol and the number of paid attractions. Food, the metro and much of the sightseeing are cheap, so the same city supports both a modest and a very expensive trip.
How much money do you need per day in Dubai?
Excluding the hotel, around €50 a day covers eating well and seeing the free attractions, €100 adds a paid attraction most days, and €200 covers hotel dining and taxis by default.
What currency is used in Dubai?
The UAE dirham (AED), pegged to the US dollar. Cards are accepted almost everywhere, but keep cash for taxis and the souks.
When is the cheapest time to visit Dubai?
High summer, roughly June to September, when hotel rates fall sharply. The trade is heat that pushes the itinerary indoors during the middle of the day.