Business Bay Rental Transaction Data: Rents, Yields & Trends

Business Bay is one of Dubai’s most-leased apartment districts — a high-rise canal-side community next to Downtown that draws a steady mix of professionals and buy-to-let investors. That volume makes it ideal for Business Bay transaction data analysis: the registered rental record runs deep enough to produce stable medians. Across the last 12 months of registered Ejari contracts, the median annual rent in Business Bay sits at AED 110,000/year (about AED 9,167/month), with rents up +4.8% year over year.

This post breaks down Business Bay rent prices from real, DLD-registered tenancy contracts — the same records Bayut surfaces, delivered as clean JSON — and then shows exactly how to pull this Business Bay rental data yourself through the BayutAPI transactions endpoint. It is an area-level companion to our Dubai real estate transaction data guide.

Business Bay rental snapshot (last 12 months)

The figures below are computed from registered Ejari tenancy contracts — DLD-registered transactions, accessed via Bayut — over the trailing 12 months. These are agreed rents, not asking prices.

Metric	Value
Median annual rent	AED 110,000/year
Median monthly rent	AED 9,167/month
25th–75th percentile band	AED 75,000 – AED 150,000/year
Median rent per sqft (annual)	AED 115/sqft/year
Median unit size	1,050 sqft
Contracts analysed	11,822
Year-over-year rent change	+4.8%

The spread between the 25th percentile (AED 75,000/year) and the 75th percentile (AED 150,000/year) is wide, which is expected for a district that ranges from compact studios to large canal-facing units. The median rent per sqft of AED 115/sqft/year is an annual rent figure — useful for comparing buildings of different unit sizes — not a sale price.

Business Bay rent prices by bedroom

Breaking the same registered contracts down by bedroom count shows how rent scales with size. Studios and one-beds make up the bulk of Business Bay’s leasing volume, which keeps the apartment median close to the overall median.

Bedrooms	Median annual rent
Studio	AED 70,000/year
1 bedroom	AED 105,000/year
2 bedrooms	AED 130,000/year
3 bedrooms	AED 172,836/year
4+ bedrooms	AED 300,000/year
All apartments	AED 110,000/year

Because Business Bay is almost entirely an apartment district, the all-apartments median (AED 110,000/year) matches the overall median. Use the bedroom breakdown to benchmark a specific unit type rather than the blended figure — a renter comparing a one-bed against the AED 110,000 headline would be over-budgeting, since the one-bed median is AED 105,000/year.

The jump from the two-bed median (AED 130,000/year) to the three-bed median (AED 172,836/year) is the steepest step in the ladder, and four-plus-bed units (AED 300,000/year) are a thin, premium slice of the market. If you are pricing or screening larger units, treat those medians cautiously — they sit on far fewer contracts than the studio and one-bed tiers that drive most of Business Bay’s leasing volume.

Pull Business Bay transactions yourself

The headline numbers above come straight from the API. Here is the full flow: resolve the location ID once with autocomplete, then query transactions with purpose=for-rent.

Step 1: Resolve the location ID

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://uae-real-estate3.p.rapidapi.com/autocomplete?query=business%20bay' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-host: uae-real-estate3.p.rapidapi.com' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_API_KEY'

The response returns location suggestions with their external IDs. Grab the ID for Business Bay and reuse it — it does not change.

Step 2: Pull registered rental transactions

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://uae-real-estate3.p.rapidapi.com/transactions?purpose=for-rent&location_ids=BUSINESS_BAY_ID&category_ids=apartments&time_period=12m&sort_by=date_desc&page=1' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-host: uae-real-estate3.p.rapidapi.com' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_API_KEY'

The same request in Python, paging through results. Set purpose="for-sale" to pull registered sale transactions instead — both are available from the same endpoint.

import requests

URL = "https://uae-real-estate3.p.rapidapi.com/transactions"
HEADERS = {
    "x-rapidapi-host": "uae-real-estate3.p.rapidapi.com",
    "x-rapidapi-key": "YOUR_API_KEY",
}
BUSINESS_BAY_ID = "5002"  # example value from autocomplete

def fetch_transactions(purpose: str, max_pages: int = 20) -> list[dict]:
    """Collect Business Bay apartment transactions across pages (20 per page)."""
    out, page = [], 1
    while page <= max_pages:
        resp = requests.get(URL, headers=HEADERS, params={
            "purpose": purpose,
            "location_ids": BUSINESS_BAY_ID,
            "category_ids": "apartments",
            "time_period": "12m",
            "sort_by": "date_desc",
            "page": str(page),
        })
        resp.raise_for_status()
        data = resp.json().get("data", {})
        hits = data.get("hits", [])  # transactions uses 'hits', not 'properties'
        if not hits:
            break
        out.extend(hits)
        page += 1
    return out

rents = fetch_transactions("for-rent")
print(f"Collected {len(rents)} Business Bay rental transactions")

Each hit includes transactionId, purpose, price, area, location, category, rooms, completionStatus, and date. For rentals, price is the annual rent on the registered contract.

Step 3: Compute median rent per sqft

Rent per square foot normalizes across unit sizes. Divide each contract’s annual rent by its area, then take the median.

from statistics import median

def rent_psf_summary(transactions: list[dict]) -> dict:
    psf = [
        tx["price"] / tx["area"]          # annual rent / sqft
        for tx in transactions
        if tx.get("price") and tx.get("area")
    ]
    if not psf:
        return {"count": 0}
    psf.sort()
    return {
        "count": len(psf),
        "median_rent_psf": round(median(psf)),
        "p25": round(psf[len(psf) // 4]),
        "p75": round(psf[3 * len(psf) // 4]),
    }

print(rent_psf_summary(rents))
# e.g. {'count': 320, 'median_rent_psf': 115, 'p25': 95, 'p75': 140}

Swap the location_ids value and this exact pipeline works for any Dubai community — that is how you scale from one district to a market research dashboard.

What the data means for investors and renters

A few signals stand out from the registered record:

• Rents are rising, modestly. The +4.8% year-over-year increase says Business Bay is still tightening, but not spiking — a sign of sustained demand rather than a short-term squeeze. For investors modeling rental yield, pair this rent data with for-sale transactions from the same endpoint to compute gross yield from agreed prices on both sides.
• The percentile band is wide. A AED 75,000–150,000/year range means unit quality, floor, and view matter a lot here. A single “average rent” hides that spread; the percentile band is the more honest budgeting tool for both landlords pricing a unit and tenants benchmarking an offer.
• Roughly half of contracts are renewals. In this 12-month sample, about 50% of registered contracts were renewals rather than new leases. That is a descriptive split, not a price metric — but a high renewal share is consistent with a market where tenants are staying put, which tends to support steady rents.

Because every figure traces back to a registered Ejari contract rather than an advertised listing, these numbers reflect what landlords and tenants actually agreed — the foundation for defensible investment analysis.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average rent in Business Bay? Across the last 12 months of registered Ejari contracts, the median annual rent in Business Bay is AED 110,000/year, or about AED 9,167/month. Most contracts fall between AED 75,000 and AED 150,000/year depending on unit size, floor, and view.

What is the rent for a one-bedroom in Business Bay? The median annual rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Business Bay is AED 105,000/year. Studios sit around AED 70,000/year and two-beds around AED 130,000/year, based on registered tenancy contracts from the last 12 months.

Where does Business Bay rental transaction data come from? The records are DLD-registered tenancy contracts (Ejari), aggregated and surfaced by Bayut. BayutAPI delivers those same registered transactions as clean JSON through the transactions endpoint — there is no scraping of asking prices involved.

How do I get Business Bay rent prices by API? Look up the Business Bay location ID with the autocomplete endpoint, then call transactions with purpose=for-rent and that location_ids value. The code samples above show the full curl and Python flow.

Have Business Bay rents gone up? Yes. Registered rents in Business Bay are up +4.8% year over year over the trailing 12-month window, a steady increase rather than a sharp jump.

Next steps

• Read the Dubai real estate transaction data guide for the full data model
• See the wider context in the Dubai rental market report 2026
• Browse the Business Bay location profile and Business Bay apartments
• Explore every parameter in the transactions endpoint reference
• Grab an API key on RapidAPI