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SUMMARY
Yes. More Sharjah projects have just opened to foreign buyers, and the official count reached 50 approved developments by the middle of 2026.
The legal breakthrough itself is not new. Sharjah opened approved developments to ownership by all nationalities without a time limit in 2022; what is changing now is how many projects are actually using that framework.
The pace is meaningful: Sharjah had 25 approved projects at the end of 2024, 47 by the end of Q1 2026 and 50 by H1 2026. The approved-project pool therefore doubled in roughly eighteen months.
The raw project count understates the change. Recent freehold communities such as Sharjah Sustainable City II, Khalid Bin Sultan City, Masaar 3 and Azizi Florence together represent more than 17,000 planned homes.
Foreign ownership is also moving beyond apartments. Thousands of villas and townhouses are now being marketed to international buyers, which makes Sharjah more relevant to families looking for a home as well as investors buying smaller units.
The expansion is becoming more geographically spread out, with newer communities appearing in suburban growth corridors such as Al Rahmaniya, Um Fanain and the Tilal/Suyoh side of the emirate rather than staying concentrated around the best-known earlier projects.
Not every new development is automatically foreign freehold. Sharjah registered 11 new real-estate projects in H1 2026 but approved six projects under the foreign-ownership regime, so buyers still need to verify the exact development, phase and unit.
Foreign participation is clearly rising alongside the supply. The number of investor nationalities reached 121 in H1 2026, while non-Emirati groups represented roughly half of the investment value in the latest nationality breakdown.
The market is broad rather than dependent on one overseas buyer base. Indian buyers are the largest named foreign group by property count, but Syrian, Jordanian, Iraqi and Egyptian investors also account for substantial activity.
The 2022 reform helped widen the market, but it does not explain Sharjah’s entire property boom. New supply, master communities, infrastructure, financing and strong Emirati demand are all contributing at the same time.
The practical takeaway is straightforward: Sharjah now offers a much larger and more varied foreign-buyable property universe than it did a few years ago, but it is still a project-based system. “Sharjah freehold” is not a blanket rule for every property in the emirate.
Did more Sharjah projects just open to foreign buyers?
Yes. Sharjah has approved more property projects for foreign ownership lately, with the official total reaching 50 and six projects receiving approval during the first half of 2026.
That figure comes directly from the Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department. Three projects had received approval by the end of the first quarter, taking the cumulative total to 47. By the end of the first half, the count had reached 50. So another three approvals followed during the second quarter.
There is an important distinction, though. Sharjah did not suddenly introduce foreign freehold ownership this year. The big legal change came in 2022, when the Executive Council allowed people of all nationalities to own property without a time limit inside approved real-estate developments.
What is changing now is the number of projects using that framework. The pool keeps getting larger, and some of the developments being launched are much bigger than the individual towers and compounds that made up much of Sharjah’s earlier foreign-buyer market.
| Measure | Q1 2026 | H1 2026 | Change during Q2 | What it tells us |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Projects approved for the ownership regime | 47 | 50 | +3 | Approvals are still being added |
| Projects approved during 2026 | 3 | 6 | +3 | The pace continued into Q2 |
| New real-estate projects registered | — | 11 | — | New development is broader than foreign-ownership approvals |
| Investor nationalities | 113 | 121 | +8 | Sharjah’s buyer base also widened |
Did Sharjah just change its foreign property ownership law?
No. Sharjah’s current wave of foreign-buyer projects comes from a law that has already been in place since 2022.
The turning point was Executive Council Resolution No. 30 of 2022. It allowed all nationalities to own real estate without a time limit in development areas and projects approved for that purpose. Before that change, non-GCC foreigners were much more closely associated with long-term usufruct rights, often described as 100-year leases.
That older distinction explains why information about Sharjah can still look contradictory online. Someone researching the market can find one page talking about 100-year rights and another advertising full freehold ownership. Both can reflect different parts of Sharjah’s regulatory history.
Today, the key question is whether the exact development has been approved under the newer ownership framework. The law opened the door several years ago; more projects are now using it.
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Are six new Sharjah foreign-ownership approvals actually significant?
Yes. Six approvals in six months show that Sharjah is still actively expanding the foreign-buyable project pool rather than leaving the 2022 reform frozen around its original developments.
The historical numbers make that clearer. According to the Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department, 25 projects had been approved for ownership by all nationalities by the end of 2024, including eight approved during 2024 alone.
By the first quarter of 2026, the cumulative figure had climbed to 47. It then reached 50 by the middle of the year.
We cannot calculate a clean year-on-year approval growth rate because the department’s published full-year 2025 market report does not state the corresponding end-2025 cumulative approval count. But we do not need to force one. Moving from 25 approved projects at the end of 2024 to 50 by mid-2026 already shows how quickly the available universe has widened.
| Official checkpoint | Approved projects | Additional context | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| End-2024 | 25 | 8 approved during 2024 | The regime was already expanding |
| Q1 2026 | 47 | 3 approved during Q1 | Nearly twice the end-2024 pool |
| H1 2026 | 50 | 6 approved during H1 | Expansion continued into Q2 |
| Change from end-2024 to H1 2026 | +25 | +100% | Approved-project count doubled in roughly 18 months |
Did all the new Sharjah property projects open to foreign buyers?
No. Sharjah registered 11 new real-estate projects during the first half of 2026, while six projects received approval under the foreign-ownership framework.
Those numbers describe two different things. A new project can enter Sharjah’s development pipeline without automatically becoming available for unrestricted ownership by every nationality.
The 11 registered projects were spread across places including Um Fanain, Muwailih Commercial, Al Raqeeba, Hay Al Hoshe and Al Sajaa Industrial. They included residential compounds, towers and mixed-use developments.
The Registration Department separately reported the six ownership approvals but did not publicly identify all six by name in its half-year release. So it would be a mistake to match every newly announced project to one of those approvals without documentary proof.
For buyers, the distinction is practical. “New Sharjah launch” and “foreign freehold project” overlap more often now, but they are still not the same thing.
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Are the latest foreign-buyer projects in Sharjah actually big?
Yes. Several recent Sharjah developments open to international buyers contain thousands of homes, so the market is expanding by much more than six extra project names.
Sharjah Sustainable City II is a good example. Shurooq and SEE Holding launched the community with 1,032 freehold homes available to all nationalities, including 944 townhouses and 88 standalone villas.
Khalid Bin Sultan City goes further. BEEAH says the masterplan will contain 1,500 freehold residences and is open to buyers of all nationalities.
Masaar 3 contains around 4,000 villas and townhouses across eight gated districts. Arada has continued releasing phases into the market, building on the strong sales of the earlier Masaar communities.
Then came Azizi Florence. Azizi Developments’ first Sharjah masterplan is valued at AED 30 billion and is planned with 1,130 villas, more than 6,000 townhouses and 3,500 apartments. That adds up to more than 10,600 homes.
The change is easy to underestimate if we only count approvals. One very large masterplan can add more potential foreign-buyer inventory than several small projects combined.
| Development | Planned homes | Main housing type | Foreign-buyer positioning | Current relevance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sharjah Sustainable City II | 1,032 | Townhouses and villas | Freehold for all nationalities | Recently launched |
| Khalid Bin Sultan City | 1,500 | Apartments, townhouses, villas | Freehold, all nationalities | Large new BEEAH development |
| Masaar 3 | ~4,000 | Villas and townhouses | Part of Sharjah’s international freehold market | New phases still being sold |
| Azizi Florence | 10,600+ | Apartments, townhouses, villas | Freehold masterplan | Major new entrant |
| Combined planned homes | 17,000+ | Broad mix | Mostly internationally marketed freehold stock | Much larger than the raw project count suggests |
Can foreign buyers now get Sharjah villas and townhouses, or mostly apartments?
Foreign buyers can now choose from a much larger supply of Sharjah villas and townhouses, and that is one of the biggest changes in the market.
Sharjah Sustainable City II contains 1,032 landed homes and no conventional apartment component in its residential mix. Masaar 3 adds around 4,000 villas and townhouses. Azizi Florence plans more than 7,000 villas and townhouses before we even count its 3,500 apartments.
Khalid Bin Sultan City also mixes apartments with townhouses and villas. Its first residential releases have leaned heavily toward family housing.
A few years ago, a foreign buyer researching Sharjah could easily end up focused on apartments in projects such as Aljada or waterfront developments. Today, families looking for three-, four- or five-bedroom homes have several large communities to compare.
That broadens the type of buyer Sharjah can attract. Investors buying one-bedroom apartments are still part of the market, but so are families considering a AED 2 million townhouse as a home rather than a rental asset.
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Is Sharjah freehold spreading beyond the same old areas?
Yes. Sharjah’s foreign-buyer market is becoming more geographically spread out, although buyers still need to verify the exact project rather than assuming an entire district is open.
Muwaileh and Aljada remain major centres of residential activity. But newer large communities are appearing farther into Sharjah’s suburban growth corridors.
Khalid Bin Sultan City is being developed around BEEAH’s headquarters near Al Dhaid Road. Masaar’s successive communities sit around the Tilal and Suyoh corridor. Sharjah Sustainable City II adds more freehold housing in Al Rahmaniya, while Azizi Florence is opening another large masterplan in Um Fanain.
The Registration Department’s latest development data point the same way. Its 11 newly registered projects during the first half of 2026 were spread across five named areas rather than concentrated in one neighbourhood.
But this still is not a simple “foreign freehold map.” Sharjah approves ownership at the development level, and one project’s status does not automatically tell us what a foreign buyer can purchase next door.
Are foreign buyers actually buying more Sharjah property?
Yes. Foreign participation in Sharjah property has risen strongly, so the expanding ownership framework is being used rather than sitting idle on paper.
The cleanest comparison comes from the Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department’s first-half 2025 report. It counted 6,662 foreign investors, up 39.4% from the same period a year earlier. Those investors traded 7,448 properties, up 40.6%.
The buyer pool has also become broader. Investors from 109 nationalities participated during the first half of 2025. That rose to 121 nationalities in the first half of 2026.
The money involved is substantial. In the latest half-year figures, UAE nationals invested roughly AED 14.9 billion. Other GCC nationals invested AED 1.36 billion, Arab nationals around AED 5 billion and investors from other nationalities AED 8.2 billion.
Taken together, the non-Emirati categories accounted for roughly AED 14.6 billion. That is close to half of the AED 29.5 billion represented in the nationality breakdown.
These are market-wide investment figures, so they should not be treated as a direct measure of purchases inside the 50 specially approved projects. They do show that non-Emirati capital is now a huge part of Sharjah’s wider property market.
| Buyer group | H1 2026 investment | Properties traded | Approx. share of reported value | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UAE nationals | AED 14.9bn | 22,599 | 50.6% | Emiratis remain the largest group |
| Other GCC nationals | AED 1.36bn | 924 | 4.6% | Regional demand remains meaningful |
| Arab nationals | AED 5.0bn | 4,449 | 17.0% | Large non-Emirati Arab buyer base |
| Other nationalities | AED 8.2bn | 4,264 | 27.8% | Wider international demand is substantial |
| Non-Emirati groups combined | ~AED 14.6bn | 9,637 | ~49.4% | Foreign and regional capital is close to half the reported value |
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Which foreign buyers are most active in Sharjah right now?
Indian buyers are currently the largest named foreign group by number of properties traded, while Syrian, Jordanian, Iraqi and Egyptian buyers also form sizeable pools.
During the first half of 2026, Indian investors traded 1,657 properties. Syrians followed with 1,163, then Jordanians with 670, Iraqis with 668 and Egyptians with 662.
India also gives us a useful year-on-year comparison. Indian investors traded 1,525 properties in the first half of 2025, so the count rose by roughly 9% over the following year.
The wider trend is more interesting than any single nationality. Sharjah had investors from 103 nationalities in 2023, 120 in 2024 and 129 across full-year 2025. The half-year periods are not directly comparable with those full-year counts, but the market is clearly drawing buyers from a wider range of countries over time.
That leaves Sharjah with meaningful demand from South Asia, the Arab world and buyers further afield rather than one dominant overseas market.
Did foreign ownership actually help Sharjah’s property boom?
Yes, foreign ownership looks like an important part of Sharjah’s recent property boom, although the market has several other growth engines working at the same time.
Sharjah recorded AED 40 billion of real-estate transactions in 2024, up 48% from 2023. The market then reached AED 65.6 billion in 2025, another huge jump.
Activity remains strong today. The first half of 2026 generated AED 29.5 billion of transactions, up 9.3% from the same period a year earlier.
The number of properties traded across all investor nationalities has climbed too. It went from 31,229 in 2023 to 45,676 in 2024 and 60,322 in 2025.
The ownership reform fits neatly into that timeline, and the Registration Department itself has repeatedly named the opening to non-citizens among the factors supporting demand. Arada also reported its best sales month since the company’s founding immediately after the 2022 rule change, saying buyer interest at Aljada and Masaar jumped.
Still, foreign ownership does not explain the whole boom. Sharjah has also been adding housing supply, roads, schools, master communities and financing options, while Emiratis continue to provide a very large share of demand.
So the 2022 reform clearly widened the buyer pool. Saying it caused the entire surge would go further than the evidence supports.
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Are Sharjah developers now building specifically for international buyers?
Yes. International ownership has become part of how new Sharjah projects are designed and sold, rather than a technical detail hidden in the paperwork.
Look at how developers present their communities now. BEEAH explicitly describes Khalid Bin Sultan City as freehold and open to all nationalities. Sharjah Sustainable City II puts freehold ownership for every nationality alongside its payment plans and buyer incentives.
Azizi Florence offers an even clearer example. Azizi Developments built most of its reputation in Dubai, yet its first Sharjah project is an AED 30 billion freehold masterplan with more than 10,600 homes. Three-bedroom townhouses were introduced from AED 1.89 million.
That kind of launch only makes commercial sense if the developer expects to sell far beyond the traditional local buyer base.
The annual ACRES property exhibition reflects the same change in scale. The latest edition displayed more than 200 projects from over 120 exhibitors, including 16 Sharjah developers. According to the head of the Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department, the previous year had already produced AED 65.6 billion in market transactions and buyers from 129 nationalities.
Developers are now treating foreign demand as part of the core Sharjah market.
Is Sharjah foreign freehold only for wealthy buyers?
No. Sharjah’s foreign-buyer market now covers a fairly wide price range, although the newest villa communities naturally push the average ticket higher.
Apartment projects in Aljada, Muwaileh and other established foreign-buyer locations still give buyers entry points below the cost of most new family villas.
At the other end, recent townhouse launches show where the growing family market sits. Khalid Bin Sultan City started its first releases around the high-AED 1 million range, while Azizi Florence launched three-bedroom townhouses from AED 1.89 million. Masaar’s larger villas climb much higher.
The result is a more complete market than Sharjah had under the old foreign-ownership structure. Someone can now look for a relatively modest apartment, a family townhouse or a large premium villa without automatically having to leave the emirate.
Price alone should not be confused with value, of course. New masterplans can carry launch premiums, payment-plan costs and future supply risk. But foreign ownership itself is no longer confined to one luxury niche.
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Can foreigners now buy property anywhere in Sharjah?
No. Foreign buyers still cannot assume that every apartment, villa or plot in Sharjah is available to them simply because the emirate allows freehold ownership.
The 2022 decision allows all nationalities to own property without a time limit inside approved real-estate development areas and projects. Those last words do a lot of work.
The latest official count of 50 approved projects confirms that Sharjah is still operating a project-based system. If every property across the emirate had automatically become foreign freehold, there would be little reason for the Registration Department to keep reporting how many developments have received approval.
This is also why broad online labels such as “Sharjah freehold area” can be misleading. A district can contain multiple developments, phases and older properties with different ownership histories.
A foreign buyer should therefore verify the exact development, phase and unit with the Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department before paying a reservation fee. Marketing language is useful for finding opportunities; it should not replace title verification.
Does the old 100-year Sharjah property rule still matter?
Yes. The old 100-year usufruct framework still matters when researching Sharjah because the newer freehold system did not magically turn every legacy property into unrestricted foreign ownership.
Before the 2022 reform, long-term usufruct rights were the route most commonly associated with non-GCC buyers in designated projects. That history is why older articles and property pages still refer to 100-year rights.
The newer rule is much more generous. Inside approved developments, all nationalities can own property without a time limit.
Those two systems can therefore appear side by side when someone searches Sharjah property online. The practical answer depends on the specific asset rather than whichever general explanation appears first in Google.
For a newly launched masterplan that is explicitly approved as freehold for all nationalities, the old 100-year limit is no longer the right description. For an older or unapproved property, assuming the same ownership rights would be risky.
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So, did more Sharjah projects just open to foreign buyers?
Yes. More Sharjah projects have recently opened under the foreign-ownership framework, and the latest official data show that this is a continuing expansion rather than a one-off announcement.
The clearest number is 50. That is how many projects the Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department said had been approved under the foreign-ownership regime by the middle of 2026, with six approvals coming during the first half of the year.
The longer view makes the change even clearer. Sharjah had 25 approved projects at the end of 2024. By the first quarter of 2026 it had 47, and the count then reached 50.
At the same time, the type of project available to foreigners is changing. Sharjah Sustainable City II brings 1,032 homes, Khalid Bin Sultan City 1,500, Masaar 3 around 4,000 and Azizi Florence more than 10,600. The foreign-buyer market is now stretching from apartments to entire villa and townhouse communities.
Demand has followed. Foreign investor numbers jumped 39.4% year on year in the first half of 2025, and investors from 121 nationalities were active in the first half of 2026. Non-Emirati groups accounted for roughly half of the investment value in the latest nationality breakdown.
So the answer today is firmly yes. Sharjah is opening more projects to foreign buyers, and the opportunity set is noticeably bigger than it was even a couple of years ago. What has not changed is the need to check the exact project: foreign freehold is expanding quickly, but Sharjah still grants it through approved developments rather than across every property in the emirate.
OUR METHODOLOGY
We treated the question as a market-structure question rather than a simple count of new launches. The analysis looks at the legal framework, the pace of foreign-ownership approvals, the scale and mix of new supply, where that supply is appearing, actual foreign-buyer participation and the wider Sharjah property market.
For the legal framework, we relied on Sharjah Executive Council material on the 2022 ownership decision and WAM reporting on Law No. 2 of 2022. We also used WAM’s earlier coverage of the 100-year usufruct framework to separate older ownership structures from the newer freehold regime.
For project approvals and market activity, we prioritized official Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department figures carried by WAM, Sharjah24 and Sharjah government media. The key checkpoints are 25 approved projects at the end of 2024, 47 at the end of Q1 2026 and 50 by H1 2026, with six approvals during the first half of 2026.
We did not treat every newly registered project as automatically open to foreign freehold ownership. Sharjah reported 11 newly registered real-estate projects in H1 2026 but six foreign-ownership approvals, so those datasets were kept separate rather than merged.
Project-level supply figures come from first-party developer announcements where possible. We used Sharjah Sustainable City for the 1,032-home Sharjah Sustainable City II launch, BEEAH for the 1,500-home Khalid Bin Sultan City, Arada for Masaar 3 and The National’s coverage of Azizi’s launch for the scale and pricing of Azizi Florence.
On demand, we used investor counts, properties traded, nationality breadth and investment value rather than relying on transaction value alone. The goal was to test whether wider legal access is being matched by wider participation in the market.
We also kept correlation and causation separate. The timing of the 2022 reform, rising approvals, stronger international participation and developer launches supports the view that foreign ownership is an important part of Sharjah’s growth, but the article does not assume that the reform alone caused the entire property boom.
Key sources include: Sharjah Executive Council on the 2022 foreign-ownership decision, WAM on Law No. 2 of 2022, WAM on Sharjah’s 2024 property market, WAM on H1 2025 foreign-investor activity, WAM on Q1 2026 and the 47-project checkpoint, Sharjah24 on H1 2026 and the 50-project total, Sharjah Sustainable City II’s official launch, BEEAH on Khalid Bin Sultan City, Arada on Masaar 3, Arada on buyer response after the 2022 reform, and The National on the Azizi Florence launch.
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