Selling property in Egypt: process, costs, and taxes

Selling a property in Egypt is a different exercise from buying one, even though much of the same groundwork applies - honest pricing, clean paperwork, and a buyer who can actually complete. This guide sets out how a sale actually proceeds: who is eligible to sell, the steps from instruction to registration, what it costs, and what to expect on timeline. If you are ready to talk, see how KÂMO represents sellers or request a valuation directly.

Most of what follows applies across Egypt's main markets - Cairo, the Red Sea, and the North Coast - and to both resale units and off-plan positions bought from a developer. If your property is on the Red Sea and you are selling from outside Egypt, our companion guide on selling a Red Sea property from abroad covers the remote-sale mechanics in more depth. If you are the buyer in this transaction rather than the seller, start instead with buying property in Egypt as a foreigner.

Who can sell, and the foreign-owner resale rule

Egyptian nationals can sell freely, subject to the usual title and documentation checks. Foreign owners can also sell, but the same law that grants them ownership - Law 230/1996 - places conditions on it worth knowing before you list. That law caps foreign ownership at two residential properties nationwide, each no larger than 4,000 sqm, held for personal or family use; more directly relevant to a seller, it carries a five-year disposal lock from the date of acquisition, and where the underlying holding is vacant land rather than a built unit, it separately requires construction to have begun within five years. In practice, a foreign owner generally cannot resell a property until five years have passed since they acquired it. We confirm the acquisition date and the exact position for your specific title before we take an instruction, rather than assume the clock has run.

The picture also depends on where the property sits. Along the Red Sea mainland - Hurghada, El Gouna, Soma Bay, Sahl Hasheesh - and across the North Coast, New Cairo, and Sheikh Zayed, foreign ownership is on a freehold basis, subject to the Law 230/1996 conditions above. In Sinai, including Sharm El Sheikh and Dahab, the regime is different: foreign freehold is not available there, and ownership generally takes the form of a usufruct right capped at 75 years under a separate presidential decree, with the tourism sector treated as its own case. If your property is in Sinai, the resale mechanics differ from the mainland Red Sea, and we confirm the specific structure for your unit rather than generalise.

The sale process, end to end

The sequence a sale moves through is close to the mirror image of a purchase: instruction and pricing, marketing to a qualified buyer pool, an offer and a sale-and-purchase contract, due diligence on your title, and registration once payment is complete. See our guide to how buying property actually works for what that sequence looks like from the other side of the table - due diligence in particular runs in the opposite direction here: a buyer's advisor will scrutinise your title, any outstanding charges on the unit, and your right to sell, exactly as we would if we were representing them.

Notarization and registration requirements depend on whether the property sits on freehold land or a long-term usufruct, and on which authority the development's underlying land is registered under - Egypt's registration environment is not centralised the way Dubai's is. We confirm the exact document set and registration route for your specific title before marketing begins, rather than quote a generic checklist that may not match your development. See our guide to Shahr Aqari and the Siraj property ID for more on how registration itself works, including a new national property ID every property must now carry.

We are a property advisory, not a law firm. Independent legal counsel should review the sale contract and confirm title before you sign, and we coordinate qualified independent specialists wherever formal legal, tax, or notarial advice is required.

Costs: the disposal tax, seller-borne

The one seller-side cost fixed by law is the disposal (transaction) tax: 2.5% of the sale price, charged to the seller (Law 196/2008, Article 3) - the same figure we cite when we compare exit rules for buyers weighing Cairo, the Red Sea, and the North Coast against each other. It is worth budgeting for from the outset rather than treating it as a deduction that appears at completion.

Beyond the disposal tax, other transaction costs - professional fees, any agency commission, administrative charges - are typically apportioned between buyer and seller by agreement rather than fixed by law, and the split varies by transaction. We confirm the actual cost breakdown for your specific sale before you instruct us, not after.

Pricing against live comparables, and how KÂMO represents a seller

We price a property against real, comparable evidence - recent sales and live competing stock - not the number that wins the instruction; an asking price grounded in the market is the one that actually sells. From there, representation runs end to end: preparation and presentation, qualifying enquiries, managing viewings, and negotiating on your behalf, through to handover, with the same advisor on your file throughout.

Not every seller wants a public campaign. We can market a property quietly to a qualified audience - across Egypt, the Gulf, and Europe, with multilingual follow-up in English, Arabic, German, French, and Spanish - or run an open listing, whichever protects your position and your timeline.

How long a sale takes depends on the pricing strategy, how discreet a mandate you want, and the depth of the qualified buyer pool for that property type and location - we do not quote a fixed timeline, because none is realistic across every price point and market. What we do commit to is a candid initial view of your property's position before you decide anything, and a personal reply within 24 hours to any question along the way.

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