A Very good rating costs about twice a Good one

Line up every school that publishes a Year 5 fee for 2026–27 and group them by their latest KHDA rating. The median Outstanding school lists AED 60,608, Very good AED 57,689, Good AED 28,031 and Acceptable AED 17,410. These are approved tuition fees before any discount, the basis of the fee pages on this site.

The same step shows in every year group. From FS1 to Year 12, the median Very good school charges between 1.8 and 2.2 times the median Good school.

Outstanding is a different story. In the primary years it costs about what Very good costs: 1% more at FS1, 5% more at Year 5. In secondary the gap opens: 29% more at Year 7, 19% at Year 9, 28% at Year 10 and 17% at Year 12.

Read this as a picture of the market, not as a price for a rating. British and IB schools hold most of the Very good and Outstanding ratings; American and Indian schools hold most of the Good ratings. Among British schools alone the step is still there: at Year 5, Outstanding AED 61,386, Very good AED 59,701, Good AED 29,836. Among IB schools and Indian CBSE schools, a Good school costs about the same as a Very good one.

The 17 schools without a rating that publish a Year 5 fee have a median of AED 57,000.

Approved tuition before any discount, AED a year; the number of schools in brackets. Year groups matched by KHDA's grade table; a cell needs at least three schools.

Any one school can sit far from its group's median. Good or better schools appear in every fee band. Our fee story on Year 5 has the school-by-school picture, and the year-group fee pages list each school's fee for the class your child will join.

Other curricula: open the Finder and set the year group there.

The medians hide an overlap. At Year 5 in 2026–27, 10 of the 65 schools rated Very good or Outstanding charge no more than the median Good school, AED 28,031. The pattern holds in every year group from FS1 to Year 12: 8 to 11 schools, 20% to 24% of the Very good group.

Not one of them is Outstanding. Of the 10 at Year 5, 9 follow the Indian curriculum and 1 the British.

Between one inspection and the next, a school's rating usually stays where it is. When it moves, it mostly moves up. Across the six cycles from 2016–17 to 2023–24, schools moved up a rating 112 times and down 20 times. Not one school moved more than one level in a single cycle, in either direction.

The chart shows each cycle. There were no inspections in 2020–21, and 2021–22 had too few rated schools to count as a cycle. Changes count only schools that have a KHDA overall rating in both consecutive cycles and are still in KHDA's school directory (194 schools in 2023–24), so they differ slightly from KHDA's published totals (26 improved, 3 declined of 209 inspected).

For a family, a rating is more a floor than a ceiling. A school whose rating moved was more than 5 times as likely to move up as down. A school that moved down did so by one level. And a rating from 2023–24 is, for most schools, the most recent evidence there is until the 2026–27 reports are published (rating changes).

By their latest KHDA rating, 23 schools are Outstanding, 48 Very good, 86 Good and 54 Acceptable. No school is rated Weak or Very weak. 26 of the 237 schools have not yet been inspected (ratings).

That puts 157 of 211 inspected schools, 74.4%, at Good or better. In 2015–16 the share was 59.7%. The chart shows the years between.

The year of a rating matters. Full inspections paused for most schools after the 2023–24 cycle: only 9 schools hold a rating from a later report, 4 from 2024–25 and 5 from 2025–26. A school's rating on this site, and on KHDA's directory, is the one from its most recent report. Inspections resume in 2026–27, and many schools will receive a monitoring visit without a new rating. How this works is explained in KHDA inspections are back.

Ratings differ by curriculum. Of the schools that hold a rating, 16 of 17 IB schools (94%); 71 of 85 British schools (84%); 22 of 29 Indian CBSE schools (76%); 24 of 38 American schools (63%); 7 of 16 MOE schools (44%); 8 of 17 with other curricula (47%) are Good or better. 6 of 6 French and 3 of 3 Indian ICSE schools rated are Good or better, small groups where one school moves the share a lot.

Fees for 2026–27 are frozen: 204 of the 207 schools with a comparable Year 5 fee charge what they charged in 2025–26, the first year with a median rise of 0% since 2022–23 (fee rises).

Of the 237 schools, 210 publish a Year 5 fee for 2026–27. The middle fee is AED 34,871: half the schools charge less, half more. The ends are far apart: AED 3,128 at the lowest and AED 152,000 at the highest, about 49 times as much for the same year group (Year 5 fees).

The median published Year 5 fee was AED 16,257 in 2015–16, across the 70 schools that published one. In 2026–27 it is AED 34,871 across 210 schools. The two figures do not compare like with like: the sample grew as KHDA's fee sheets came to cover far more schools, and the newer schools sit higher on the ladder.

These are tuition fees only. Uniforms, books, transport, trips and exam fees are extra, and they add up differently at every school (school costs).

KHDA's register listed 169 private schools in 2015–16 and 237 in 2024–25, a rise of 40% in 9 years. Enrolment grew faster: 246,342 pupils in 2015–16, 387,381 in 2024–25, up 57% (trends).

KHDA reported 406,563 pupils at the start of 2026–27 (WAM, 1 October 2026). The school-by-school series on this site ends at 2024–25, the last year in KHDA's open register, so its figures stop there.

Growth slowed once: enrolment fell to 272,030 in 2020–21, the year without inspections, and has risen every year since.

A note on counting. "Schools" here means schools on KHDA's register, traced back through the years they were open. KHDA counts schools differently in its own publications; the method explains the base used here. New schools by founding year shows when today's schools opened.

The British curriculum is the largest: 105 of 237 schools teach it, enrolling 160,984 pupils, 42% of all pupils in 2024–25. The curricula page has the others.

IB has grown to 18 schools and American to 39; in 2016–17 the register had 78 British, 11 IB and 30 American schools (curricula).

A school is counted under the curriculum it teaches as its main programme. Some schools offer IB programmes alongside another curriculum; they are counted under their main curriculum here, and the school types and curriculum pages list each school's programmes.

The site has inclusion ratings from 2019–20: by the latest ratings, 159 of 206 schools, 77.2%, are Good or better for inclusion, up from 65.3% in 2019–20. Students of determination made up 7.5% of pupils in the 2023–24 inspection reports, up from 4.4% in 2015–16 and 5.9% in 2019–20 (students and staff).

Wellbeing is rated Good or better at 160 of 191 schools, 83.8%, by the latest ratings. The site has wellbeing ratings on the six-level scale from 2023–24, so there is no earlier year to compare (standards).

97% of schools, by 199 of 200 reports from 2023–24, have a guidance counsellor. The median school with one has 724 pupils per counsellor; the median school has 13.7 pupils per teacher.

For context only: Emirati pupils were 8.7% of private-school enrolment in the 2023–24 reports, 10.3% in 2019–20, and 26.6% of schools had none. The mix of nationalities in a school says nothing about its quality, and this site does not use it in any score. For families of a child with special educational needs, see the guide to SEN provision.

The most common recommendation in the 2023–24 reports concerned teaching, made in 158 of 203 reports (78%), followed by leadership and self-evaluation (132) and assessment (120). The most often named strength was personal development and wellbeing, in 193 of 203 reports (recommendations).

Al Qusais First has the most schools, 17 in 2024–25, followed by Al Barsha Second (11) and Al Garhoud (9) (areas).

The map on the school finder shows every school with its latest rating and its fee for a chosen year group.

Three things to take into the application season for September 2027.

1. Decide which rating you are paying for. Between Good and Very good the median fee roughly doubles; between Very good and Outstanding, in primary years, it barely moves. Compare schools at your child's year group on the year-group fee pages, not on an average, or check your year group and budget above.
2. Check the year of the rating, not just the word. Most ratings are from 2023–24. A rating is more a floor than a ceiling: across six cycles, schools moved up 112 times and down 20 times.
3. Work out the year group first. The class your child joins in September 2027 depends on birth date and curriculum; the guide to year groups for September 2027 gives the rule for each system.

KHDA inspections resume in 2026–27. KHDA has not published a schedule. Some schools will receive a full inspection and a new rating; many will receive a monitoring visit, which does not change the rating. Until a school's new report is published, its rating is the one from its last full inspection, for most schools the 2023–24 cycle.

This report will not be rewritten when new reports arrive. The statistics pages update as KHDA publishes, and each school's profile shows the year of its rating.

Source: Dubai School Atlas, "State of Dubai Private Schools 2026", based on KHDA published data, dubaischoolatlas.com/insights/state-of-dubai-private-schools-2026

When citing one chart, link to its section, for example dubaischoolatlas.com/insights/state-of-dubai-private-schools-2026#rating-changes. Please keep the year next to each figure: a rating is from the 2023–24 cycle, a fee from 2026–27, a school count from 2024–25.

Each chart above has its table as CSV under the chart, with the year, the counts and the source line in the file. The statistics pages linked in each section offer the full tables, school by school.