Buying in Egypt as a foreign national: the honest version

The question we field most often from overseas buyers is whether they can own at all. They can. Foreign nationals may own real property in Egypt, and have been able to for decades — the persistent belief otherwise usually traces to a rule that was narrowed years ago or to advice from someone recalling the 1990s.

The constraints that do exist are specific rather than sweeping. There are limits on the number of properties an individual may hold and on total area; there are restrictions in designated areas, most relevantly certain zones of touristic or strategic significance, which in this governorate can touch land near the plateau; and agricultural land is treated separately and restrictively. None of that prevents a foreign buyer from purchasing a villa in New Giza or an apartment in Zayed, which is what most people are actually asking.

What matters far more in practice is registration. Egypt's property registration system is the part of this transaction that will consume your attention, and an unregistered purchase — however normal it looks, however many people tell you everyone does it this way — is not an asset you fully control. It is a contract, and it behaves like one when you try to sell, finance or inherit it. We do not act on unregistered stock. That single policy costs us instructions every month and has never once cost a client.

Currency is the other live issue. Repatriating sale proceeds is governed by how the purchase funds entered the country, and the documentation you need to prove that is generated at the moment of purchase, not at the moment of sale. Buyers who arrive at an exit three years later without it discover that the paperwork cannot be reconstructed retroactively.

This is a summary, not legal advice, and the position moves. Retain an Egyptian lawyer who acts for you and not for the seller or the developer. If an agent tells you a lawyer is unnecessary, that is the most useful thing they will tell you all day.