Alcohol and pork can be sold and consumed on separately reclaimed islands within designated Integrated Real Estate Zones like Ras Malé, even as both remain strictly prohibited across the developments’ primary residential and commercial districts, under the government’s newly submitted Real Estate Business Bill.
The 153-page legislative framework, sponsored on behalf of the administration by Henveiru North MP Ahmed Aifaan, draws a definitive statutory line between general residential areas and dedicated hospitality spaces within major reclaimed projects.
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Under Article 76(b), developers may separately dredge lagoons to construct independent tourism facilities, which will be governed entirely under the Maldives Tourism Act rather than standard municipal or real estate regulations.
Because the Tourism Act governs these detached island facilities, Article 77(c) ensures there are no legal impediments to issuing standard resort-style permits for alcohol and pork.
Conversely, Article 77(d) strictly outlaws the importation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol and pork on the main real estate landmass, barring residents, businesses, and commercial spaces on the primary island from handling them.
The structure allows foreign residents in the zone to access licensed amenities by traveling to neighboring satellite resort islands, while keeping the main urban sector subject to standard domestic restrictions and nationwide bans on casinos and gambling.
The legislative carve-out provides formal clarity following conflicting public signals from senior officials regarding flagship projects like Ras Malé, where President Dr Mohamed Muizzu previously stated that alcohol would never be permitted, while Attorney General Ahmed Usham had noted that resort-style hotel permits could potentially be explored.
Beyond cultural zoning, the bill introduces far-reaching financial and regulatory overhauls for the Maldivian property sector.
Under Chapter 8, the President is empowered to designate Integrated Real Estate Zones, requiring a minimum master-developer investment benchmark of USD 1 billion under an approved master plan. Master developers and individual unit buyers in these zones can secure leaseholds of up to 99 years under a surrender-and-regrant model, though foreign buyers face strict concentration caps ensuring no single foreign nationality exceeds 25 percent of the total foreign quota allocated to a zone or project.
Transactions within these integrated developments will generally fall under the general Goods and Services Tax rather than the higher tourism tax bracket, provided they do not operate as direct resort facilities.
To protect consumers from stalled projects and contractor insolvency, Articles 56 and 57 mandate that developers selling off-plan housing place all buyer payments into dedicated bank escrow accounts.
Developers will only be permitted to access these funds in disbursements tied directly to physical construction milestones certified by independent technical inspectors.
A mandatory 5 percent buffer must remain locked in the account after construction finishes until statutory defect-liability periods lapse, and all escrowed buyer funds are legally ring-fenced from seizure by creditors if a developer falls into bankruptcy or liquidation.
The entire sector will be brought under the oversight of a newly formed Property Regulatory Authority, an agency created under Article 35 to license and monitor developers, agents, brokers, and valuers.
Operating without prior registration, collecting unauthorized booking fees, or advertising off-plan properties before securing mandatory bank guarantees will carry administrative fines reaching up to MVR 1 million, alongside daily penalties of up to MVR 1,000 for unaddressed violations.
For local homeowners, Article 74 establishes a legal pathway for neighbors on adjoining private or state-allocated residential plots to pool their land for joint multi-story redevelopment, with completed units divided strictly according to the proportion of square footage contributed by each owner.
