City Centre Deira Metro Station Overview
City Centre Deira is a Red Line station in Zone 5, on the Deira side of the Creek. It is station R16, between Al Garhoud on the north side and Al Rigga on the south side.
The station's main exit feeds straight into the City Centre Deira mall by a covered, air-conditioned walkway, with no street crossing needed. The mall opened in 1995 as Deira City Centre and was the first large air-conditioned mall in the Deira side of the city, anchored by the Carrefour hypermarket on the ground floor.
First and last train from City Centre Deira Station
These times come from the official RTA timetable. For the exact minute on the day you travel, the RTA S'hail app is the live source.
| Direction | First train | Last train |
|---|---|---|
| To Centrepoint | 5:16 AM daily | 12:54 AM (Mon to Wed, Sun) 12:53 AM (Thu, Fri) 12:51 AM (Sat) |
| To Expo 2020 | 5:00 AM (Mon to Sat) 7:44 AM (Sun) | 11:54 PM (Mon to Wed) 11:51 PM (Thu, Sat, Sun) 12:55 AM (Fri) |
| To Life Pharmacy | 5:12 AM (Mon to Sat) 7:50 AM (Sun) | 11:50 PM (Mon to Wed) 11:55 PM (Thu, Sat, Sun) 12:51 AM (Fri) |
Book a Deira evening market tour
A guided evening through the souks and back to City Centre Deira makes for an easy three-hour loop. Most tours start within ten minutes of the station.
City Centre Deira Station opening hours and facilities
City Centre Deira station keeps the standard RTA opening hours, the same right across the network:
- Monday to Thursday: 5:00 AM to 12:00 AM
- Friday: 5:00 AM to 1:00 AM
- Saturday: 5:00 AM to 12:00 AM
- Sunday: 8:00 AM to 12:00 AM
City Centre Deira has the standard Dubai Metro facilities, confirmed in the official RTA passenger guide. The station is step-free, with lifts to all levels, tactile guidance paths, and dedicated wheelchair spaces on every train. Nol card machines and a ticket counter sit inside the concourse, alongside bilingual signage and information screens. Du Wi-Fi covers the network.
Every regular train carries three cabin types: Gold Class at one end, a Women and Children cabin with pink signage, and Standard cabins. Door pictograms on the platform show where each cabin stops. The station has at least one bus connection, dedicated Metro Police, CCTV throughout, and emergency call points on every platform and train.
The mall walkway is the easiest weekend grocery routine in this part of Deira. Carrefour sits on the ground floor with direct lift access from the Metro level, so a long shop can come back to the station without going outside. The check-out queues at peak Friday evening can run twenty minutes, so the early afternoon slot is the comfortable one.
The first large air-conditioned mall on the Deira side
City Centre Deira opened on 28 November 1995 as Deira City Centre, the first major air-conditioned mall on the Deira side of the Creek. The opening was led by Majid Al Futtaim, the family business that went on to anchor most of the City Centre and Mall of the Emirates portfolio across the UAE. The original anchors were a Carrefour hypermarket, a Magic Planet family entertainment centre and a multiplex cinema, layout that has stayed largely unchanged through three subsequent refits, as Gulf News covered when the mall hit its twenty-fifth anniversary.
The mall was renamed City Centre Deira in 2014 as part of a portfolio-wide rebranding, and the Metro station followed suit. The covered walkway from the Metro station directly into the mall opened with the Red Line in September 2009 and is one of the only Metro station-to-mall walkways on the network that does not need a separate ticket or a street crossing.
The Port Saeed back streets
City Centre Deira sits at the back of the Port Saeed district, the old residential area behind Dubai Creek’s commercial wharves. Port Saeed has a different feel from the hotel strips on Al Rigga and Salah Al Din: smaller residential blocks, family restaurants, and the kind of tailoring and laundry shops that serve the residents rather than passing tourists. A ten minute walk south from the station gets you onto Al Maktoum Street and the Naif side of Deira, with the Naif Souk and old fabric lanes a few minutes further.
The quick interchange to old Dubai
The station’s biggest weekly use case for residents is the short hop south to Union and the Green Line interchange, which opens up the Spice Souk, the Gold Souk and the Bur Dubai abra dock on a single tap. The full trip from City Centre Deira to the Al Ras heritage cluster, for example, runs about fifteen minutes and stays inside the paid area, with no second fare and no taxi cost. The walkway-in-walkway-out pattern, mall to Metro and Metro to souk, is one of the most-used local commutes in this part of the city.
For the Spice Souk and Gold Souk, ride one stop south to Union and change to the Green Line, then carry on three to four stops to Al Ras. The full trip takes about fifteen minutes on a single Nol card tap, which is faster and cheaper than the AED 25 to 35 taxi the same route on a busy afternoon.
Fares from City Centre Deira Station
Fares depend on how many zones your trip crosses, not how many stations you pass. A Silver Nol card costs AED 3 within one zone, AED 5 across two zones, and AED 7.50 for three or more zones, per the RTA Nol fares page. A personal Blue Nol card pays the same as Silver. Gold Class costs double: AED 6, 10 or 15 across the same bands.
Without a Nol card, the Red ticket is a separate, higher tariff of AED 4, 6 or 8.50 by zone band, and the blank ticket costs AED 2 to buy. Children aged five and under travel free, and travel is free for People of Determination.
| Destination | Stops | Zones | Fare |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burj Khalifa / Dubai Mall | 9 | 2 | AED 5.00 |
| Mall of the Emirates | 13 | 3 | AED 7.50 |
| Expo 2020 | 25 | 5 | AED 7.50 |
| Airport Terminal 3 | 3 | 1 | AED 3.00 |
| Union | 2 | 1 | AED 3.00 |
Metro Stations Before and After City Centre Deira Station
- Al Garhoud (R15): The stop after City Centre Deira on the Red Line going towards Centrepoint
- Al Rigga (R17): The stop after City Centre Deira on the Red Line going towards Expo 2020
Get a Dubai travel eSIM
A prepaid eSIM gives you data the moment you arrive, useful for the RTA S'hail app and offline maps inside the mall.