Moving to Dubai: the five routes to residence, and what each one actually asks

The question is almost always asked the wrong way round. "How do I move to Dubai" gets answered with the golden visa, because that is the route with the marketing budget behind it. But the overwhelming majority of people who move to Dubai move because an employer there hired them, and the rules that decide what happens to them are not immigration rules at all. They are in the labour law, and they are in a document most relocation guides do not cite.

So this page starts with the employment route, proves it from the instrument, and then sets the other four beside it.

The short answer. There are five routes a reader of this page is choosing between. Employment is the common one: your employer obtains a work permit from the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, MOHRE, and that permit is valid for 60 days in which the fees must be paid. The golden visa asks a qualifying investment, AED 2,000,000 on the property route. The retirement route asks 55 years of age and 15 years of service plus one of three money tests. The virtual work permit, which is what the "digital nomad visa" means here, asks a salary certificate of US$3,500 a month. And family sponsorship attaches to someone already resident. None of the five makes you tax resident on its own: that takes 183 days, or 90 with a permit and a home or a job.

The five routes to living in Dubai, and the gate on each

Four of those five are already proved on this site, each on a page that quotes the instrument and names the date it was read: the golden visa and the UAE residence rules, the Dubai retirement visa, the virtual work permit. The fifth — employment — was not, and that is what the rest of this page does.

Moving to Dubai for a job: the work permit belongs to your employer, not to you

This is the structural fact of working in the UAE and it is rarely stated plainly.

Article 6(1) of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, the UAE labour law, provides that it is not permissible to undertake work in the UAE and that an employer may not recruit or employ any worker, except after obtaining a work permit from the Ministry. Article 1 defines the work permit as a document issued by the Ministry allowing a person to work for a licensed establishment.

Read those together and the consequence follows. The permit names an establishment. You do not hold it; your employer holds it, for you, for that job. Everything that feels strange about the Emirati employment market — why changing jobs is a procedure rather than a decision, why the end of a contract is also an immigration event — comes from that one sentence.

The law was issued on 20 September 2021 and took effect, under article 74, on 2 February 2022, repealing the 1980 federal labour law by article 73. The consolidated text published on the UAE government portal carries footnotes recording later amendment: article 8(3) by Federal Decree-Law No. 14 of 2022 and article 54 by Federal Decree-Law No. 20 of 2023.

What the MOHRE work permit process takes, and the deadlines inside it

From the UAE government portal's own page on recruiting on the mainland, last updated 27 October 2026, the sequence has two stages and two clocks.

Before either, the employer must be registered with MOHRE with an establishment card and number, and must hold an establishment e-signature card, which MOHRE issues only after inspecting the premises. Hiring is capped by a quota the ministry sets.

Stage one, MOHRE. The documents are the business licence, the e-signature card, a colour photograph of the worker on a white background, and a passport valid for a minimum of six months. Qualifications must be authenticated by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and doctors, pharmacists, nurses and teachers additionally need an approval letter from the relevant authority. The conditions are a signed job offer, that the worker does not hold a valid work permit from another company, that the worker is at least 18, and that the profession fits the firm's licensed activity. The employer lodges a bank guarantee of AED 3,000 per registered employee through an approved UAE bank, bears the cost of it, and may have it refunded after service ends and the labour card is cancelled.

The first clock: the work permit is valid for 60 days. The fees and the guarantee must be paid inside that window, or the permit is cancelled automatically and the application starts again.

Stage two, GDRFA. Once MOHRE has given initial approval, the employer opens a company file with the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs and obtains an entry permit for the employee.

The second clock: a work entry permit for a new employee is valid for two months. Inside those two months the employer must have the employee complete a medical fitness test, apply for an Emirates ID through the federal identity authority, ICP, and obtain the labour card from MOHRE. Only then is the residence visa issued on the basis of the work permit and stamped into the passport with its validity.

The portal also records a unified platform, Work Bundle, covering work permits, residency, Emirates ID, medical fitness examinations and employment contracts through one data entry and one payment channel.

The twelve work permit types MOHRE issues, and the one a new arrival comes in on

The government portal lists twelve permit types issued to establishments registered with MOHRE, and the distinctions matter because they are not interchangeable: recruiting from outside the UAE; transfer from one establishment to another; family sponsorship, for someone already sponsored by a family member; temporary, to finish a job within a set period; one-mission, recruiting from abroad for a specific project; part-time, where hours or days are fewer than a full-time contract; juvenile, for a worker between 15 and 18; student training and employment, for a student already in the UAE; UAE or GCC national; golden visa holder; national trainee; and freelance, for a self-sponsored foreigner providing services without being sponsored by a specific employer and without an employment contract.

Someone moving to Dubai for a new job arrives on the first of those. Someone already in the UAE on a spouse's visa who takes a job moves on the third. Someone who wants to work for themselves without an employer at all uses the last — and that is the permit the UAE market usually calls a freelance visa.

Fees. The portal gives a range of AED 250 to AED 3,450 to issue or renew a permit, depending on whether the company is classified A, B or C, and states that companies with a history of violations and a lack of commitment are placed in category C. It does not publish a fee per permit type, and it shows no last-updated date, which is why this page gives the range rather than a number.

A figure in circulation. Several outlets count thirteen permit types rather than twelve. The portal page we read lists twelve. We publish twelve and say where the other count comes from, rather than averaging them.

MOHRE may refuse a permit, decline to renew it or cancel it where the establishment supplies incorrect documents, is fictitious or not operating its registered activity, or does not comply with the Wages Protection System — the last of which is worth knowing before you accept an offer from a company you cannot check.

Dubai employment contracts are fixed-term, and the three-year maximum is not in the text we read

Article 8(3) provides that the contract of employment shall be concluded for a specified period of time, subject to renewal. The unlimited-term contract that the 1980 law allowed is gone.

What is not in the consolidated text published on the government portal is a maximum. Article 8(3) sets a specified period subject to renewal by agreement and states no ceiling on it; article 8(6) leaves the forms of contract to the Implementing Regulation. The subarticle carries a footnote recording its amendment by Federal Decree-Law No. 14 of 2022.

That matters because the figure still in wide circulation is a three-year maximum. It does not appear in the text we read. We stop there rather than going further: we have not read the pre-amendment original, so this page does not tell you what the wording used to be — only that the current consolidated text sets no maximum and that the amendment footnote sits on exactly that subarticle.

Two more rules from the same article are worth having before you sign. Renewals and extensions count toward continuous service, which is what the gratuity is calculated on. And under article 8(5), if both sides simply keep going after the term ends without a new agreement, the contract is treated as implicitly extended on the same terms.

Probation in the UAE is six months, and leaving it the wrong way costs a work permit for a year

Article 9(1) caps probation at six months from the date work commences, and requires an employer ending it to give written notice of at least fourteen days before the termination date.

The part that catches people is what the law requires of the worker who wants out during probation, because the requirement differs depending on where they are going.

• Joining another UAE employer — article 9(3): written notice to the original employer of not less than one month, and the new employer compensates the original for the costs of recruitment unless otherwise agreed.
• Leaving the country — article 9(4): written notice of not less than fourteen days. And if you return to the UAE within three months of departure to take a new permit, the new employer pays the same recruitment compensation, unless agreed otherwise.

Then article 9(6): a worker who leaves without following that procedure is not granted a work permit for one year from leaving.

So the penalty for walking out of a probation period is not a reference problem. It is a year during which the country will not issue the document you need to work in it.

Notice of 30 to 90 days, and gratuity of 21 days a year then 30

Notice. Article 43(1) requires notice in writing, for a period of not less than 30 days and not more than 90 days. Article 43(3): a party that does not observe it pays a notice-period allowance equal to the worker's wage for the full notice period, or for the remaining part of it.

End of service. Article 51(2) entitles a full-time foreign worker who has completed a year or more of continuous service to:

• 21 days' wage for each year of the first five years of service, and
• 30 days' wage for each year beyond five.

Article 51(3) pro-rates a part year once the first year is complete, and article 51(6) caps the total at two years' wage. Article 51(1) puts UAE nationals under the pensions and social security legislation instead, which is why a national colleague's arrangements tell you nothing about yours.

Two baseline figures from the same law, for comparing an offer against the statutory floor: normal working hours are capped by article 17(1) at eight hours a day or 48 a week, and annual leave under article 29(1) is 30 days a year of service, or two days a month for a service term of more than six months and less than a year.

What your employer may not charge you for, and who pays the flight home

Two obligations in the law sit directly against what the recruitment market often does.

Article 6(4): the employer is prohibited from charging the worker the fees and costs of recruitment and employment. If a job offer in Dubai comes with a demand that you pay for your own permit or placement, that is the provision it runs into.

Article 13(12): the employer bears the repatriation expenses of the worker to the place of recruitment, subject to the exceptions the law sets out.

And article 13(10) requires the employer to refrain from preventing the worker from working for others, except in accordance with the law — which is the hook for part-time and multiple-employer permits rather than a general freedom.

Moving to Dubai without an employer: golden visa, retirement and virtual work

If no one is hiring you, the three self-sponsored routes are the ones to compare, and each turns on a single figure proved elsewhere on this site.

The golden visa asks AED 2,000,000 on the property route, and its whole page is worth reading before the money moves, because two Dubai rules changed in 2026 and neither has been published as a legal instrument: the UAE golden visa and what changed in 2026. The retirement route in Dubai asks 55 years of age and 15 years of service, plus AED 240,000 a year or AED 1m in Dubai property or AED 1m on deposit — and a second Dubai government page still prints a different income figure, which the retirement page sets side by side. The virtual work permit asks a salary certificate of US$3,500 a month, one year, self-sponsored and renewable, and here the three government sources agree: the Dubai remote work visa.

For Abu Dhabi rather than Dubai, the emirate-level rules are different and the investment-area list is not published: buying property in Abu Dhabi.

Tax in Dubai: no personal income tax, and the certificate that needs 183 days

The UAE levies no personal income tax, and that is the single most-quoted fact about moving there. It is also the one most often misread, because your home country does not stop taxing you when you leave — it stops when you stop being resident there, by its own test.

Proving the UAE side takes a tax residency certificate from the Federal Tax Authority, and under Cabinet Decision No. 85 of 2022 that means meeting one of three tests: 183 days in the UAE, 90 days with a residence permit plus a home or a job, or a centre of life in the UAE. The two kinds of certificate — one for a named double tax treaty, one for other purposes — are not interchangeable. All of it is in the UAE tax residency certificate.

And a residence permit is not a tax residence. Holding a golden visa does not make you tax resident, and the golden visa page names the article that says so.

If you are British, there is a second test before any of this: the UK statutory residence test decides whether you have left the UK tax net at all, and article 4 of the 2016 UK-UAE convention looks at a home available to you in Britain before it looks at your passport. Both are in moving to Dubai from the UK.

What living in Dubai costs, from the leases the Land Department registers

Rent is most of it, and it is the one cost the Dubai government records contract by contract rather than estimating. In September 2026 the Land Department registered 85,277 residential leases; a new twelve-month flat lease had a median of AED 72,000 a year and a renewal AED 60,880. By area, new flat leases ran from AED 40,000 in International City to AED 160,000 in Downtown. On top of rent come a municipal housing fee of 5% of the annual rent, charged on the utility bill, and the water and electricity tariffs themselves. Dubai inflation was 5.54% in August 2026.

The computation, the filters and what no official source prices at all are in the cost of living in Dubai.

What we could not establish: the grace period after a residence visa is cancelled

This is the gap, and it is a consequential one for anyone arriving on an employment permit.

When a residence visa is cancelled — on resignation, on termination, at the end of a contract — there is a period in which a former resident may remain in the country lawfully before having to leave or obtain a new status. We could not find an official source stating it. What we found instead was press reporting giving figures from 30 days to six months, varying by visa category, with no instrument or authority page behind the numbers.

So this page does not state a figure. If you are planning around the end of a contract, the period is the thing to confirm with GDRFA or ICP directly rather than from a guide, and that includes this one. This is the fourth time on this site that the practical rule a reader needs most turns out not to be published anywhere official, and we record it as an absence rather than borrowing a number.

Buying property in Dubai does not give residence outside the investment rules

Ownership confers no residence right of its own. Property is a route only through the investment permit's own thresholds, which is a different question from whether buying is a good idea.

If you are buying, the pages that matter are buying off-plan in Dubai, real estate brokers in Dubai for the licence and register checks, commercial property in Dubai, and distressed and auction sales, where the auction procedures turned out not to be published either. Whether property buys residence across the countries on this site is in property and residence.

What changed in 2026, and why most guides ranking for this question predate it

Search demand for moving to Dubai from Britain fell by roughly four fifths between February and April 2026 and has not recovered. Strikes on the United Arab Emirates began on 28 February 2026 and a ceasefire was reached on 8 April 2026. British travel advice carries no advisory against travel to the UAE.

The reason to mention it on a page about routes and permits is simple: the guides at the top of this search were written before that happened and read as though nothing did. What did not change was the tax position or the residence routes. The record, with what we verified at source and what we only attribute, is in Dubai in 2026: what changed.

Relocating to the UAE rather than Dubai: what on this page is federal and what is only Dubai's

If you have not settled on an emirate, sort this page by which level of government issued each rule, because half of it travels with you and half does not.

Federal, and therefore the same in all seven emirates. The employment law and the work permit itself: the permit is issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation under a federal decree-law, so the probation rules, the notice period, the gratuity and the fee range above hold whether you land in Dubai, Sharjah or Ras Al Khaimah. So does the tax position — there is no personal income tax anywhere in the UAE — and so does the residency certificate, which is issued by the Federal Tax Authority on a federal cabinet decision. The golden visa's legal basis is federal too.

Dubai's own, and not transferable. Who issues your residence permit: in Dubai it is the emirate's own General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs, GDRFA, and in the other emirates the federal authority, ICP. Every rent and cost figure on this site comes from the Dubai Land Department's lease register or Dubai's utility tariff, and describes Dubai. Property ownership, leases, evictions and estate-agent rules are emirate law, and Dubai's differ from Abu Dhabi's on all four.

One consequence worth knowing before you choose. On the retirement visa the federal ICP words eligibility as fifteen years of service or reaching fifty-five, where Dubai's GDRFA requires fifteen years of service and fifty-five. The same visa is not the same test outside Dubai, which is set out with the official texts side by side on the retirement visa page.

For Abu Dhabi this sorting is done in full, emirate by emirate, on relocating to Abu Dhabi. For Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain we have read nothing, so this site says nothing about their property, rent or local rules — only that the federal half above applies there too.

The order that saves the most time

1. Offer or no offer. If an employer is hiring you, everything runs through them and your job is to check the contract against the statutory floor above. If not, pick between the three self-sponsored routes on the figure each one asks.
2. The contract, before the move. Fixed term, the notice period inside 30 to 90 days, and probation — because the probation exit rules are the ones with a one-year consequence attached.
3. Tax, before you move money. Your home country's departure test first, the UAE certificate's day count second.
4. Rent, last. It is the biggest number and the easiest to change, and it is the one with real data behind it.

Frequently asked questions about moving to Dubai

Where each part of this is proved

The work permit, the labour-law articles and the recruitment process on this page come from two official sources read on 9 November 2026 and recorded on the sources page: the consolidated Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 as published on the UAE government portal, and the portal's own pages on recruiting on the mainland and on work permit types. The residence routes and the golden visa: the UAE guide. Retirement: the Dubai retirement visa. Remote work: the virtual work permit. Tax residence: the tax residency certificate. Costs: the cost of living in Dubai. The British position: moving to Dubai from the UK. This year: Dubai in 2026. Buying: off-plan, brokers, commercial, distressed sales, Abu Dhabi.