Moving to Dubai from the UK with family: the Emirates set no salary figure, and the family you leave behind is a statutory tie

The question people actually ask is a number: how much do I need to earn to bring my wife and children to Dubai. The answer is that the instrument does not contain one, and the figures in circulation come from three different places with three different levels of authority.

The second question nobody asks is the one with more money attached: what the family does to your own position in the country you are leaving. In British law the family is not sentiment, it is a tie with a definition and a day count.

The short answer. The Executive Regulation of the entry and residence law lets a resident bring in a spouse and children under 25, with unmarried daughters listed separately and no age cap stated for them, and children with special needs at any age. Its conditions are a residence permit, "the financial solvency of the Guarantor/Head of the family", "adequate housing for family members" and proof of kinship. No salary, wage or income figure appears in the regulation. The AED 4,000, or AED 3,000 plus accommodation, that every guide prints is on the federal government's portal, which carries no last-updated date and says the conditions are "subject to change from time to time". And on the British side, under paragraph 32 of Schedule 45 to the Finance Act 2013 you have a family tie if a spouse, civil partner, cohabiting partner or own child under 18 is resident in the UK — with a 61-day relief that applies to the child and not to the spouse.

What the UAE requires to bring your family, and the two words it leaves undefined

The instrument is the Executive Regulation of Federal Decree-Law No. 29 of 2021 on Entry and Residence of Foreigners, issued as Cabinet Resolution No. 65 of 2022. Article 55 sets the conditions for bringing in family members, and there are four:

• the sponsor "shall have Residence Permit in the State";
• "The financial solvency of the Guarantor/Head of the family";
• "Provide adequate housing for family members";
• "Proof of kinship".

Two of those four are the whole subject of this page, because both are words rather than tests. "Financial solvency" is not quantified anywhere in the regulation. "Adequate housing" is not defined in it either — no floor area, no number of rooms, no tenancy-contract requirement appears in the text we read.

That is not an oversight you can write around. It means the decision on whether your salary and your flat are enough is administrative rather than arithmetical, taken by the authority handling your file, and that a page promising you a threshold is promising you something the law does not contain.

Article 54: children to 25, unmarried daughters with no stated cap, special needs at any age

Article 54(1) is the permission itself: "The Foreigner residing in the State (male or female) may bring in his family members, including the husband and children", covering children "who have not reached (25) twenty-five, or unmarried daughters", and "Children with special needs regardless of age in accordance with the regulations issued by the ICA Chairman".

Three things in that sentence are worth reading slowly.

The first is that the age limit is 25, and it is the same provision our golden-visa page quotes for the point that the ordinary rule does not reach the golden residence at all. Those are two separate regimes rather than a rule and an exception, which is set out on the UAE golden visa page.

The second is that unmarried daughters are listed separately from the under-25 limb, and the text we read attaches no age to them. We state that as what the provision says and not as a conclusion that the limit never applies, because the Arabic original governs and we read the English publication.

The third is a translation oddity we report rather than smooth over: the English text of article 54(1) says the resident may bring in family "including the husband and children" — naming the husband, where the subject of the sentence is a resident of either sex. The federal portal separately says that "A mother can sponsor her children in special cases approved by the ICP", without saying what makes a case special. A reader asking whether a wife can sponsor a husband, or a mother her children, gets a different shape of answer from the instrument than from the portal, and we do not reconcile them.

Your family's residence cannot outlast your own

Article 54(3): "the validity term of residence for family members shall not exceed the validity term of the residence" of the sponsor.

This is the provision that makes the sponsor's own status the single point of failure for the whole family, and it is the reason the order of operations at the end of this page puts your own permit first. It is also why the employment route matters more than it looks: the work permit belongs to the employer rather than to you, which is proved from the labour law on moving to Dubai.

The AED 4,000 figure is the portal's, not the law's, and the portal carries no date

The federal government portal's page on sponsorship requirements states: "The sponsor must have a minimum salary of AED 4,000 or AED 3,000 plus accommodation." That is the figure in every commercial guide, and it is a figure published by the state — so this page gives it, with its provenance attached.

What the provenance is: a portal page that shows no last-updated date, that says the conditions "are subject to change from time to time" and advises checking with the ICP or GDRFA, and whose cited authority is the Executive Regulation — the instrument that, as set out above, contains no figure. The portal also names the accommodation option, which means the AED 3,000 route is the one where "adequate housing" does work rather than sitting in the background.

So the honest statement of the requirement has two levels. The law requires solvency and housing. The administration, on its own undated page, puts numbers on them. Anyone quoting AED 4,000 as a legal requirement is quoting the second as though it were the first.

The AED 10,000 figure for five relatives is press, and it is not in the instrument

A second number is in wide circulation: that a resident needs AED 10,000 a month to sponsor five relatives. It traces to news reports of March 2023 rather than to any instrument we could read, and it appears in neither the Executive Regulation nor the portal pages we read on 12 November 2026.

We do not print it as a requirement. We name it because a reader who has met it elsewhere deserves to know where it comes from, and because the gap between it and AED 4,000 is large enough to change a decision.

Parents: the regulation says Green Residence holders, the portal says any resident

Here the two official sources do not merely differ in precision, they differ in substance.

The Executive Regulation, article 54(2): "The Foreigner who has obtained a Green Residence Permit may bring in his first-degree relatives", with article 46(5) stating that the Green Residence "may include the Foreigner parents". On the face of that text, parents follow from the Green Residence rather than from residence generally.

The federal portal says: "A resident can sponsor his parents, and the residence visa will be granted on a yearly basis", and mentions "a deposit as a guarantee for each parent" without naming an amount. The regulation we read sets no deposit for family sponsorship at all; its only deposit condition sits in article 52(2)(a), on the retired foreigner's permit.

We publish both and resolve neither. This is the fourth time on this site that two official sources have failed to join up rather than one of them being silent — the pattern was first named on moving to Malta from outside the EU, where the immigration agency and the employment agency each pointed at the other for what neither carried.

The 60 days: an entry visa in the act, an application deadline on the portal

Both sources say sixty days, and they are not saying the same thing.

The regulation, article 34, gives a non-work entry visa allowing a stay "for a period of (60) sixty days from the date of entry until the completion of the necessary procedures", with article 34(5) listing family members among the categories it covers. The portal states that "A resident sponsor has 60 days to apply for his dependents' residence visa" after they enter on an entry permit.

The first is the length of the permission to be in the country while the file is processed. The second is a deadline for starting the file. The regulation we read sets no deadline for the application itself. In practice they point the same way, and the practical reading is that sixty days is what you have; we separate them because a reader who misses the distinction may think the clock starts somewhere it does not.

One further portal figure, named for what it is: a newborn's visa must be applied for within 120 days of birth or fines follow, and the portal gives no amounts.

The UK side: a spouse or a child resident in Britain is a statutory tie

This is where moving *with* the family and moving *ahead of* the family stop being the same decision.

Our page on moving to Dubai from the UK sets out the two tests that decide a British person's tax position and deliberately prints no thresholds from the statutory residence test, on the ground that we do not recite figures we have not read at source. For this page we read one provision at source, so here is what it says.

Paragraph 32 of Schedule 45 to the Finance Act 2013, in the latest revised version on the legislature's own site, is headed "Family tie". You have one for a tax year if "a relevant relationship exists at any time between P and another person" and "that other person is someone who is resident in the UK for year X". A relevant relationship is one of three:

• "P and the other person are husband and wife or civil partners and, in either case, are not separated";
• "P and the other person are living together as if they were a married couple or civil partners";
• "the other person is a child of P's and is under the age of 18".

"Separated" is defined in sub-paragraph (5): under a court order, by deed of separation, or "in circumstances where the separation is likely to be permanent".

Two consequences follow directly from the words. The tie depends on the other person's residence, tested for them and not for you — so a spouse who moves with you and ceases to be UK resident stops being a tie, while a spouse who stays is one. And the tie exists if the relationship exists at any time in the year, which means a move part-way through a year is not a clean break in the way a departure date suggests.

The 61-day relief covers a child and does not cover a spouse

Sub-paragraph (3) is the part worth the most and the part least likely to be in a guide.

A child under 18 does not give you a family tie if "P sees the child in the UK" on "fewer than 61 days (in total)" in the year — or, where the child turns 18 during the year, in the part of the year before that birthday. Sub-paragraph (4) sets the counting rule: "A day counts as a day on which P sees the child if P sees the child in person for all or part of the day." Part of a day is a day.

Read that against sub-paragraph (2). The relief is attached to the child limb alone. There is no equivalent for a spouse, a civil partner or a cohabiting partner: if they are UK resident and you are not separated within the meaning of sub-paragraph (5), the tie exists however seldom you see them.

So the two halves of a family behave differently in British law. Children left in the UK can be visited up to sixty days a year without creating a tie, and the sixty-first visit creates one. A spouse left in the UK is a tie from the start. For a family splitting the move across a school year — one parent out early, the rest following — that asymmetry decides which of the two arrangements costs a tie, and it is not the one most people would guess.

The order to do this in

1. Settle your own permit before anyone else's, because article 54(3) caps the family's residence at yours and a lapse at the top takes the rest with it.
2. Treat the salary question as administrative, not arithmetical. The law asks for solvency and adequate housing without defining either; the portal's AED 4,000, or AED 3,000 with accommodation, is where the numbers come from, and it is undated.
3. Decide the tenancy before the visas if you are using the AED 3,000 route, since that is the route where housing carries the weight.
4. Count the UK family as a tie before you count days. Whether a spouse remains UK resident is tested on them, so the question of who moves when changes your own position and not only theirs.
5. If a child stays in the UK, count the visits. Fewer than 61 days seen in the UK, and no tie through the child; part of a day counts as a day.
6. Then take the tax certificate question separately. Residence in the Emirates and a tax residency certificate are different things with different day counts, set out in the UAE tax residency certificate page.

What this page does not state

Any salary figure as a legal requirement. The regulation has none; we give the portal's and say whose it is.

What "adequate housing" means. The regulation does not define it, we read no ICP or GDRFA decision that does, and so no floor area, room count or contract type appears here.

Fees. The portal pages we read list no visa fees for family sponsorship, only deposits without amounts, so we print none.

The rest of the statutory residence test. We read paragraph 32 and not the schedule. The day counts, the other ties and the automatic tests are not on this page, and our UK page explains why that is a standing choice rather than an omission.

Schooling. School fees and admission are not law and are not here. They are usually the largest item in a family move and we have no primary source for them.

Emirate-level differences. The articles above are federal and hold in all seven emirates. Who processes your file is not federal: in Dubai it is GDRFA and elsewhere the federal ICP, which is sorted out on moving to Dubai and, for the capital, relocating to Abu Dhabi.

Frequently asked questions about moving to Dubai from the UK with family

Where each part of this is proved

Articles 34, 46(5), 54 and 55, the absence of any income figure, the absence of a definition of adequate housing, and the absence of a deposit for family sponsorship come from the Executive Regulation of Federal Decree-Law No. 29 of 2021, issued as Cabinet Resolution No. 65 of 2022, in the English publication on the federal legislation portal, read on 12 November 2026. The AED 4,000 and AED 3,000-plus-accommodation figures, the 60-day application statement, the parents-on-a-yearly-basis statement, the deposit without an amount, the mother-in-special-cases statement, the 120 days for a newborn and the medical fitness requirement for family members aged 18 and over come from the federal government portal's pages on residence visas for family members and on sponsorship requirements, read the same day, neither of which shows a last-updated date. The family tie, the three relevant relationships, the 61-day limb for a child, the part-day counting rule and the definition of "separated" come from paragraph 32 of Schedule 45 to the Finance Act 2013, latest revised version. Each has its own line on the sources page.

The rest of the Emirati picture: the five residence routes and the employment one proved from the labour law in moving to Dubai; golden residence, its separate family rule and the absence of an income requirement there in the UAE golden visa page; the two British tests in moving to Dubai from the UK; residence against tax residence in the UAE tax residency certificate; what a family actually spends, from registered leases, in the cost of living in Dubai; and the federal-against-emirate sorting for the capital in relocating to Abu Dhabi.