UAE golden visa rules in 2026: what changed, and which instrument says so

Two Dubai rules changed in 2026. Thousands of people are applying under them right now. Neither has been published as a legal instrument, and the news report that every consultancy cites for them says so itself: "While no formal announcement has been made, the updates appeared on the Cube Center, an entity affiliated with the Dubai Land Department."

That is the state of this market, and it is why this page exists. The Emirati golden visa is one of the best-documented residence programmes in the world at the federal level — the threshold, the family rights and the renewal test are all in a published regulation you can open — and one of the worst at the emirate level, where the rules that actually decide a file live on a departmental platform and nowhere else.

Below, every figure carries the article that sets it. Where no instrument sets it, this guide says that instead of borrowing a number from someone selling property.

UAE golden visa requirements in 2026: the AED 2,000,000 property route

The property route asks for AED 2,000,000, and the permit runs for ten years, renewable.

Which instrument sets the UAE golden visa threshold

This is worth two paragraphs because almost every page that cites anything cites the wrong thing.

Federal Decree-Law No. 29 of 2021 on Entry and Residence of Foreigners is the parent statute. It never uses the words "Golden Residence" and sets no threshold at all. Article 7(2): "The Executive Regulations of this Decree-Law determines the types of visas in the State." Article 8(2) says the same for residence permits. Article 36 hands the job to the Council of Ministers.

The threshold is one level down, in the Annex to Cabinet Resolution No. 65 of 2022, the Executive Regulation, in force since 3 October 2022. Annex article 8, Second, is the operative text:

> "The Investor shall own one or more Real Estate with a total value of not less than (AED 2,000,000) two million dirhams, and that the Real Estate is wholly owned by the Investor. It may be a loan, on condition that the loan is from one of the local banks determined by the Competent Local Authority."

"One or more" is in the instrument, not just in a ministry's paraphrase. Unlike Greece, which requires a single property in identical words in each of its four thresholds, the UAE lets you add purchases together.

Annex article 1 sets the term: "The ICA may issue a long-term Residence Permit for a period of (10) ten years", and — the sentence that makes the whole thing work — holders may "self-reside without the need for the Guarantor/the Host Party inside the State for work, investment, business start-up or stay."

*A note on how current this is, because it decides whether any of it is worth reading. Cabinet Resolution 65/2022 has been amended six times. All six were read individually on 30 August 2026: five add border posts to article 3, and the other two insert article 19 bis, a work-mission visit visa, and article 77 bis, the Blue Residence. None of them touches the Annex, article 59 or article 60. So the text above is the current consolidated text, checked against the complete change-set, rather than a 2022 text that nobody has contradicted. We also found that the portal's own amendment log is incomplete — its entry for Resolution 95/2024 omits the insertion of article 77 bis, which is visible only in that resolution's own text.*

Does off-plan property qualify for the UAE golden visa? The federal text and the Dubai form disagree

The instrument admits off-plan expressly. The second limb of Annex article 8, Second:

> "The Real Estate Investor shall, when buying one or more Real Estate units off the map with a total value of not less than (AED 2,000,000) two million dirhams, on condition that the purchase is made from local companies determined by the Competent Local Authority."

"Off the map" is the standard Emirati rendering of off-plan.

And Dubai's own golden visa e-service asks for a title deed, which an off-plan Oqood registration is not. So the federal regulation permits something the emirate channel has no document for. We have not found that gap described anywhere — not by the pages that say off-plan qualifies, and not by the pages that say it does not.

*This corrects something this site itself published. Our sources page previously said no official text admitted off-plan and that GDRFA "expressly requires completed construction". The instrument says otherwise, and the "entirely constructed" wording turned out to sit on GDRFA's page for renewing an ordinary property-owner permit — a different permit from the golden residence. We had joined two documents about two products.*

Can you get a UAE golden visa with a mortgage?

Yes, and the allowance is in the instrument rather than in practice: "It may be a loan, on condition that the loan is from one of the local banks determined by the Competent Local Authority."

The emirate channel adds a condition the federal text does not: Dubai's e-service requires, for mortgaged property, "a bank letter indicating 2 million AED paid amount as a proof". One consultancy page updated in August 2026 states that an investor qualifies on a valuation "regardless of how much has been paid". That contradicts the form.

A comprehensive health insurance policy is a condition twice over — at issue under article 8, and as a maintenance condition under article 4, "throughout the validity term of the Residence Permit or in accordance with the terms set by the Competent Local Authority".

What changed in the UAE golden visa rules in 2026, and the instrument nobody can produce

Two changes are reported everywhere. Neither is published.

The AED 750,000 Dubai property visa: what it actually was, and why it is gone

AED 750,000 was never a golden visa threshold. It was the floor for a different permit: Dubai's two-year property investor visa, administered by the Land Department, which has nothing to do with the ten-year federal golden residence beyond both involving property.

And in April 2026 it was removed. DLD's own application page, last updated 19 August 2026, now reads:

> "The property owner is allowed to apply for the issuance of a licence and residency visa, regardless of the property value."

> "A co-owner of the property is allowed to apply … provided that their share value is not less than AED 400,000."

So a page advertising a golden visa "from AED 750,000" is wrong twice: wrong permit, and a repealed threshold. As of 30 August 2026 that includes pages carrying update stamps of 31 July 2026 and 29 March 2026, one of which puts the figure in its own title tag.

The 50% upfront payment rule, removed in February, and the circular nobody has seen

The second change is the removal, reported as of February 2026, of a requirement that half the property's value be paid before a golden visa application. Every source references "a policy circular dated 20 February 2026" and not one gives a number, an issuing reference or a link.

Note that this rule was never in the federal Annex either. It was GDRFA and DLD practice, so its removal would not need an amending instrument at all — which is a reasonable explanation and not a reason to stop asking where it is written.

We went looking for both, and here is exactly where we looked

An absence is only worth publishing if it was tested. On 30 August 2026:

• The Dubai Legislation portal, whose own page is stamped as last updated that day: all 32 instruments issued in 2026 reviewed by type and title, none on residence, investor visas or property thresholds. The keyword "golden residence" returns zero results. "Residence visa", across all years, returns five, none relevant.
• The Memorandum Browser, classification "Residency and Foreigners Affairs": zero results. The GDRFA–DLD memorandum of 24 April 2026 that several reports mention is not published there.
• The Land Department's own legislation page: no instrument from 2025 or 2026 on the subject.

The honest claim is "not published", not "does not exist." An internal circular never submitted for publication would appear in none of those registers. But a reader planning around a rule should know which of the two kinds of rule they are planning around, and no other page in this market tells them.

Dubai two-year property investor visa vs the ten-year golden visa

The single most common confusion in the English-language material is between these two, so here they are side by side.

The fees do not reconcile across channels, and we are not going to pretend they do. GDRFA publishes AED 1,100 plus ancillaries for the golden residence permit; DLD's golden visa service totals AED 9,884.75; DLD's two-year investor visa is AED 10,212.50. These are plausibly three different products through three different channels. We did not verify the composition of the AED 9,884.75, and a page that presents one of these as "the fee" is choosing.

How long can a UAE golden visa holder stay outside the UAE?

This is the claim the market states most confidently and sources least.

The general rule. Article 59 of Cabinet Resolution 65/2022: a residence permit "shall be deemed void if the period of residence outside the State exceeds more than (180) one hundred and eighty consecutive days."

The exceptions are in article 60, and the words "Golden Residence" do not appear in it. The article lists eleven categories. Item 9 reads "Investors holding valid Residence Permits". Item 11 is a residual power for the Chairman to exempt any other category by resolution.

So the position, precisely:

• A property-investor golden visa holder is exempt — but as an *investor*, under item 9, not as a golden visa holder. Solid footing, and an indirect one.
• A golden visa holder in the talent, student, humanitarian or frontline categories is named by no item at all, and would depend on the Chairman's residual power under item 11. No such resolution is published.
• Nothing anywhere says "indefinitely." The instrument sets no outer limit because it does not reach the question.

And the government's own page carries a carve-out that no competitor mentions. ICP's service page on entry after a long absence states that "Golden, Green, and Blue Residence holders … may enter the UAE anytime as long as the residence remains valid" — and, on the same page, "Does not apply to Dubai residents."

u.ae's golden visa page is more careful than the market it feeds, and its wording is the one to plan around: holders gain "the ability to stay outside the UAE for more than the usual period of six months needed to keep their residence visa valid." More than six months is not the same sentence as indefinitely.

UAE golden visa family members: children of any age, and parents

Annex article 3 is more generous than the market usually reports, and the most under-reported feature is the one about children.

> "Residence Permits may be issued to family members of the Foreigner who has obtained Golden Residence Permit, including the spouse and children, regardless of age and parents, for a renewable period of (10) ten years"

The source is article 3(1) of the annex to Cabinet Resolution 65 of 2022, which says it in its own words:

> "Residence Permits may be issued to family members of the Foreigner who has obtained Golden Residence Permit, including the spouse and children, regardless of age and parents, for a renewable period of (10) ten years"

The ordinary Emirati rule — sons sponsored to 25, unmarried daughters — is article 54(1) of the main body of the same resolution, and it does not reach the golden residence at all: the words "Golden Residence" do not appear anywhere in articles 1 to 80. These are two separate regimes rather than a rule and its exception, which is a firmer footing than a carve-out would be.

So no birthday ends a child's permit. What can still end it is the sponsor's own status and the ten-year renewal, together with the continuing conditions of article 4 — self-support and health insurance. "No age limit" is exact; "never falls off" would not be.

There is no income requirement to sponsor. Article 4 imposes two conditions and neither is a salary: the ability "to support himself and his family without the need for government support", and valid health insurance. Every specific dirham figure we found for golden visa dependants came from commercial sponsorship services and traces to nothing.

Two further provisions worth knowing in advance. An applicant abroad gets "a six-month, multiple-entry Entry Visa, renewable for another six (6) months to complete his procedures." And if the sponsor dies, dependants may remain for the duration of the residence granted to them — but conditionally, "in accordance with the conditions determined by the ICA", which is not the unqualified survival some pages describe.

UAE golden visa renewal, and what happens if you sell the property

Annex article 5: golden residence permits are renewed with ICA approval "in accordance with the same standards and conditions under which it is granted", and after paying the fees.

That phrase is the whole answer. Renewal is not automatic, and at year ten you must still satisfy article 8 — which is to say you must still hold AED 2,000,000 of property.

Whether you can sell during the ten years is answered at emirate level, not federal. The Annex says nothing about disposal. GDRFA Dubai's golden residence service page does:

> "It is required to place a lien on the property to ensure the continuity of ownership throughout the validity of the Golden Residency, (in accordance with the procedures of the Land Department.)"

The mechanism is a registered restriction rather than a penalty. You are not punished for selling; you are prevented from it while the permit runs.

The seven golden visa categories, and why the 2025 and 2026 "new categories" did not change the law

Annex article 6 sets seven categories and no more: investors; entrepreneurs; brilliant talented persons; scientists and specialists; excellent students and graduates; pioneers of humanitarian work; the first line of defence. There is also a discretionary limb for prominent personalities by resolution of the ICA Chairman.

Since 2024 the trade press has reported a stream of new golden visa categories: nurses, teachers and university staff, e-sports professionals, content creators, environmental contributors, donors to a certified waqf.

None of these amended the Annex, because the Annex has never been amended. They are nomination programmes under article 2, which allows an application "either through direct application on the ICA platform or through a recommendation/nomination by the Competent Federal or Local Government Authorities", slotting into headings that already existed — mostly "brilliant talented persons". They are real, and they are administrative programmes rather than changes to the law. Several alerts describe them as amendments, which is a different claim and not a true one.

*One category has a condition the market rarely repeats: article 18 grants top students and graduates a golden residence that is "one-time, non-renewable". That restriction is specific to that category.*

*And one claim in circulation is false and was officially denied: there is no "AED 100,000 lifetime golden visa". ICP rejected it publicly in July 2025 and directed applicants to its own channels.*

Does a UAE golden visa make you a tax resident? No, and one article says why

A residence permit and tax residency are different things in every jurisdiction, and in the UAE the gap between them is unusually wide — because the visa asks for no presence at all and the tax test asks for almost nothing but.

Cabinet Decision No. 85 of 2022, article 4, in force since 1 March 2023, makes a natural person a UAE tax resident if any one of three tests is met:

1. "his usual or main place of residence and the centre of his financial and personal interests are in the State";
2. physical presence of 183 days or more in any twelve consecutive months;
3. physical presence of 90 days or more in any twelve consecutive months, and UAE nationality, a valid UAE residence permit, or GCC nationality, and additionally either a permanent place of residence in the State or employment or business in the State.

Owning property is not in any of them. A golden visa gets you the second limb of the third test and nothing else; the days and the home or business are still required.

The 90-day test stacks three things, not one

The third test is the one that is misreported, in two different directions. Pages that render it as "90 days if you hold a residence visa" have dropped a limb. A Russian-language page updated in May 2026 renders it as available to property owners, which drops a different limb — property ownership appears nowhere in article 4.

Ministerial Decision No. 27 of 2023 settles how the days are counted, and it is stricter than most summaries: "All days or parts of a day on which a natural person is physically present in the State count", and they "do not need to be consecutive". A part-day is a whole day. Arrival and departure both count.

Its exceptional-circumstances rule is discretionary and is widely reported as automatic. Article 4 says such a day "may be disregarded by the Authority". At least one professional summary of the tax authority's own guide renders the same rule as "shall not be counted". The decision is the more authoritative text, and it confers a discretion on the Authority rather than a right on the taxpayer.

UAE tax residency certificate: there are two, and they are not interchangeable

The Federal Tax Authority issues them through EmaraTax. Submission AED 50; the electronic certificate is AED 500 for a registrant holding a corporate tax number and AED 1,000 for a natural person without one; a printed copy is AED 250. Ten business days.

The distinction that decides whether the certificate is any use:

• a domestic-purpose certificate is issued on the Cabinet Decision 85/2022 criteria alone;
• a treaty-purpose certificate names a specific double tax agreement, and getting it means satisfying that treaty's own residence article, which may test something different.

The practical consequence. A person who qualifies on the 90-day domestic test can hold a perfectly valid UAE certificate and still be refused treaty benefits abroad, because the other country applies its own treaty's rules. A domestic certificate is not a shield against another country's residency assertion, and it is sold as though it were.

Do you pay tax in Dubai? What the "no tax" claim leaves out

There is no law imposing personal income tax. There is no law granting an exemption from one. The first sentence is the true one and the difference is not pedantic: an exemption can be withdrawn by amending an instrument, while an absence has to be filled by enacting one. u.ae states "The UAE does not levy income tax on individuals" and cites nothing for it, which is consistent with there being nothing to cite.

The same reasoning carries capital gains, inheritance and wealth: there is no charging provision to bring them into charge. Not a rule that exempts them — no rule at all.

*You will read that individual emirates have dormant income tax decrees that could in theory reach a resident's salary. The decrees exist and are dormant, but by their own terms they are addressed to "a body corporate wherever incorporated, or each and every branch thereof". They were never addressed to individuals. The usual telling is wrong about the addressee, not merely about enforcement. We flag that we have this scope from a secondary description rather than from the 1969 decree itself.*

What does exist:

Residential property has its own VAT treatment: the first supply within three years of completion is zero-rated under article 45(9), and other residential supplies and bare land are exempt under article 46.

Note where the AED 375,000 comes from. Nearly every page attributes it to Federal Decree-Law 47 of 2022. It is not there. The decree-law sets the structure; Cabinet Decision No. 116 of 2022, article 2(1) sets the number. On a site whose promise is that a figure traces to its instrument, that is the sort of distinction the promise is for.

Do you pay tax on rental income in Dubai?

Not under corporate tax, and the reason is not the amount.

Cabinet Decision No. 49 of 2023, article 2 brings a natural person's business within corporate tax only above AED 1,000,000 of turnover in a calendar year. But three sources sit outside it "regardless of the amount of Turnover": wage, personal investment income, and real estate investment income.

And the definition of the third is where the real test hides:

> "Real Estate Investment: Any investment activity conducted by a natural person related to, directly or indirectly, the sale, leasing, sub-leasing, and renting of land or real estate property in the State that is not conducted, or does not require to be conducted through a Licence from a Licensing Authority."

The test is licensing, not size. An individual letting his own apartment on an ordinary tenancy is outside corporate tax whatever the rent. The moment the activity requires a licence, the exclusion falls away and the AED 1,000,000 turnover test engages.

And here is a question we cannot answer, which matters more than most of what we can. A short-term or holiday let in Dubai requires a permit from the tourism department. Does that make it an activity that "requires to be conducted through a Licence", putting it back inside corporate tax? The definition points that way and we could not establish it. If your plan is to buy and let nightly, that is a question for a licensed adviser in the Emirates, and any page that answers it confidently without citing the guide is guessing.

Who pays the 4% DLD transfer fee, the buyer or the seller?

The market answer is "the buyer". The instrument says something else.

Executive Council Resolution No. 30 of 2013, schedule item 1, sets the fee for "Registering a Real Property sale contract" at "4% of the value of the sale contract". And article 3 provides that "unless agreed otherwise, the Fee for the sale of Real Property will be shared equally by the seller and purchaser."

So the legal default is 2% each. The buyer paying the whole 4% is a negotiated allocation under the "unless agreed otherwise" limb — market custom, and a strong one, but not what the instrument prescribes. It is the sort of thing worth knowing before you accept it as fixed.

The 5% Dubai housing fee, and the one figure on this page that does not trace

It is 5% of the annual rental value, it is charged to the tenant — or to the owner where there is no tenant — and it arrives in monthly instalments through the electricity and water bill. Anyone who moves to Dubai meets it in their first month.

We could not find the instrument. The best attribution we could reach is Dubai Municipality's Director General, quoted in a newspaper, citing the "Dubai Municipality Revenue Law of 1962" — a law whose text is not on the legislation portal. Nothing we could open sets the 5%.

So this is the one number on this page that does not trace, and saying so is more useful than filling the gap. It is also the number missing entirely from every relocation guide we read.

Figures in circulation with no legal source

Checked on 29 and 30 August 2026 against the searches a reader actually runs.

Two things are deliberately not in that table, because we were wrong about them first. Pages saying off-plan property qualifies are right, and the instrument backs them. Pages saying golden visa holders are exempt from the 180-day rule are right too. Only the absolutist framing — unlimited, no conditions — is wrong, and only because of the Dubai carve-out.

And one competitor deserves credit rather than an audit row. Golden Harbors cites Federal Decree-Law 47/2022 and Cabinet Decision 85/2022, states that the 4% fee is formally split between buyer and seller and that the buyer often absorbs it in practice, and debunks the AED 750,000 confusion. It is the only page we found doing recognisably this. It cites no article numbers, omits both Cabinet Resolution 65/2022 and Executive Council Resolution 30/2013, and sells residency programmes — but it is closer than anyone else, and pretending otherwise would be the same dishonesty this page exists to avoid.

Frequently asked questions

What else here bears on this

The Emirates is the one jurisdiction in this set where a purchase is the route in full and the permit asks for no presence at all. Greece is the other, and how differently it is built — four thresholds, one property each, and permanent residence that counts days — is in the Greece guide. Portugal removed the property route altogether in 2023, which is worked through in the Portugal guide. What a purchase achieves in each of the five, read against the statute, is in the property piece. Every act named above, with the date each was read, is on the sources page.

Sources: where each figure comes from

The immigration provisions come from Federal Decree-Law 29 of 2021 and from Cabinet Resolution 65 of 2022 and its Golden Residence Annex, read on the UAE's own legislation portal in Arabic and English on 30 August 2026, together with all six amending resolutions — Nos. 87/2022, 117/2023, 95/2024, 125/2024, 179/2025 and 95/2026 — read individually to establish that none of them reaches the provisions quoted here. The tax residency provisions come from Cabinet Decision 85 of 2022 and Ministerial Decision 27 of 2023; the corporate tax provisions from Cabinet Decisions 116 of 2022 and 49 of 2023; the transfer fee from Executive Council Resolution 30 of 2013 on the Dubai Legislation portal. The two-year permit's conditions and fees come from the Land Department's own application page, and the absence exemption from ICP's own service page.

Six things on this page are not verified to that standard, and each is marked where it appears. The instrument behind either 2026 Dubai change, which we could not find in any register we searched. The instrument behind the 5% municipality housing fee. Whether a licensed short-term let falls inside or outside the real estate investment exclusion. The scope of the dormant emirate income tax decrees, which we have from a secondary description rather than from the decrees. The composition of the AED 9,884.75 fee, and why three government channels publish three different totals. And the VAT article numbers, which we verified against an unofficial translation rather than an authority-hosted original.

We also do not publish two figures that every commercial page carries: the validity of an Emirates ID for a golden visa holder, and whether the medical fitness test applies to golden visa holders specifically. No official page states either, and a number with no source is not improved by being repeated.

Naming those is the point rather than an apology for them. A guide that reads the same whether or not it checked is a guide you cannot use.

We do not sell property and we are not lawyers. This site compares rules and publishes the instrument beside the figure. If you have read the above and want to act on it, the next step is a licensed firm in the Emirates, and finding you one is what we do.