Golden Visa (property)
Moving to the UAE: residency, tax and property
The fastest route on this list and the only one outside the EU. No personal income tax, a threshold set in dirhams that may be met by one property or several, and a ten-year permit the Land Department turns round in seven to ten working days. There is no path from it to citizenship: naturalisation in the UAE is discretionary and by nomination.
- From
- AED 2,000,000
- First permit
- 7–10 working days published, 2–4 weeks end to end
- Tax regime
- No personal income tax
The real number
What UAE actually costs
The threshold is the investment alone. Transfer taxes, professional and government fees and the first renewal are not optional — everyone pays them, every time.
- Advertised
- €466,000
- Everything else
- €31,000
- Real, first year
- €497,000
Sources Verified against primary sources on 23 August 2026 — statutes, ministry tariffs and official fee schedules. Figures are for ONE main applicant and cover entry and the first renewal; dependants are priced differently in every jurisdiction and are not included. Amounts in euro; the UAE threshold is AED 2,000,000 converted at 4.288 on the same date. See the working →
Who this route suits
The UAE is the fastest route here by a wide margin and the only one outside the EU. The Land Department publishes seven to ten working days for the visa itself, and title deed to Emirates ID realistically runs two to four weeks rather than the months every European option takes.
It suits somebody whose priority is a tax position and speed. It does not suit anybody who wants a European passport eventually: naturalisation in the UAE is discretionary and by nomination, and owning property never triggers it.
What stands behind the figure
AED 2,000,000, and it does not have to be one property — the immigration authority accepts one or more units totalling the threshold. A mortgaged property qualifies with a no-objection letter from the bank stating what has been paid and what is outstanding. A jointly held share qualifies if the share itself reaches the threshold.
Off-plan is not claimed here, and the omission is deliberate: no official page supports it, and the property-owner visa page requires a completed building.
The figure is in dirhams, so it moves. At 4.288 to the euro on 23 August 2026 it is about €466,000 — the same threshold was €490,000 on this site until the rate was rechecked, which is what a currency conversion does when nobody dates it.
What changed, and when
Less than anywhere else in this comparison, which is itself the point: the threshold and the ten-year term have been stable while three of the four European routes were rewritten. What did change is the tax landscape around it — corporate tax at 9% from June 2023 and a 15% domestic minimum top-up for large multinationals from January 2025 — and neither touches an individual's salary or investment income.
After the first permit
Ten years, renewable. There is still no personal income tax; u.ae states it plainly. VAT is 5%, and the real transaction costs are the Land Department transfer fee of 4% plus an agency commission of about 2% — both market practice rather than figures we could confirm from a published tariff, and flagged as such wherever they appear on this site.
Government fees for the visa itself come to AED 9,884.75: the medical, the Emirates ID, the residency stamp, the Land Department charge and admin, plus AED 5,774.50 for each dependant.
Sources: the Dubai Land Department's investor golden visa service; the GDRFA and ICP golden residency pages; u.ae on taxation.
Buying property here — Buying property in Dubai: freehold areas, fees and the short-let tax trap
Questions about UAE
- Does the permit let me work anywhere in the EU?
- No. An investment residence permit lets you live in the issuing country and travel freely in Schengen, but it carries no right to work in other EU states. Working in the issuing country itself is usually allowed; the conditions differ.
- After how many years can I apply for citizenship?
- Malta about five years by naturalisation, Greece seven, Cyprus eight, Portugal seven for EU and Portuguese-speaking nationals and ten for everyone else — that last figure changed in May 2026 and used to be five. The UAE has no citizenship route here at all. Everywhere the clock counts years of actual legal residence, not years of holding the status, so a permit that requires a few days a year accrues nothing on its own.
- Do I have to live there to keep the status?
- To keep the permit, almost nowhere: a few days a year is usually enough. For citizenship, yes — actual residence is required, and this is where expectations diverge most often.
- Does buying property make me a tax resident?
- No. Tax residence is decided by days of presence and centre of vital interests, not by ownership. Buying a house and remaining a tax resident of your own country is an ordinary situation.
Ask about UAE
One partner works in each jurisdiction, and an enquiry reaches only them — and only if you tick the consent box. A person replies, usually within one working day.
We write when a rule changes
Not a newsletter. A short email when a threshold, a tax or a requirement in one of these jurisdictions becomes something else — with the statute and the date. There will not be many: across 2026 there have been fewer than ten such changes across five countries. The confirmation brings the four routes compared on one printable sheet.
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A confirmation is on its way, with the four-route comparison as a PDF. It also says what you signed up for and how to leave — one word in a reply.
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