United Arab Emirates. What the capital buys, and what it risks.
A tax-free hub built for work and business, with no route to citizenship for newcomers.
When rules change mid-way, the date your application is filed is what often decides which rules apply to you. Where are you right now?
The UAE runs its residence system through renewable visas tied to a purpose — working for a local employer, running a business, holding qualifying savings or property, or retirement. None of these lead to permanent residence or citizenship; residence stays renewable for as long as the underlying basis (a job, a business, a savings balance) is maintained. The federal identity and residency authority administers all four programmes, and the paperwork runs almost entirely online.
What you keep, what you don't
4 tiers, three very different relationships with your money. Everything below is what Immimaps has verified against United Arab Emirates's official programme rules — not a marketing minimum.
Your money is exposed to the asset it sits in, or spent outright. Where the source names a holding period, it's in the ledger below.
The ledger
| Route | Capital | Your money is | Hold period | Comes back? | Service fees on file |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employment Visa | — | Structural requirement | — | No capital placed | Benchmark coming soon Check a proposal |
| Golden Visa | AED 2,000,000one-time | Capital at risk | 5 years | At market | USD 4,005typical · middle half USD 3,000–4,455 · 5 firmsmixed scope, visa application only to full package · tax included on 1 of 8, excluded on 2, not stated on 5 · dated 2026 Check a proposal |
| Green Visa | — | Structural requirement | — | No capital placed | Benchmark coming soon Check a proposal |
| UAE Retirement Visa Program | Up to AED 1,000,000one-time | Capital at risk | — | At market | Benchmark coming soon Check a proposal |
What each route costs, stage by stage
Added up from the official figures on file for each route — split into money spent for good, money locked and returned later, and money shown but never transferred. Not a modelled estimate.
Employment Visa▾
No cost data on file for this route — not evidence that it is free.
Golden Visa▾
At application
Decision — reported: 1 month.- Spent for goodOfficial fees: AED 10,400, paid to the government for the initial application.
- LockedAED 2,000,000 placed as capital — recoverable in principle, exposed in practice.
2 ways to qualify — shown: the cheapest. Alternatives: AED 2,000,000 (shown) / AED 2,000,000.
Green Visa▾
No cost data on file for this route — not evidence that it is free.
UAE Retirement Visa Program▾
At application
- Shown, never leaves youAED 180,000 shown as proof of means every year — nothing is transferred.
2 ways to qualify — shown: the cheapest. Alternatives: AED 1,000,000 + AED 1,000,000 / AED 180,000 (shown).
Government fees not on file for this route.
The order Golden Visa follows
No confirmed rule change has been flagged for United Arab Emirates since it was last checked against the official uaelegislation.gov.ae portal on 2026-08-29. Immimaps keeps watching official immigration sources and will list dated changes here as soon as one is confirmed.
Check the uaelegislation.gov.ae portal directly →Upload it and Immimaps checks it against what United Arab Emirates's official programme actually requires — the threshold, the hold period, the fees the brochure leaves out — and reads the contract clause by clause. Free, no account.
Check my documentCountry Analysis lays out policy stability, financial exposure and process risk across all of United Arab Emirates's routes side by side.
Open Country AnalysisEvery official figure on this page is checked against United Arab Emirates's official immigration sources. Service fees are what independent firms publish for a route — not an official figure, and never any one firm's price. Immimaps does not publish success rates, approval odds or any probability score — here or anywhere else.
Don’t take a life-changing move on someone else’s word.
Immimaps is not an agency and takes no placement fees. We show the real figures on every route, show the working, and tell you what it actually costs.
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