UAE visas and residency: the owner, the employee, the family

Residence is governed by Federal Decree-Law No. 29 of 2021, but that law delegates almost every operational number. Article 8(2) hands the types of permit and the conditions for issuing, renewing and cancelling them to the Executive Regulation. The numbers therefore live in Cabinet Resolution No. 65 of 2022 and its Annex on Golden Residence, in force since 3 October 2022 — the date that divides the current system from the one much of the material online still describes.

Two authorities operate it. ICP is the federal channel; GDRFA-Dubai runs Dubai's own. They publish different fees for the same legal permit because they are different service channels, not different permits. No fee below appears without naming which of them charges it, and a figure quoted elsewhere without an authority is unusable.

This is a guide, not immigration advice. Where the authorities disagree, or where a number is not published, it says so rather than picking one.

The architecture: how any residence file is built

Step 0 is the establishment file. Before anyone can be sponsored, the company must exist as an immigration entity. On the mainland that means a MoHRE establishment card plus a GDRFA card in Dubai, or an ICP card elsewhere. In a free zone the zone issues the establishment card and holds the immigration file itself. That is the most important structural fact in this guide: it fixes which counter every later transaction goes through, and it is why mainland and free-zone cost stacks cannot be compared line by line.

Step 1 is the entry permit. Articles 33 and 34 give the work and non-work entry visas 60 days from the date of entry to complete formalities. Step 2 is a status change, or an exit and return: someone already in the country on a visit status needs an in-country adjustment, which ICP prices at AED 500 and GDRFA-Dubai carries as a line called "fee inside the country" at AED 500. Step 3 is medical fitness, for everyone who has completed the age of 18. Step 4 is Emirates ID biometrics. Step 5 is issuance — electronic in most channels since 2022, with the Emirates ID as the operative document.

The two fee stacks, side by side

Read these as alternatives, not as a total. Which column applies is decided by where your establishment file sits.

One published GDRFA rule explains long-permit pricing: "the issuance fee increases by AED 100 annually whenever the residency is over two years." ICP reaches the same place from the other direction with its flat AED 100 per year. Both mean a ten-year permit is a prepayment, not a discount. The stated processing times are the authorities' own; the real constraint is medical and biometrics appointment availability.

The owner's own visa: three different products

There is no single "owner visa". There are three legally distinct products, and conflating them is the most common error here.

Standard investor or partner residence — two years. Article 38 grants the holder two years, renewable, with one-year permits available on request. This is the default for a shareholder who meets no Green or Golden threshold.

Green residence, investor or partner — five years. Article 38 lets the green permit holder reside without a guarantor or employer for five years. For the investor variant, Article 41 publishes no AED threshold: it requires ICP approval under an investor classification system, with the value to be set by a Chairman resolution issued in coordination with the Ministry of Economy, and assesses holders of several licences on total invested capital across all of them. GDRFA-Dubai's green partner and investor card likewise declines to publish a figure. Advisory content routinely quotes AED 2,000,000 here; that is the Golden investor threshold, borrowed. The Green investor number is not published, and this guide will not invent one. If the route matters to your plan, get the threshold from ICP in writing, for your file.

Golden residence, investor — ten years. Covered below. On validity generally, the October 2022 reform cut free-zone shareholder and employment visas from three years to two, aligning them with the mainland. Two years is now the norm; at least one major zone's own guidance still describes a three-year partner visa, and nobody has confirmed whether that is a retained exception or a stale page. Plan on two years and confirm with the zone in writing before choosing one on that basis.

Investor visa, or employment visa in your own company?

A shareholder on an investor or partner visa is sponsored by virtue of ownership: no MoHRE work permit on the mainland, no labour contract, no WPS obligation. A shareholder who instead takes an employment visa in their own company needs all three. Zones generally offer both and price them within a few hundred dirhams of each other.

The trade-off is not about money. The investor route is cheaper in obligations; the employment route produces better paper. A salary certificate states a monthly number and a share certificate does not, and banks, landlords and schools read the first far more easily. If a mortgage, a high-limit facility or a school application is on the roadmap inside twenty-four months, the employment visa is usually worth the payroll obligation it drags in.

Hiring on the mainland

Mainland hiring runs through two ministries and two separate approvals: MoHRE issues the work permit against the employment contract, GDRFA or ICP issues the entry permit and residence. A company can hold valid quota and still fail at the immigration step, and the reverse. Quota is granted by MoHRE against activity, premises and category, and is negotiated rather than published as a formula — treat any mainland quota figure you are quoted as an estimate until MoHRE has approved yours.

Emiratisation is the binding constraint

This is where existing guidance is most likely to be stale, and it bites exactly when a founder scales past twenty staff. Private-sector establishments must raise their Emiratisation rate in skilled roles by 2 percent a year, to a cumulative 10 percent by the end of 2026.

• 50 or more employees — Ministerial Resolution No. 279 of 2022. The non-compliance contribution began at AED 6,000 per month for each citizen not employed and has escalated annually. From 1 July 2026 it is AED 10,000 per month, AED 120,000 a year, for each unfilled post. At least one advisory guide in circulation says AED 9,000 for 2026; that is the 2025 figure.
• 20 to 49 employees — Ministerial Resolution No. 455 of 2023. One Emirati by 31 December 2024, a second by 31 December 2025. The contribution is AED 96,000 a year from January 2025 for a missed first hire and AED 108,000 a year from January 2026 for a missed second.
• Compliance is half-yearly. MoHRE set 30 June 2026 for first-half targets and 31 December 2026 for the second half, which takes the cumulative rate to 10 percent. A company crossing the twenty-employee line mid-year inherits the deadline it lands in, not a grace period.

Both resolutions are directed at MoHRE-registered establishments, so a company registered only in a free zone sits outside that net. State it that way — as a function of where you are registered, not a permanent exemption — because a mainland branch or conversion brings the whole obligation with it from the date of registration.

On payroll, UAE labour legislation requires private-sector wages to be paid monthly through the Wages Protection System. The enforcement mechanism is what matters commercially: non-compliance is met by suspending the establishment's ability to issue new work permits, turning a payroll failure into a hiring freeze. The deadlines and penalty schedule are not stated on MoHRE's public guidance, so this guide publishes no number.

One status point founders meet at their first exit: the residence is an attribute of the employment file. When a contract ends the work permit is cancelled and the residence follows it. The person falls into the grace period below, not into a neutral state — and neither does their family, whose permits are derivative.

Hiring in a free zone

The zone authority holds the establishment card and the immigration file and is the sponsor of record. There is no MoHRE work permit for zone employees in most zones — ADGM and DIFC run their own regimes — and the employment contract is on the zone's template, registered with the zone.

Quota is a property of the facility

This is where a cheap package stops being cheap. Visa entitlement attaches to the premises, not the licence, and the published ratios differ materially.

Dependants do not consume company quota; employees and shareholders do. The trap is simpler: a founder, a co-founder and one hire fill a three-visa flexi desk on day one.

The Golden Visa

Golden residence is governed by the Annex to Cabinet Resolution No. 65 of 2022, whose Article 1 sets it at ten years, renewable. An applicant outside the country gets a six-month multiple-entry entry visa, renewable for a further six months, to complete formalities. The feature that makes it structurally different is the family right: Annex Article 3(1) grants permits to the holder's spouse, children regardless of age, and parents, all for a renewable ten years. It is the only route on which parents get ten years and children age out of nothing.

The real-estate validity is not settled, and you should know that before you buy. GDRFA-Dubai's golden residence service card publishes ten years at a property value of AED 2,000,000, and that is the operative Dubai standard. But u.ae still publishes five years for real-estate investors today, and ICP's own golden residence page gives only "a period of five to ten years" without breaking it down by category. No federal source resolves the three. If the ten-year term is the reason for the purchase, get it confirmed for your file before completion.

On price, GDRFA-Dubai charges a golden residence permit fee of AED 1,100 plus Knowledge and Innovation Dirhams of AED 10 each, the AED 500 inside-country fee and AED 20 delivery, with processing stated at five days. That permit fee is 5.5 times the AED 200 standard permit at the same counter; at ICP the same product is priced on the flat AED 100 per year basis. If the route is worth pursuing, the Golden Visa service handles the nomination and evidence file.

The other long-term routes

Green residence runs five years with no sponsor, through three gates. The skilled employee route (Articles 42 and 43) requires classification at the first, second or third level of MoHRE's professions classification, a bachelor's degree, a valid employment contract and a monthly salary of not less than AED 15,000. The self-employed route (Articles 44 and 45) requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent, annual self-employment income of not less than AED 360,000 over the previous two years, and a freelance work permit from MoHRE. The investor route is Article 41, with no published threshold. Green holders can sponsor first-degree relatives, which is broader than the employment route allows.

Draw one distinction sharply, because it costs people a rejected application: a free-zone freelance permit is a licence to trade, not a federal work permit. On its own it does not satisfy Article 45, which asks for the MoHRE instrument.

Remote work is two products, not one. The Abu Dhabi programme, through ADDED, requires monthly income of not less than USD 3,500 from an entity outside the UAE and runs one year. The Dubai Virtual Working Programme requires USD 5,000 a month, costs USD 287 per person, and also runs one year.

Retirement residence runs five years, renewable. The age and financial criteria in circulation are not primary-sourced, and Dubai runs its own programme through GDRFA, so this guide publishes the validity and nothing else.

Sponsoring your family

Cabinet Resolution 65/2022, Article 54 is the operative text, and it did three things in 2022 that much published guidance has not caught up with.

• Either spouse may sponsor. The Article refers to the resident foreigner "(male or female)" and expressly contemplates bringing in "the husband". A wife meeting the income condition sponsors her husband and children directly.
• Sons are covered to their 25th birthday, not 18 and not 21. The older rule survives only on u.ae's archived page and is still widely copied.
• Unmarried daughters have no age limit, and neither do children with special needs.

Article 55 sets the conditions: a valid residence permit, financial solvency, adequate housing and proof of kinship. The detail is set by ICP Chairman resolution rather than in the Regulation, which is why the income figure comes from the portal — AED 4,000 a month, or AED 3,000 plus accommodation. Emirate-level figures are higher in places; treat them as indicative and confirm at the counter that will process your file. Housing is evidenced by a tenancy contract in the sponsor's name, Ejari in Dubai. Medical fitness applies to every sponsored person over 18; under-18s are exempt but still enrol for Emirates ID.

Parents are the hardest category. The permit runs one year and is renewed annually, the income threshold is higher — AED 20,000 a month in Dubai — and a refundable financial guarantee is required, published by ICP at AED 3,000, capped at AED 15,000 per member, with a humanitarian-case guarantee of AED 5,000 inside the same ceiling. A Golden residence holder escapes all of it: parents get ten years under Annex Article 3(1). For a founder whose parents will spend real time in the country, that difference is often worth more than the ten-year term itself.

Renewal, absence and the rules that void a residence

Validity by product: standard residence two years, Green five, Golden and Blue ten, retirement five, remote work one.

The 180-day rule. Article 59 voids a residence permit where residence outside the State exceeds 180 consecutive days. The word consecutive is load-bearing and is routinely dropped in summaries: the clock resets on entry, so a resident who lands once every five months accrues no breach. Article 60 exempts several categories, and Golden holders sit outside the ordinary rule altogether — for a founder who travels most of the year, one of the decisive advantages of the route. Past 180 days, a re-entry permit must be obtained before travelling back, and it is discretionary.

The grace period after expiry or cancellation has no federal figure, and flattening it into one number is how people get fined.

• GDRFA-Dubai publishes 60 days, identically on its private-sector, family-member and green partner or investor service cards. That is Dubai administrative practice, and the number to plan a Dubai file around.
• u.ae states six months for dependants. It is not reconciled with the GDRFA figure anywhere.
• Article 64's six months is a cap on fine accrual, not permission to remain. Fines run from the day after expiry but may not exceed six months' worth in total. Read as a six-month right to stay, it is expensive.

None of those is the federal rule, because no federal rule is published. Plan on the shortest figure that applies to your emirate.

Overstay costs AED 50 per day, as published on ICP's residency service card. Article 64 sets a legal maximum of AED 100 per day. Both are correct — the statute caps, the authority charges half the cap — and guides quoting AED 100 as the price are quoting the ceiling. Non-payment is separately criminal under Article 29 of Federal Decree-Law 29/2021. Cancellation also cascades: dependants' permits are derivative and fall with the sponsor's, so a founder changing structure or closing an entity must sequence the household's file, not only their own.

Emirates ID, medical and health insurance

The Emirates ID is mandatory for every resident of any age, including infants, and its validity matches the residence permit — which is why ICP prices it at AED 100 per year of residence plus a AED 100 smart service fee. A two-year residence produces a two-year card, a ten-year Golden residence a ten-year card. Urgent issuance costs AED 150 extra, at ICP's own centres only. Typing-centre charges are not government fees and sit on top.

Health insurance has no single federal law. What exists is a federal scheme filling the gap left by Dubai's and Abu Dhabi's own regimes: the Basic Health Insurance Scheme, running from 1 January 2025 at AED 320 per year, employer-paid, covering private-sector employees and domestic workers in Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain. The policy runs two years. For anyone hiring in the northern emirates it is a cost line that did not exist before 2025.

In Dubai the instrument is Dubai Law No. 11 of 2013, Article 10, and it is frequently misstated, so take it in its own terms. An employer must enrol its employees in health insurance under its own applicable policy. An employer must bear the cost and not charge it to the beneficiaries — deducting premiums from salary is unlawful in Dubai. And an employer must produce a health insurance policy when issuing or renewing the residence permits of its employees, which makes insurance a gate on the visa rather than a parallel obligation. Penalties under Article 23 run from AED 500 to AED 150,000, doubled on a repeat violation within a year.

That duty runs to employees. Sponsoring a dependant in Dubai requires the sponsor to hold a compliant policy for that dependant — a household cost, not an employer one. Abu Dhabi operates its own long-standing mandatory scheme through the Department of Health; confirm the detail with the Department rather than taking it from here.

The sequencing trap

Everything above resolves into one closing argument. The dependency is serial:

licence → establishment card → entry permit → medical → Emirates ID → bank account → tenancy → family visas

A bank account cannot realistically be activated until the signatory holds an Emirates ID; banks accept applications earlier but will not open the account. The Emirates ID cannot issue until the residence is complete, which needs the medical and biometrics, which need the establishment card and quota, which need the licence. And the tenancy contract required for family sponsorship usually requires an Emirates ID of its own.

It cannot be parallelised past the Emirates ID. Founders who budget "a few weeks for banking after incorporation" are budgeting from the wrong milestone: the clock that matters starts at the Emirates ID, not at the licence.

Two levers compress it — expedited processing at each stage (RAKEZ quotes three working days on its VIP track against six on standard; ICP's urgent Emirates ID is AED 150), and choosing an outside-country entry permit, which skips the AED 500 status change and, more usefully, its queue.

Which route is yours

The sequence, as a checklist

• Start now: attestation of marriage and birth certificates in the home country. Nothing else waits on it, and everything family-related waits on it.
• Licence, then the establishment card — the zone's, or MoHRE's plus GDRFA's or ICP's.
• Decide inside or outside country before the entry permit is applied for. It is a roughly AED 900 per head decision, available once.
• Entry permit, then medical fitness for everyone over 18, then Emirates ID biometrics.
• Residence issued, Emirates ID follows. Everything downstream starts here.
• Bank account, then tenancy contract, then the family applications you began in step one.