Six routes into UAE residency, one habit that makes them painless: every stamp priced upfront, every renewal on a calendar. Pick the route below or ask us which fits — the answer costs nothing.
The UAE offers six main residence routes: employment/partner visas (2 years, company-sponsored), the golden visa (10 years, self-sponsored, from AED 2M property), the green visa (5 years, self-sponsored, income-tested), freelance permits, and family sponsorship. Every one ends in the same mechanics — entry permit, medical, Emirates ID, stamping — and differs only in eligibility, duration and who sponsors whom. We run our own entity under these same rules, so we price each stamp upfront and put every renewal on a calendar: in practice, visas are lost to missed dates, not to hard law.
Employment / partner visa through your own company — the standard 2-year route for founders and staff. Golden visa — 10 years for investors, property owners (AED 2M+), specialists and high earners. Green visa — 5 years, self-sponsored, for skilled workers and freelancers meeting income tests; quietly one of the best deals in the system. Freelance visa — permit plus residency without a full company. Family sponsorship — spouses, children and, income permitting, parents.
Two lighter routes sit alongside them: a remote-work visa (one year, for people employed abroad) and a retirement visa (five years, for the 55+). The right choice is rarely about prestige — it is about who can sponsor you, how long you plan to stay, and whether your residency needs to outlive a company or a job. That is the question we settle first.
However different the eligibility, every route ends in the same five steps: entry permit, status change (or in-country amendment), a medical fitness test, Emirates ID biometrics, and the final residence stamp. Two of those — the medical and the biometrics — can only happen with you physically in the UAE, so no residence visa is ever fully completed from abroad.
What actually differs is who sponsors whom. A company sponsors its owners and staff; the golden and green routes sponsor themselves on assets or income; a resident sponsors their family. Answer that one question and the paperwork order falls out of it — which is why we fix the sponsor before a single form is filed.
| Route | Duration | Sponsor | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employment / partner | 2 years | Your company | Founders and staff of a UAE entity |
| Golden visa | 10 years | Self | AED 2M property, investors, specialists, high earners |
| Green visa | 5 years | Self | Skilled employees, freelancers, investors meeting income tests |
| Freelance | 2 years | Self (via permit) | Solo professionals invoicing in their own name |
| Family | Follows sponsor | A resident | Spouse, children, income-permitting parents |
| Remote work | 1 year | Self | Employees of a foreign company living here |
The two headline long-stay routes each have their own page worth reading before you commit: the golden visa for asset- and salary-qualified applicants, and the green visa for skilled workers and freelancers who clear the income test without buying property.
The practical divide is not glamour but durability. An employment or partner visa is cheap (~AED 5,500 all-in on top of the licence) and fast, but it lives and dies with the company: lose or close the licence and the visa is cancelled with it. Renewal simply rides on licence renewal.
The golden and green visas are self-sponsored — they survive company closure, a job change, or a pause in trading, because they hang on your own assets or income rather than an employer. For a founder building something long-term, the honest sequence is usually the company visa now to operate, and a self-sponsored route later, once a qualifying asset or income level exists on its own merits — never bought as a visa.
A resident can sponsor a spouse and children and — income permitting — parents. The gate is a minimum salary (commonly cited at AED 4,000/month, or AED 3,000 plus accommodation) and, for parents, a higher bar plus a refundable deposit and medical insurance for each dependant.
Realistic all-in is around AED 4,200 per dependant plus the deposit. Sons are typically sponsorable until 25 and daughters until they marry, with disabled children exempt from the age cap. We put each family member on the same tracker as the sponsor, so no dependant's expiry is discovered late — see family sponsorship for the document detail, and relocation if the whole household is moving at once.
Three rules cause most of the trouble. First, the 180-day absence rule: a standard residence visa is cancelled automatically if the holder stays outside the UAE for more than six continuous months — the golden visa is the sole exemption. Second, for employees, wages must flow through the Wage Protection System (WPS), and an employer out of compliance can find visa services frozen. Third, the end-of-service gratuity accrues from the first day of employment and is settled on cancellation — budget it, don't discover it.
Days spent in the UAE also feed the tax residency tests, so the same calendar that keeps a visa alive can earn a Tax Residency Certificate. Plan the two as one thing, not two.
Fixed per-person pricing with government fees at cost, a shared tracker carrying every family member and expiry date, and honest sequencing: the company first if the company sponsors, income evidence first if the route is self-sponsored. Run the numbers in the visa calculator before committing, and lean on our PRO services for the counter work — typing, translations, attestations — that quietly eats time.
We run our own entity under exactly these rules, so the advice is first-party, not brochure. We do not sell golden-visa "guarantees" or magic quotas; eligibility is written in the law. Our value is a file that passes the first time and knowing which route you actually qualify for before you pay anyone.
We reply with numbers — a line-by-line setup estimate for your case. Not a call script, not a brochure.