United Arab Emirates

You choose between a mainland licence, issued by the relevant emirate's economic department, and a free zone licence, issued by one of the 40-odd free zones. Both now allow 100% foreign ownership for most activities. Mainland still keeps restrictions in banking, insurance, oil and gas and a few other strategic sectors. Formation plus corporate-tax registration with the Federal Tax Authority typically takes one to three months from start to finish, though the licence itself can be issued within a few weeks. Free zone licences cost roughly AED 7,500-50,000 a year.

Yes. Most free zones will incorporate a 100%-foreign-owned company remotely through video verification, and a residence visa is optional rather than a requirement. The real bottleneck is banking. Account-opening checks increasingly call for genuine identity and background documentation, and the process can take a fortnight or longer. It is worth noting that owning a UAE company does not make you UAE tax-resident. A treaty tax-residency certificate requires 183 days of presence, so a company held from abroad offers no shelter from your home country's own residence rules.

The federal rate is 9% on taxable profit above AED 375,000 and 0% below it, under Federal Decree-Law 47/2022. It has been in force for financial years beginning on or after 1 June 2023. A natural person carrying on business is caught only where annual turnover exceeds AED 1m. Small Business Relief can deem nil taxable income where revenue is under AED 3m, by election. That relief is time-limited, though. As of 2026, confirm it still applies to your period before relying on it.

Not automatically. A free zone licence confers nothing by itself. The 0% rate applies only to the Qualifying Income of a Qualifying Free Zone Person meeting every Article 18 condition: adequate substance, qualifying activities, transfer-pricing compliance, audited accounts, and non-qualifying revenue within the de minimis limit of the lower of 5% of revenue or AED 5m. Selling to mainland UAE customers generally produces non-qualifying income taxed at 9%. Breach the conditions and you lose the status for that year and the following four.

If its taxable supplies and imports exceed AED 375,000 over any twelve months, registration is mandatory. Between AED 187,500 and AED 375,000, it is voluntary. The standard VAT rate is 5%. Missing the 30-day registration window carries a fixed AED 10,000 penalty. VAT is entirely separate from corporate tax and from any free zone 0% claim. A Qualifying Free Zone Person with no corporate-tax liability can still be obliged to register for and charge VAT.

Only if it sits inside a multinational group with consolidated revenue of at least EUR 750m in two of the last four financial years. For such groups, the UAE has levied a 15% Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax since financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2025, under Cabinet Decision 142 of 2024. In practice, a free zone entity's 0% is simply topped up to 15% by the UAE itself. Below that threshold, the ordinary 0%/9% regime is unaffected.

No, and this is the single most valuable feature of the programme. Golden Residence holders are exempt from the standard rule that a UAE residence permit lapses after six months continuously outside the country. That means you can hold the 10-year permit while spending almost no time there. This exemption is unique to the Golden Visa. The Green Visa, by contrast, still carries the six-month absence rule. But note that a residence permit with no presence gives you no tax residency. A treaty Tax Residency Certificate requires 183 days in the UAE.

Neither. The Golden Visa is a renewable 10-year permit governed by Federal Decree-Law 29/2021 and Cabinet Resolution 65/2022. There is no permanent residence status in the UAE at all, and the permit must be renewed. Emirati citizenship is governed by Federal Law No. 17 of 1972, as amended, notably by Federal Decree-Law No. 16 of 2017. Since the 2021 changes to its Executive Regulation, certain categories, including investors, doctors, scientists, inventors and creatives, may be naturalised while retaining their existing nationality. But this happens only by nomination from a Ruler's Court, Crown Prince Court, an Executive Council or the Cabinet. It cannot be applied for, and there is no cheque size that produces it. Anyone selling you UAE citizenship by investment is selling something that does not exist.

No. It was false, and the ICP said so publicly in July 2025. The regulator stated that the claims had no legal basis and involved no coordination with UAE authorities, and it threatened legal action against the promoters. The Dubai-based Rayad Group apologised and withdrew from Golden Visa advisory work. There is no lifetime UAE visa and no nationality-specific fee-based visa. If an agent quotes AED 100,000 for a lifetime visa, that quote is the fraud, not the product.

Only partly, and this is the most oversold fact in Gulf planning. Under Cabinet Decision 85 of 2022 (in force 1 March 2023), 90 days plus a residence permit and a home or job in the UAE makes you a domestic tax resident. But the Federal Tax Authority requires 183 days before it will issue the Tax Residency Certificate you need to claim double-tax-treaty benefits. The 90-day route buys you a domestic TRC, not a treaty one, and advisers routinely conflate the two. A UAE TRC also does not override the UK statutory residence test or the Australian, German or Nordic rules, which run independently.

Yes. The UAE does not require you to renounce anything to hold a Golden or Green Visa. These are residence permits, not citizenship, and the UAE recognises dual nationality. The citizenship question is largely moot anyway. There is no application-based route to an Emirati passport. Nationality is granted only by nomination, and grants remain rare and unpublished. So keeping your current passport is not in tension with any UAE status you can realistically obtain.

Test the talent routes before writing a cheque. A skilled professional earning at least AED 30,000 a month (MOHRE skill level 1 or 2, with a degree), a PhD holder from a top-500 university, or a doctor, scientist or nominated creative can obtain exactly the same 10-year permit as the AED 2m investor route. The capital cost is zero. You pay only government fees of roughly AED 10,000–15,000. Families routinely lock up AED 2m without checking whether a founder, doctor or PhD in the household already qualifies for nothing. The entrepreneur route starts lower still, at AED 500,000, but it is a weaker 5-year permit and depends on a discretionary incubator endorsement.

Mortgaged property has qualified since January 2024, when the minimum down-payment rule was removed. Off-plan and financed purchases now count on full value, subject to a no-objection letter from the UAE-licensed bank. On duration, the ICP's own summary page still describes the property route as 5 years. GDRFA-Dubai and the Dubai Land Department specify and issue 10 years, and 10 years is what is actually granted. Ignore any 2026 blog posts claiming the down-payment rule changed in February 2026 or April 2026. The change was January 2024. Treat property-portal content on visa rules as marketing, not law.

Yes, and the family terms are unusually generous. A Golden Residence holder can sponsor a spouse, children of any age (the age cap was removed in the 2025–2026 rule relaxation), parents and unlimited domestic workers. The dependants' permits are tied to the principal's. On the property route in particular, if you sell the asset or its value falls below AED 2m at renewal, your visa and your dependants' visas go with it.

There is genuinely no personal income tax on salary, dividends, interest or capital gains. Individuals holding assets privately pay 0% on capital gains, and there is no wealth or inheritance tax. But two caveats matter. First, run a licensed business and you fall within the 9% corporate tax above AED 375,000, and a natural person is caught where business turnover exceeds AED 1m a year. Second, bank secrecy is not what the marketing implies. The UAE has exchanged information under CRS since 2018 and signed the CRS 2.0 addendum on 11 August 2025, with expanded exchange including crypto-assets starting 2028.