United Arab Emirates · Business & founder
Golden Residence — Entrepreneurs
5-year permit. Requires an economic or technical project of at least AED 500,000, approved by an accredited business incubator or the competent emirate authority.
This is the cheapest headline entry to a Golden Visa, but the endorsement gate is real and discretionary. Writing a AED 500k cheque does not, by itself, buy a visa. For genuine founders, this route is excellent. For capital looking for a shortcut, it is slower and less certain than the AED 2m deposit.
Qualifying routes
The project must be innovative or technical in nature, with approval from an accredited UAE business incubator, an auditor's letter, or endorsement from the emirate's economic department.
Founders who have previously established and sold a project for at least AED 7m have historically qualified. Verify current treatment with ICP before relying on this route.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- 500k AED
- Total landed cost
- AED 500k project value, plus licence, incubator and government fees. Realistically, budget AED 40–80k in setup and advisory costs on top of the project itself.
- Route type
- Business & founder
- Timeline
- 2–6 months (The binding constraint is obtaining the incubator or economic-department endorsement, not the visa itself.)
- Physical presence
- None, once granted
- Family
- SpouseChildrenParentsBusiness partners may qualify separately
- Permanent residency
- None. The permit is 5-year renewable.
- Citizenship
- None by right. Citizenship comes only through nomination.
- Language test
- Not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- project value of at least AED 500,000approval from accredited incubator or competent emirate authorityclean criminal recordmedical and health insurance
- 5 years, not 10. That makes it a materially weaker permit than the investor and talent categories.
- Approval is discretionary and depends on an accredited incubator's endorsement. There is no published objective test you can rely on in advance.
- The AED 7m sold-a-startup route is widely quoted by agents but poorly documented in ICP's own materials. Confirm it directly before structuring around it.
- Running the venture creates UAE corporate tax exposure at 9% above AED 375k. Natural-person corporate tax applies where business turnover exceeds AED 1m.