United Arab Emirates · Talent & extraordinary ability
Golden Residence — Specialised Talents and Rare Specialisations
10-year permit. Expanded through 2025–2026 to add nurses with long UAE tenure, educators, e-sports professionals, gaming developers, content creators and podcasters (via Dubai Creators HQ), and maritime sector leaders.
For a qualifying individual, this route delivers the same 10-year permit as the AED 2m investor route, at zero capital cost. Families routinely lock up AED 2m without first checking whether a founder, doctor or PhD in the household already qualifies for free. Always test the talent routes first.
Qualifying routes
Minimum monthly salary AED 30,000. MOHRE occupational skill level 1 or 2. Bachelor's degree. Valid practising licence where required.
Reported minimum monthly salary AED 50,000, plus an attested degree and 5+ years of experience. Verify with ICP.
PhD from a top-500 world university, or a master's in engineering, technology, life or natural sciences from a top-250 university.
Qualify by recognition and recommendation, for example from the UAE Council of Scientists, the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Culture, rather than by salary or capital.
The facts
- Minimum
- 30k AED
- Total landed cost
- Government fees only, roughly AED 10–15k for the principal plus about AED 6k per dependant. No investment required.
- Route type
- By qualification
- Timeline
- 1–4 months (Faster where a nominating authority endorsement already exists. Slower for recognition-based categories.)
- Physical presence
- None once granted
- Family
- SpouseChildren of any ageParentsDomestic workers
- Permanent residency
- None. It is a renewable 10-year permit.
- Citizenship
- None by right. Citizenship comes only through nomination.
- Language test
- Not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- MOHRE skill level 1 or 2 classification for salary routesattested degree certificatessalary certificate and employment contractrecommendation or nomination letter for recognition categoriesclean criminal recordmedical and health insurance
- The salary routes are tied to an actual UAE employment contract. Lose the job, and the qualifying basis for renewal goes with it, though the existing 10-year permit still runs on.
- Recognition-based categories are discretionary and opaque. There is no appeal against a refusal.
- The AED 50,000 executive-director threshold is reported consistently by advisers, but it is not clearly published in ICP's own primary materials. Verify it before relying on it.
- University ranking tests are assessed against criteria approved by the UAE Ministry of Education, which may not match the ranking table you are looking at.