UAE Golden Visa: the Regulation says 10 years, AED 2 million, and a mortgage is allowed. Four Government pages say otherwise

Legal information, not legal advice. Mohamy.ai is not a law firm and is not licensed to practise law or to provide legal consultancy in the UAE, Saudi Arabia or Egypt. This page describes the law of the United Arab Emirates in general terms as it stood on 21 August 2026. It is not advice about your situation, and reading it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Before you act, and especially if a deadline may be running, consult a lawyer licensed in the United Arab Emirates.

The Golden Residence Permit is a 10 year permit, and on the property route the test is AED 2,000,000 of value in real estate you own, with a mortgage from an approved local bank expressly permitted. That is Annex Article (1) and Annex Article (8) Second (1) of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022, the Executive Regulation of Federal Decree-Law No. (29) of 2021, in force since 3 October 2022 and published in Official Gazette No. 731.

Before you check yourself against anything else: two live UAE Government pages state figures the Regulation does not contain. ICP's Golden Residency Guide, as at its own last updated date of 20 August 2026, tells you the property route is 5 years and requires a property "without loans", and tells an entrepreneur the test is a project worth AED 500,000. The Regulation says 10 years, expressly allows the mortgage, and sets the entrepreneur test at AED 1,000,000 of annual revenue. If you read the summary and closed the tab, you may have concluded you do not qualify when the instrument in force says you do, or prepared the wrong evidence for the application you are about to file.

That is not a complaint about the Government. It is the practical consequence of where these rules live. The Golden Visa is not created by the Decree-Law at all: the word "Golden" appears zero times in the 13 page official English text of Federal Decree-Law No. (29) of 2021. The Decree-Law delegates, the Regulation delegates again to an Annex, and the Cabinet can change an annex without a legislative act. So summaries drift. Some of what drifted here drifted back to the 2018 scheme that the 2022 Annex superseded on these criteria, on our reading in section 11. Two of the figures did not: they trace to no instrument we hold, and section 1 says so rather than claiming a lineage we cannot show.

Scope, stated once. This page states the federal rules in the Annex to Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022. Where a rule is Abu Dhabi's, it says Abu Dhabi. It states no Dubai rule and no rule for Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah or Fujairah, and section 10 explains exactly why. It states no fee and no processing time, because no primary source we hold states either.

1. The disagreement, in one table

All four columns were fetched on 21 August 2026 and all four are hash pinned. The right hand three are the executive's own descriptions of the scheme; the left hand one is the instrument the executive issued.

Where the outlying figures come from, traced. AED 500,000 is Article 6(a)(1) of Cabinet Resolution No. (56) of 2018. The 5 year terms are Article 4(4) of that resolution for the real estate investor, Article 6(a) for the entrepreneur, and Article 9 for the outstanding student. We pinned that instrument too, precisely so the numbers circulating on the web can be traced rather than guessed at. On a digit boundary guarded search of the official English of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022, the strings `50,000`, `500,000`, `5,000,000`, `10,000,000` and `500 hours` each appear zero times.

And two of them trace to nothing we hold. AED 50,000 traces to neither instrument. Cabinet Resolution No. (56) of 2018 set the managing director salary at AED 30,000, the same figure as the 2022 Annex, and the strings `50,000` and "fifty thousand" appear zero times in the 2018 resolution. So this figure is not a 2018 leftover. We cannot trace it to any instrument we hold. ICP's flat 3.8 is likewise not a 2018 figure: Article 9(2) of the 2018 resolution required 3.75. Both figures are attributed on this page to the source that publishes them, and to nothing else: ICP's Golden Residency Guide, as at its own last updated date of 20 August 2026.

Read that table the useful way round. On four of these questions the Regulation is more generous than ICP's summary: the term is twice as long, the mortgage is allowed, off plan is allowed, and an A university graduate needs 3.5 rather than 3.8. On one question the Regulation is harder: the entrepreneur test is AED 1,000,000 of revenue, which is twice the AED 500,000 figure ICP publishes, or AED 7,000,000 on the exit limb, which is fourteen times it. So the summary can cost you an application you would have won, and it can also send you into an application you are not ready for.

Abu Dhabi is the tell. The Abu Dhabi Residents Office publishes 10 years for every category it covers, permits mortgages from national banks, spells out the off plan route, and states GPA 3.5 for A classified universities and 3.8 for B. An emirate level implementing authority is applying the 2022 Regulation. The federal summary pages are behind their own instrument.

2. Where the rules actually live, and why the citation must say "Annex"

Three levels, and you need all three to read a citation correctly.

1. Federal Decree-Law No. (29) of 2021 creates nothing here. Article (8)(2), verbatim: "The Executive Regulation of this Law by Decree shall determine the types of residence permits in the State and the controls and conditions for their issuance, duration, renewal and cancellation." It delegates.
2. Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 is the Executive Regulation. Its body Article (77), verbatim: "The provisions set forth in the Annex attached to this resolution shall apply to the Golden Residence Permit." It delegates again.
3. The Annex to Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 is where every threshold you are searching for actually sits, in its own Articles (1) to (24).

So a dirham figure attributed to "Federal Decree-Law 29/2021" is a fabricated citation, because the figure is not in that instrument. And a figure attributed to Cabinet Resolution 65/2022 Article (8), with no other qualifier, is ambiguous, because that resolution has two parallel numbering series. Body Article (8) is the procedure for applying for an entry visa. Annex Article (8) is the investor threshold. Every citation on this page that carries a dirham figure carries the word Annex, deliberately.

And this is why the numbers on the web are volatile. A threshold that sits in an annex to a Cabinet Resolution can be changed by the Cabinet without a legislative act. That is the honest structural reason to date a page like this one and to publish the hash of the file it was read from.

Is it current? The Cabinet's own legislation platform records Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 as `Legislation State: Active`, issued 12 July 2022, effective 3 October 2022, Official Gazette No. 731 of 15 July 2022, `Legislation Amendments: 6`, last updated 3 June 2026. We pulled all six amendment records individually. They touch body Article (80) once and body Article (3), the list of approved ports, five times, and one of those same amendments, of 27 November 2025, also inserts body Article (19) BIS, a two year multi trip business mission visa. None of them touches the Golden Residence Annex. The Arabic strings for "the Annex", "Golden" and "the Schedule" appear zero times across all five amendment records. On the evidence, the Annex has been stable since 3 October 2022 and the churn in this Regulation has been a list of airports and seaports.

One caveat we will not hide. The consolidated English PDF we pinned contains body Article (77) BIS on the Blue Residency, which did not exist in 2022, and no amendment record lists it. So the platform's amendment counter records six amendments and does not account for at least one real change present in the text it serves. That is why our monthly re-check compares the artefact itself and never the counter.

3. What the permit gives you

Straight off the Annex, with the article beside each item.

Renewal is conditional, and this is the single most over promised feature of the Golden Visa. Annex Article (5), verbatim: "Golden Residence Permits are renewed with the approval of the ICA and the Competent Authorities, as the case may be and in accordance with the same standards and conditions under which it is granted, and after paying the prescribed fees." Three conditions in one sentence: approval, the same standards and conditions as at grant, and fees. Annex Article (1) says the permit "shall be subject to renewal". The word "automatic" appears zero times in the Annex. ICP's page uses the phrase automatic renewal; that is attributable to ICP as at 20 August 2026, and it is not what the Regulation says.

And there are ongoing conditions. Annex Article (4) requires the holder to be able to support himself and his family without government support, to maintain valid health insurance for himself and his family throughout the term, and permits the ICA to "take the necessary measures to ensure that those covered by the provisions of this resolution continue to fulfil the conditions referred to in it throughout the validity term". A Golden Visa is a ten year permit with a continuing eligibility requirement attached, not a ten year immunity.

4. The investor routes, Annex Article (8), and the eligibility condition the official English drops

This is the most searched provision in the whole scheme and it has two halves that work on opposite principles.

4.1 Public investments in the UAE, Annex Article (8) First

Verbatim from the official English:

First: Investors in Public Investments within the State: 1. The Investor shall have a deposit of no less than (AED 2,000,000) two million dirhams in investment fund or in national banks operating within the State; or 2. The Investor starts up enterprise/company in the State with a capital of no less than (AED 2,000,000) two million dirhams; or 3. The Partner in existing or new enterprise/company with a financial share of no less than (AED 2,000,000) two million dirhams; or 4. The owner of enterprise/company that pays taxes imposed on it by the Federal Government at amount of no Less than (AED 250,000) two hundred and fifty thousand dirhams per annum; or 5. the tax paid per annum. 6. The invested capital shall be wholly owned by the Investor, not a loan. Evidence shall be provided to prove that; 7. A comprehensive health insurance is available for the Investor and his family members. Comprehensive health insurance shall be valid at the time of applying for the Golden Residence Permit or in accordance with the terms set by the Competent Local Authority.

Four money tests, then two requirements that apply across them. Note item 6: on this half of the article the capital must be wholly owned and not a loan, and you must prove it. That is the opposite of the real estate half, and it is why a single "no loans" rule stated for the Golden Visa generally is wrong on one half of one article.

4.2 The dropped clause. Item 5 is a fragment in the official English and a complete rule in the Arabic

Read item 5 again: "5. the tax paid per annum." That is the whole of it in the official English edition. It has no subject and no threshold. It is not a rule.

The Arabic edition, which governs, has five limbs where the English has four and a fragment. We found this mechanically rather than by reading: counting every number token of length three or more across the official English and the official Arabic, every difference was a running header or a thousands separator except one. The string `250,000` appears once in the English and twice in the Arabic.

The Arabic item 5 gives a partner in a taxpaying company a route of their own: where the partner's share of the tax the company pays the Federal Government is at least AED 250,000 per annum. That is our working translation of the Arabic, and it is ours and not official. We are not reproducing the Arabic string itself on this page, and the reason is worth stating: our own extraction of the Arabic PDF comes out in visual order with presentation form glyphs and 192 replacement characters, one about every 150 characters, sitting inside legal text, so anything we printed would be a reconstruction, and a reconstruction presented to you as the words of an article is precisely the thing we refuse to do.

What makes this safe to report anyway is that a third source implements the missing clause. The Abu Dhabi Residents Office investor page states, verbatim:

"A proof of tax payment for the minimum amount of AED 250,000 per year for 2 years prior to the application. For example, if the investor owns 25% of shares in a company which pays annual taxes amounting to AED 1,000,000, then the investor needs to provide proof of paying AED 250,000 per year to qualify for the visa."

So an emirate level implementing authority is applying, with a worked example, a clause that the federal English translation does not contain. On the platform's own words, on every English legislation page: "for the purpose of their interpretation and application, reference must be made to the original Arabic text. In case of conflict, the Arabic text will prevail". The Arabic governs. If you are a shareholder in a UAE company that pays federal tax and you read the official English, you were told you have no route. You may have one.

The arithmetic, ours, from the Abu Dhabi inputs:

company annual federal tax                 = AED 1,000,000
your shareholding                          = 25%
your share of the tax  0.25 x 1,000,000    = AED 250,000
250,000 >= 250,000                         -> threshold met, exactly

at 20% of the same company: 0.20 x 1,000,000 = AED 200,000
200,000 < 250,000                            -> fails

minimum shareholding at this tax bill: 250,000 / 1,000,000 = 25.0%

A 24% shareholder in that company does not qualify by this route, and the same 24% shareholder in a company paying AED 1,100,000 of tax does: 0.24 x 1,100,000 = AED 264,000. The test bites on your share of the tax bill, not on your shareholding percentage and not on the size of the company. And note the Abu Dhabi addition, labelled Abu Dhabi: proof for the two years before the application.

4.3 Real estate, Annex Article (8) Second. Mortgages and off plan are in the article

Verbatim from the official English:

Second: Real Estate Investors within the State: 1. The Investor shall own one or more Real Estate with a total value of not less than (AED 2,000,000) two million dirhams, and that the Real Estate is wholly owned by the Investor. It may be a loan, on condition that the loan is from one of the local banks determined by the Competent Local Authority; 2. The Real Estate Investor shall, when buying one or more Real Estate units off the map with a total value of not less than (AED 2,000,000) two million dirhams, on condition that the purchase is made from local companies approved by the Competent Local Authority; and 3. The Investor shall have a comprehensive health insurance for himself and his family members throughout the validity term of the Residence Permit or in accordance with the terms set by the Competent Local Authority.

Three things in that, and two of them are the answers people come to this topic for.

• "It may be a loan, on condition that the loan is from one of the local banks determined by the Competent Local Authority". A mortgage is not disqualifying. The condition is on who lent you the money, and the list of approved banks is set at emirate level, so ask the emirate authority for the list before you ask the bank.
• "one or more Real Estate" and "a total value". The threshold can be met by aggregating properties.
• Off plan is expressly contemplated, from local companies approved by the Competent Local Authority.

Now the arithmetic, because value and equity are not the same test. The Regulation says the total value must be at least AED 2,000,000 and that the property must be wholly owned by the investor, and then permits a loan. Abu Dhabi resolves that combination explicitly, and here is what it comes to. ADRO's investor page, verbatim:

"Must own real estate which is/are purchased with a minimum total value of AED 2,000,000 outside a mortgage. Additional notes: Mortgages through national banks are permitted for real estate properties worth more than AED 2,000,000. The value of the investor's capital needs to be at least AED 2,000,000; for instance, if a property is worth AED 5,000,000, the outstanding mortgage principal cannot exceed AED 3,000,000."

On the Annex's own words a AED 2,000,000 property with an approved local bank loan meets the total value test. Abu Dhabi's equity reading is narrower than the article. We state both and we do not merge them.

Worked, on an Abu Dhabi property, our arithmetic:

property value                                      = AED 5,000,000
equity threshold, Abu Dhabi Residents Office        = AED 2,000,000
maximum outstanding mortgage principal  5,000,000 - 2,000,000 = AED 3,000,000
your equity at that maximum             5,000,000 - 3,000,000 = AED 2,000,000
2,000,000 >= 2,000,000                              -> met, exactly

same property, mortgage of AED 3,000,001
equity  5,000,000 - 3,000,001 = AED 1,999,999        -> fails, by one dirham

So in Abu Dhabi "I bought a two million dirham flat with a mortgage" is not enough, because a mortgage on a AED 2,000,000 property leaves less than AED 2,000,000 of equity. What works is a more expensive property with enough of your own money in it, or a AED 2,000,000 property with no borrowing against it. Run the subtraction before you run the application.

Off plan, and a divergence in the arithmetic itself. The Annex conditions off plan on the total value of the units. Abu Dhabi conditions it on the payments actually made to date. ADRO's investor page, verbatim: "Evidence that no less than AED 2,000,000 in payments till date have been made to the real estate developer." Those are different tests and they give different answers:

off plan unit price AED 3,000,000, paid to date AED 1,500,000
  total value 3,000,000 >= 2,000,000   -> meets the Annex test on its words
  paid to date 1,500,000 < 2,000,000   -> fails the Abu Dhabi payments test

off plan unit price AED 3,000,000, paid to date AED 2,000,000
  paid to date 2,000,000 >= 2,000,000  -> meets the Abu Dhabi payments test

We state both, attributed. We are not merging them, and you should not assume the emirate you are applying in reads it the way Abu Dhabi does.

5. Entrepreneurs, Annex Article (10). The one place the Regulation is harder than the summary

Verbatim from the official English:

Article (10) Conditions for issuing Entrepreneur Golden Residence Permit To grant Entrepreneur Golden Residence Permit, the following conditions shall be fulfilled: 1. The owner or partner of pilot project registered in the State within the category of small and medium enterprises in a field approved by the Ministry of Economy, the ICA or the Competent Local Authorities, on condition that it achieves annual revenues of not less than one million dirhams; 2. He shall have obtained approval for the idea of his pilot project from an approved business incubator or from the Ministry of Economy, the ICA, or the Competent Local Authorities to establish the proposed activity in the State; 3. To be one of the founders of a previous pilot project(s) that has been sold/traded with a total value of no less than (AED 7,000,000) seven million dirhams, on condition that the Ministry of Economy or the ICA or the Competent Local Authorities approve it; and 4. The Entrepreneur shall have a comprehensive health insurance for himself and his family members, valid at the time of applying for the Golden Residence Permit or in accordance with the terms set by the Competent Local Authority.

The gap against the summary, arithmetically:

revenue test in the Annex, Art 10(1)                = AED 1,000,000 per year
exit test in the Annex, Art 10(3)                   = AED 7,000,000
project value ICP publishes as at 20 Aug 2026       = AED 500,000

1,000,000 / 500,000 = 2.0x
7,000,000 / 500,000 = 14.0x

So the entrepreneur bar in the instrument is two to fourteen times the figure the administering authority still publishes. This is the largest numeric gap on the topic and it runs the dangerous way: someone builds a file around a AED 500,000 valuation and meets a AED 1,000,000 revenue requirement.

And here is what we will not tell you, because we cannot verify it. Whether items 1, 2 and 3 are alternatives or cumulative is genuinely unclear on the face of the article. It opens with "the following conditions shall be fulfilled" and joins item 3 to item 4 with "and", with no "or" between 1, 2 and 3, which is a different drafting pattern from Annex Article (8) First where every limb ends in an explicit "or". Abu Dhabi's page treats them as alternatives and separates them with "Or", but Abu Dhabi is an implementing authority and not the legislator. We state the three tests. We do not tell you that satisfying one of them is sufficient as a matter of federal law, and if your file turns on that question, that is the question to put to a lawyer and to the authority you are applying to, in writing, before you spend money on the application.

6. The other five categories, with the thresholds

Annex Article (6) lists seven categories: "1. Investors; 2. Entrepreneurs; 3. Brilliant talented persons; 4. Scientists and specialists; 5. Excellent students and graduates; 6. Pioneers of humanitarian work; 7. The first line of defense". And then, verbatim:

"By a resolution of the ICA Chairman, the Golden Residence Permit may be granted to the prominent and influential personalities within the above-mentioned categories or any other categories based on the recommendation of the Competent Federal and Local Government Authorities."

So these are not a closed list. Nobody, including us, can tell you these seven are the only ways in, because the Chairman holds an express power to add categories.

6.1 Brilliant talent, Annex Articles (11) to (13). No job, no degree, no salary

Annex Article (11) covers people of culture and art, innovators and inventors, athletes, talented persons in digital technology, and exceptional talented persons in other areas, and then says this, which is the most commercially useful sentence in the entire Annex, verbatim:

"Granting Golden Residence Permit in this category shall be based on talent only and does not require employment agreement in the State, nor is there a minimum educational qualification, monthly salary or professional level required."

No employment contract. No minimum qualification. No minimum salary. No professional level. If you have been told that a UAE long term visa requires a job offer or a degree, that is not true of this category.

What it does require is the right recommending authority, and Annex Article (12) names them per sub category: the Competent Federal or Local Cultural Authorities for culture and art; the Ministry of Economy or the Competent Local Authority for patents; the General Sports Authority or the local sports councils for athletes; and, for digital technology, "the Emirates Intelligence Council artificial intelligence and digital transactions". Annex Article (12)(7) also allows up to three residence permits for a talented person's business managers. Annex Article (13) sets the culture and art tiers: Pioneer, Prominent, Distinguished Professional.

6.2 Scientists, Annex Article (16). The only bibliometric thresholds in the instrument

The academic and citation tests, from the article: a Master's or Doctorate in engineering, technology, life sciences or natural sciences from "the top 500 universities worldwide for a Doctorate) or the top 250 universities worldwide (for a Master degree)", or from a university in the "top 100 international universities in the classification of the subspecialty"; "a score of 1.0 or higher in the Field Weighted Citation Index (FWCI) and ... a score of 10 or higher in the h-index"; with a separate limb for "those who have a Scopus H index >=20". The unbalanced parenthesis after "Doctorate)" is in the official English source, not in our transcription.

If you are an academic, those are checkable numbers and you can check them this afternoon. FWCI 1.0 means your papers are cited at exactly the world average for their field and year; h-index 10 means ten papers with at least ten citations each. Note also that Annex Article (16)(6) routes the research achievements limb through the Emirates Scholars Council, while Abu Dhabi's page routes it through the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology. Ask the authority you are applying to which body signs.

6.3 The employment route, Annex Article (17). AED 30,000 a month, and it is monthly

Verbatim:

Article (17) Conditions for issuing Professional Golden Residence Permit The ICA may grant Golden Residence Permit in this category on the basis of employment (active work) in the State to those who meet the following conditions: 1. To obtain a Working Permit in the State under a valid employment agreement in the State; 2. To be a skilled worker at the first or second professional level in accordance with to the professional classification approved by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization (MOHRE). 3. The minimum educational level shall be a Bachelor Degree or its equivalent. 4. The monthly salary shall not be less than (AED 30,000) thirty thousand dirhams or its equivalent in foreign currencies. 5. To have a license to practice a profession for professions that require that: a doctor, a pharmacist, a teacher, and others. 6. That he has a comprehensive health insurance for himself and his family members at the time of applying for the Golden Residence Permit in accordance with the terms set by the Competent Local Authority.

Four things have to be true together here: a valid work permit and contract, MOHRE professional level 1 or 2, a bachelor's degree or equivalent, and AED 30,000 a month. The MOHRE level is the condition people miss: it is not about your job title, it is about where your occupation sits in MOHRE's own classification, and that is a fact you can look up rather than argue about.

The arithmetic against ICP's figure, because this one has a large population sitting in the gap:

Annex Art 17(4) monthly threshold            = AED 30,000   -> AED 360,000 per year
figure ICP publishes as at 20 Aug 2026       = AED 50,000   -> AED 600,000 per year
the band between them                        = AED 20,000 per month, AED 240,000 per year

Anyone earning between AED 30,000 and AED 49,999 a month reads ICP's page and concludes they are AED 20,000 short, when the Regulation puts them inside the threshold. Abu Dhabi publishes AED 30,000, in agreement with the Annex, and renders it once on its own page as "AED 30, 000" with a stray space. On a worked example: at AED 35,000 a month you are AED 5,000 above the Annex figure and AED 15,000 below ICP's.

6.4 Students and graduates, Annex Articles (18) to (21). And the limitation nobody states

Start here, because it changes the decision. Annex Article (18), verbatim:

"The ICA may grant a one-time, non-renewable Golden Residence Permit to top students and graduates from Emirati schools and universities and the best international universities in accordance with the conditions and controls specified in this resolution."

One time, and non renewable. This is the single category where the general renewability in Annex Article (1) is displaced by an express limitation, and no government service page we pinned states it. If you are an eighteen year old choosing between routes on the assumption that a student Golden Visa rolls into a permanent one, that assumption is not in the instrument. It is a ten year permit that does not renew, and the plan has to be what you convert into before it ends.

School leavers, Annex Article (19): a twelfth grade certificate from a public school or a private school licensed by the Ministry of Education or the Competent Local Educational Authorities; a high school average of not less than 95% on the recommendation of the Ministry of Education and the Competent Local Authorities; the applicant must also the Academic Strength Index: "meet the approved standards to achieve the required value or more for the Academic Strength Index (ASI) approved by the Ministry of Education Based on the national standard test in the main material"; and the certificate must be approved by the Ministry of Education. So 95% alone is not the test. There is a second, separate index, and the value required on it is set by the Ministry rather than by the Regulation, which means the only place to get it is the Ministry.

University graduates, Annex Article (20). This article is malformed in the official English PDF itself, not in our extraction. Verbatim, including the defect:

"3. The Applicant GPA shall not be less than: 4. 3.5 or equivalent if graduating from an A - ranked university.3.8 *or equivalent if graduating from a B -ranked university. No more than two years have passed since he is a graduate."

Item 3 is empty and ends in a colon, item 4 runs two thresholds together with no separator and splices a third condition onto the end, and there is a bare asterisk after 3.8 with no footnote text anywhere on that page. We checked the visual page and it reads the same way. We are stating the substance anyway, and only because two independent sources agree on it: the Arabic edition contains 3.5 twice and 3.8 once, in positions matching Annex Articles (20) and (21), and Abu Dhabi's page spells out "GPA must not be less than 3.5 for A classified universities or 3.8 for B classified universities".

The substance, then: a bachelor's, master's or doctorate from a university licensed by the Ministry of Education, classified A or B on the Ministry's own classification, GPA 3.5 from an A ranked university or 3.8 from a B ranked one, no more than two years since graduating, certificate attested by the Ministry of Education.

Why the flat 3.8 on the summary pages matters to a real person:

graduate of an A ranked UAE university, GPA 3.65
  against Annex Art 20 threshold for an A ranked university, 3.5   -> 3.65 >= 3.5, inside
  against the flat 3.8 ICP publishes as at 20 Aug 2026             -> 3.65 <  3.8, excluded

the excluded band is every A university GPA from 3.50 to 3.79

And the two year clock is the deadline on this page. It runs from graduation, so if you graduated with a 3.6 from an A ranked university twenty months ago, the question is not whether you qualify, it is how many weeks you have left. Annex Article (21) applies the same shape to graduates of the top 100 universities in the world: GPA not less than 3.5, no more than two years since graduating, certificate approved by the Ministry of Education.

6.5 Pioneers of humanitarian work, Annex Article (23)

The tests, from the article: membership of international or regional organisations, or of civil associations and institutions of public interest, or being a distinguished worker in them, in either case for not less than five years; recipients of appreciation awards from a local, regional or international institution specialised in humanitarian work; financial supporters of humanitarian work where the support is not less than AED 2,000,000 or its equivalent; a university degree; and any other category agreed between the Ministry of Community Development, the Competent Local Authorities and the ICA.

The 500 volunteer hours are not in the Annex. Annex Article (22)(4) does name "Distinguished volunteers" as a category. What is absent is any hours threshold. ICP publishes "completion of at least 500 volunteer hours" and the u.ae Arabic page repeats it. The string does not appear in Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 at all. Treat it as a documentary requirement the administering authority publishes, dated 20 August 2026, and not as a provision of the Regulation. Practically: prepare it, because ICP asks for it, and do not conclude from its absence in the Annex that you can skip it.

6.6 First line of defence, Annex Article (24)

The article covers "the cadres working in the first line of defense in the response to the pandemic as a cadre of nurses, paramedics, paramedics, laboratory technicians, pharmacist technicians and other cadres accredited to the National Pride Office". The duplicated "paramedics" is in the source. The article's general limb is exceptional efforts in protecting UAE society in responding to crises, and it then expressly includes the pandemic response cadres. The pandemic cadres are an express inclusion, not the outer limit of the article. So do not read yourself out of this category because you were not on a pandemic ward, and do not read yourself into it as a standing category for every healthcare worker either: what the article asks for is exceptional effort in responding to a crisis.

7. Which route is yours: a decision tree off the Annex

Work down. Stop at the first line that describes you, then read the section named.

1. Do you own UAE real estate, or are you buying? Total value AED 2,000,000 or more, aggregated across properties, mortgage from an approved local bank permitted, off plan permitted from an approved local company. Annex Art 8 Second. Section 4.3. In Abu Dhabi, check the equity subtraction, not the price.
2. Do you have AED 2,000,000 in a UAE bank or fund, or as company capital or a shareholding? Annex Art 8 First (1) to (3). The capital must be wholly owned and not a loan, and you must prove it, Annex Art 8 First (6).
3. Does your company pay federal tax of AED 250,000 or more a year, and do you own it? Annex Art 8 First (4). Are you a partner rather than the owner? Then it is your share of the tax that must reach AED 250,000, and that route exists in the Arabic and is a fragment in the official English. Section 4.2.
4. Do you run an SME in the UAE turning over AED 1,000,000 a year, or have you sold a previous venture for AED 7,000,000? Annex Art 10. Section 5. Get the alternatives or cumulative question answered in writing first.
5. Are you employed here on MOHRE level 1 or 2, with a bachelor's, at AED 30,000 a month or more? Annex Art 17. Section 6.3. This is the route most often abandoned on a wrong number.
6. Are you a recognised talent in culture, art, invention, sport or digital technology? Annex Art 11. No job, no degree, no salary and no professional level required. What you need is the recommending authority in Annex Art 12. Section 6.1.
7. Are you an academic with FWCI 1.0 and h-index 10, or a Scopus h-index of 20 or more? Annex Art 16. Section 6.2.
8. Did you finish twelfth grade at 95% or above, or graduate in the last two years with a 3.5 from an A ranked or 3.8 from a B ranked university? Annex Arts 19 to 21. Section 6.4. Note the permit here is one time and non renewable, and the two year clock is already running.
9. Five years or more with a humanitarian organisation, or AED 2,000,000 of support given? Annex Art 23. Section 6.5.
10. None of the above? Annex Art 6 gives the ICA Chairman an express power to grant the permit to prominent and influential personalities within those categories or any other categories on the recommendation of a Competent Federal or Local Government Authority. That is a real route and it is not a public checklist, which means it runs through the nominating authority and not through a form.

8. Can you stay outside the UAE? Read this before you plan anything around it

This is the question the internet answers wrongly, in our direction and against you.

The general rule. Body Article (59) of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022, verbatim: "The Residence Permit granted to the Foreigner shall be deemed void if the period of residence outside the State exceeds more than (180) one hundred and eighty consecutive days."

180 consecutive days is about 5.9 calendar months  (180 / 30.44)
the rule counts CONSECUTIVE days, not days in a rolling year

The exceptions, and exactly who is in them. Body Article (60) opens "Save the provisions of Article (59) of this resolution, the Residence Permit shall continue to be valid until the end of its term for the following categories", and then lists eleven. Item 9, verbatim: "Investors holding valid Residence Permits". We verified item 9 in the Arabic edition as well. The other ten items are the wives of foreign citizens, several classes of domestic worker, foreign patients and their companions on certified medical treatment abroad, government scholarship holders and their families, students enrolled at educational institutions abroad, diplomatic and consular representatives, and at item 11 "Any other category excluded by a resolution issued by the Chairman or whoever he authorizes".

So, stated exactly:

• An investor holding a valid residence permit is within the words of item 9. But "Investor" is not a defined term in this Regulation: Article (1) defines ten terms and Investor is not among them, and Article (60) sits in the body, which separately regulates non-Golden investor permits. So we cannot confirm that the ICA reads item 9 as covering the Golden investor category.
• Article (60) does not name Golden Residence Permit holders as a class, and the Annex contains no equivalent provision. So on the pinned instruments, the 180 consecutive day rule in Article (59) is the general rule for a Golden holder who is not within one of the eleven listed categories.
• u.ae advertises a broader benefit. It lists, as a benefit of the Golden visa, "the ability to stay outside the UAE for more than the usual period of six months needed to keep their residence visa valid". Abu Dhabi states, for one of its categories, "The ability to stay outside the UAE as long as the residence visa is valid".
• We could not locate the instrument that would make that true for the non investor categories. Article (60)(11) is exactly the provision under which it would be done: a resolution of the ICA Chairman, or of whoever he authorises, adding a category. We searched and did not find one published. That does not mean it does not exist. It means we will not tell you it does.

What that means for you, practically. If your Golden Visa is on the investor route you are within the words of item 9, but because "Investor" is undefined here, get the same written confirmation before a long absence. If it is on the talent, professional, student, scientist or humanitarian route, do not build a plan around leaving the UAE for more than 180 consecutive days without getting confirmation in writing from the ICA first, and keep the confirmation. Note also that Article (59) says "consecutive": on its words, two absences of 179 days separated by a period in the country are not the same thing as one absence of 181 days. We are not telling you to structure your travel that way, because whether the ICA reads a substance requirement into a one day return is not something any pinned source answers, and the downside is a void residence permit.

9. Abu Dhabi, and it is labelled Abu Dhabi for a reason

Annex Article (2) makes the emirate level legally load bearing rather than decorative: nomination by a Competent Local Government Authority is one of the two application routes in the Regulation itself. And Annex Article (8) Second repeatedly defers to "the Competent Local Authority" for which banks and which developers are approved. So the emirate is not administrative detail, it is part of the test.

The Abu Dhabi Residents Office publishes criteria for seven categories, and they agree with the 2022 Regulation on term, mortgage, off plan and GPA. These additional requirements are Abu Dhabi's and we are not aware of a federal basis for them in the Annex:

One hygiene note on the source, so you read it with the right amount of trust. ADRO's Students page still carries the phrase "this academic year (2020 - 2021)", so part of that page is at least five years stale, even though the criteria on it match the current Regulation. Check the year references before you rely on a date from it.

10. Dubai and the other five emirates: what we are not going to tell you

As at 21 August 2026 we could not find a single Dubai government source that publishes retrievable Golden Visa criteria. This is a finding, not an omission, and here is the evidence:

• The "Golden visa services - GDRFA" link that u.ae itself publishes returns HTTP 200 and about 188 kilobytes of a service catalogue that renders entirely in the browser. Its canonical text extract contains no criteria.
• GDRFA's own `sitemap.xml` returns 200 and contains no URL matching golden, resident or visa.
• `gdrfad.gov.ae/en/golden-visa` returns 404. `invest.dubai.ae/en/golden-visa` returns 403 over HTTP/2 and, retested over HTTP/1.1 on 21 August 2026, 403 there too. We do not treat that as evidence of absence: a 403 over HTTP/2 is exactly what hid the federal legislation platform from us. The Dubai Culture Golden Visa page redirects to the Dubai Culture homepage.

So this page states no Dubai specific criterion. The federal Annex applies in Dubai as it does everywhere in the UAE, and the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) is the authority that administers residence in the Emirate of Dubai. That is a fact about who administers, not a proposition of law, and it is as far as we will go. Anyone publishing a Dubai specific Golden Visa checklist today is either quoting Abu Dhabi's criteria with the emirate name changed, or quoting an agency's marketing. Borrowing one emirate's rules for another is the single most common defect in this whole subject area, and it is a defect we have already had to withdraw pages for.

Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah: not researched, and therefore not written. The Regulation's repeated references to "the Competent Local Authority" mean each emirate can differ on which banks and which developers are approved, so silence is the only honest position.

11. What this page does not tell you, and why

We would rather leave a hole than fill it with something plausible.

• Fees. Annex Article (5) refers to "the prescribed fees" and stops. No fee schedule for the Golden Residence Permit is pinned. We publish no fee.
• Processing times. No pinned source states one. We publish none.
• Whether a Chairman's resolution extends the 180 day exception to non investor Golden holders. Not found. Section 8.
• Whether Annex Article (10)'s three entrepreneur tests are alternatives or cumulative. Section 5.
• Any Dubai criterion, and any criterion for the five northern emirates. Section 10.
• How many Golden Visas have been issued, or any statistic. Not a proposition of law, and not pinned.
• The Blue Residency and the Green Residence. Different permits under different provisions, and we have not researched them. Do not read anything on this page across to them.
• Whether Cabinet Resolution No. (56) of 2018 has been repealed. It has not been repealed by name: Article (79) of the 2022 Regulation names MOI Resolution 360/1997 and Cabinet Resolution No. (8) of 2021, and then repeals inconsistent provisions generally, and the Cabinet's own platform still flags the 2018 resolution `Active`. Our reading, labelled as ours: on the Golden Residence criteria it is superseded, because its AED 10,000,000, AED 5,000,000 and AED 500,000 tests are directly inconsistent with the AED 2,000,000 tests in the 2022 Annex for the same categories, and Article (79)(3) repeals inconsistent provisions. The safe way to hold this in your head is that the criteria now in force are those in the Annex to Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022, and that the 2018 figures still circulating are that resolution's.

12. What to do now, in order

1. Pick your route off the decision tree in section 7, and write down the Annex article number. Everything else follows from which article you are trying to satisfy, and the article number is what makes a conversation with an authority or a lawyer short.
2. Do the subtraction before anything else, if you are on the property route. Property value minus outstanding mortgage principal. If the answer is under AED 2,000,000, the file is not ready, whatever the purchase price says. Section 4.3.
3. Get the list of approved banks, and of approved developers, from the Competent Local Authority in your emirate. Annex Article (8) Second makes both lists emirate level. A mortgage from the wrong lender fails a condition that has nothing to do with the amount.
4. Choose your application route deliberately. Annex Article (2) gives you two: direct application on the ICA platform, or a recommendation or nomination from a Competent Federal or Local Government Authority. For the talent category the nomination route is not optional in practice, because Annex Article (12) names the recommending body for each sub category.
5. If you are outside the UAE and eligible, ask about the six month entry visa. Annex Article (3)(3): a six month multiple entry visa, renewable for another six months, to complete your procedures.
6. Gather the evidence the article actually names, not the evidence a blog names. For the investor tax route: proof of the tax paid, and in Abu Dhabi for the two years before the application. For off plan: the purchase agreement from an approved developer and proof of payments made. For graduates: the Ministry of Education attestation and the university's A or B classification. For the professional route: your MOHRE professional level, in writing.
7. Watch the two year clock if you are a graduate. Annex Articles (20) and (21) both require that no more than two years have passed since graduating. That is the one hard deadline on this page.
8. If a summary page and the Annex disagree, take both to the authority. Print the Annex article and the service page, dated, and ask which applies to your file. The disagreement is documented and you are entitled to have it resolved before you spend money on an application.
9. Do not plan a long absence until you have section 8 in writing. 180 consecutive days voids a residence permit under body Article (59), and the exception list at body Article (60) names investors and not Golden holders generally.

13. When to get a licensed lawyer

• You are a partner, not an owner, in a company that pays federal tax, and you are relying on the route that exists in the Arabic edition and reads as a fragment in the official English. That is a translation defect in the governing instrument's official translation, and it is exactly the kind of point that needs a licensed lawyer to put in front of an authority.
• You are relying on one limb of Annex Article (10) and the alternatives or cumulative question in section 5 decides your file.
• You have a mortgaged property and the equity is close to AED 2,000,000. A one dirham failure is still a failure, and valuation and outstanding principal are both moving numbers.
• You need to leave the UAE for more than 180 consecutive days and you are not on the investor route.
• An application has been refused, or a permit has been cancelled or treated as void. That is a decision with a challenge route and a timetable, and neither is on this page.
• You are being sold a Golden Visa by an agency whose figures do not match section 1. Ask them which Annex article their number comes from. If they cannot answer, that is your answer.
• Anything involving a deadline. The two year graduation clock and the 180 day rule can both extinguish something that was valid last month.

The questions people actually ask

Do I need to own property without a mortgage to get a Golden Visa?

No. Annex Article (8) Second (1) of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 requires real estate with a total value of not less than AED 2,000,000 and then says in terms that "It may be a loan, on condition that the loan is from one of the local banks determined by the Competent Local Authority". ICP's Golden Residency Guide, as at its own last updated date of 20 August 2026, states the property must be held "without loans", which is not what the Regulation says. What you do have to watch is equity rather than price: Abu Dhabi applies the AED 2,000,000 to the investor's own capital, so on a AED 5,000,000 property the outstanding mortgage principal cannot exceed AED 3,000,000, and a mortgage on a AED 2,000,000 flat leaves less than AED 2,000,000 of equity and fails.

Is the UAE Golden Visa 5 years or 10 years?

The Regulation says 10 years, and no five year Golden term appears anywhere in it. Annex Article (1) of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 provides for a long term residence permit "for a period of (10) ten years", and the Abu Dhabi Residents Office publishes 10 years for every category it covers. ICP's guide as at 20 August 2026 and the u.ae portal page as at 28 July 2026 both state 5 years for real estate investors, entrepreneurs and top school students; those figures are Article 4(4), Article 6(a) and Article 9 of Cabinet Resolution No. (56) of 2018, the earlier scheme. So if you see 5 years, check which instrument it is describing.

Can I stay outside the UAE with a Golden Visa?

Only within limits, and the honest answer is narrower than the marketing. Body Article (59) of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 provides that a residence permit is void if residence outside the State exceeds 180 consecutive days. The exception list in body Article (60) names "Investors holding valid Residence Permits" at item 9, does not name Golden Residence Permit holders as a class, and the Annex has no equivalent provision. The u.ae portal advertises a longer absence as a benefit, and we could not locate the instrument that would deliver it for the non investor categories: it would have to be a resolution of the ICA Chairman under Article (60)(11). "Investor" is not a defined term in this Regulation either: Article (1) defines ten terms and Investor is not among them. So get written confirmation from the ICA before planning an absence over 180 consecutive days, whichever route you are on.

What salary do I need for a UAE Golden Visa through my job?

AED 30,000 a month, and it is stated as a monthly figure in the instrument. Annex Article (17)(4) of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 sets the minimum monthly salary at AED 30,000 or its equivalent in foreign currency, and three other conditions apply at the same time: a valid work permit and employment contract, a skilled worker classification at the first or second professional level under MOHRE's own classification, and a bachelor's degree or equivalent. ICP's guide as at 20 August 2026 states AED 50,000 for executive directors, and the string 50,000 appears zero times in the current Regulation on a digit boundary checked search. So anyone earning between AED 30,000 and AED 49,999 a month is inside the Regulation's threshold and outside the figure the summary page publishes.

What GPA do I need for a UAE Golden Visa as a graduate?

3.5 if your university is A ranked on the Ministry of Education's classification, and 3.8 if it is B ranked, in each case with no more than two years since you graduated. That is Annex Article (20) of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022, corroborated by the Abu Dhabi Residents Office which states the same split, and Annex Article (21) applies a 3.5 threshold to graduates of the top 100 universities in the world. ICP and u.ae both publish a flat 3.8, which excludes every A university graduate between 3.50 and 3.79 who is in fact inside the Regulation's threshold. Note two things before you apply: the permit for students and graduates is one time and non renewable under Annex Article (18), and the two year clock runs from graduation.

Can my parents get residence on my Golden Visa?

Yes, and parents are named in the article. Annex Article (3)(1) of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 provides that residence permits may be issued to family members of a Golden Residence Permit holder "including the spouse and children, regardless of age and parents, for a renewable period of (10) ten years". Two further points from the same article: a holder may recruit Domestic Service Workers "in accordance with his financial solvency", with no cap stated anywhere in the Regulation, and under Article (3)(4) if the holder dies the dependent family members may remain in the State for the duration of the residence granted to them, on conditions the ICA determines.

14. Before you file: get your own documents read against the Annex article that governs them

Every threshold on this page is a comparison between a number in your own paperwork and a number in a named article. The title deed and the mortgage statement decide section 4.3. The audited accounts decide section 5. The offer letter and the MOHRE classification decide section 6.3. The transcript and the attestation decide section 6.4.

Mohamy.ai document analysis reads your document and shows you, line by line, the figure it contains beside the figure the governing article requires: your property value and outstanding mortgage principal beside the AED 2,000,000 total value test in Annex Article (8) Second (1), and beside Abu Dhabi's equity test where you are applying in Abu Dhabi, your revenue beside the AED 1,000,000 in Annex Article (10)(1), your monthly salary beside the AED 30,000 in Annex Article (17)(4), your GPA and graduation date beside the 3.5 or 3.8 and the two year limit in Annex Article (20). And where the figure on a Government summary page differs from the article, it names both and dates both, which is the comparison nobody hands you at the counter.

It does not decide whether you qualify. Eligibility is the ICA's decision and, on the nomination route, the Competent Authority's. It does not complete an application, it does not tell you what to do about a gap, and it is not a substitute for a licensed lawyer if a decision has already gone against you or a deadline may be running. Bring the document, get the comparison against the article, then go to the right authority with the right evidence.

About this guide

What we are. Mohamy.ai publishes general legal information. We are not a law firm. We are not entered on the roll of lawyers and legal consultants held by the UAE Ministry of Justice under Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2022. We are not registered under the Saudi Code of Law Practice. We are not members of the Egyptian Bar Association under Law No. 17 of 1983. We are not an immigration or typing centre, we are not a registered service agent, and we file nothing on anybody's behalf. Nothing on this page is legal advice, an opinion on your case, or a prediction of any outcome. No lawyer and client relationship is created and no duty of care is owed to you.

The Arabic governs, and the English we quote is the Cabinet's own translation. Every English legislation page on the Cabinet's legislation platform carries this, verbatim: "Every effort has been made to produce an accurate and complete English version of this website/ legislation. However, for the purpose of their interpretation and application, reference must be made to the original Arabic text. In case of conflict, the Arabic text will prevail". That is not a formality on this subject. Section 4.2 of this page sets out a place where the official English drops an entire eligibility condition that the Arabic contains, which we found by counting numbers across the two editions rather than by reading either of them.

What we quote and what we do not. Every statutory quotation on this page is taken verbatim from the official English edition of Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 published by uaelegislation.gov.ae, pinned by SHA-256, extracted mechanically twice by two different tools and reconciled by an exact identity check on the multiset of every number token of three digits or more. No character of the legal text was typed from memory or produced by a language model. Peculiarities such as `A - ranked`, the stray asterisk in Annex Article (20) and the duplicated "paramedics" in Annex Article (24) are in the source and are reproduced rather than tidied. We do not quote the Arabic text of this Regulation anywhere, in either language version of this page. We hold it, pinned, and we use it for the numeric cross check that found the dropped clause and for structural confirmation. But our own extraction of that PDF comes out in visual order with presentation form glyphs and 192 replacement characters, one about every 150 characters, inside legal text, so anything we printed would be a reconstruction. We give you the article number and the link instead, so you can read the governing words at the source.

What this page does not cover. The federal Golden Residence Permit rules in the Annex to Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022. Where a rule is Abu Dhabi's, the page says Abu Dhabi. It states no Dubai criterion, because as at 21 August 2026 no Dubai government source publishes retrievable criteria that we can pin, and it states nothing for Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah or Fujairah, which we did not research. It publishes no fee and no processing time, because no primary source we hold states either. It does not cover the Blue Residency or the Green Residence, which are different permits, and it holds no case law of any kind. Nothing here is an opinion on whether you will be granted a permit: that decision belongs to the ICA and, on the nomination route, to the Competent Authority.

How current this is, and how that is maintained. Every legal statement here was checked on 21 August 2026 against the pinned Official Gazette PDFs. The Cabinet's legislation platform records Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 as `Active`, issued 12 July 2022, effective 3 October 2022, Official Gazette No. 731 of 15 July 2022, with 6 amendments and a last update of 3 June 2026, and Federal Decree-Law No. (29) of 2021 as `Active`, Official Gazette No. 712 supplement of 26 September 2021. We pulled all six amendment records individually: none touches the Golden Residence Annex. A script refetches every source cited on this page, except three, named in the manifest, which are skipped and why. It recomputes each one's hash in the mode measured for that host, and fails on any drift or any change of HTTP status. It runs in about twelve seconds and it is run monthly. It deliberately does not read the platform's amendment counter, because the counter says six and the consolidated text contains at least one change no amendment record lists. When it reports drift, the changed source is re-read by hand and this page is updated before any hash is. Last run: 21 August 2026, 18 sources verified, zero drift, zero status changes.

Sources. Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022 on the Executive Regulation of Federal Decree-Law No. (29) of 2021, official English edition, SHA-256 `6eb0e23e...c3e48ed32`, and official Arabic edition, SHA-256 `0b3c467e...402b96db0e`. Federal Decree-Law No. (29) of 2021, official English edition, SHA-256 `a8a74191...9b7a9dfacb`. All three from `uaelegislation.gov.ae`, the Cabinet General Secretariat's legislation platform. Cabinet Resolution No. (56) of 2018 is pinned as a negative control only, so that the figures circulating on the web can be traced to their real source. The government service pages cited by date are ICP's Golden Residency Guide, the u.ae portal in both languages, and eight pages of the Abu Dhabi Residents Office.

How this was produced. Drafted with the assistance of AI and checked against the primary legislation cited above before publication. If you believe anything here is wrong or out of date, write to contact@mohamy.ai and we will correct or withdraw it.

Finding a licensed lawyer. UAE: the roll of lawyers and legal consultants held by the Ministry of Justice. In Dubai, advocacy and legal consultancy firms are licensed by the Government of Dubai Legal Affairs Department. Residence and entry matters are administered by the ICP federally and, in the Emirate of Dubai, by the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs.