Consider an investor assembling AED 2,000,000 across two Dubai holdings, both in her own name: a strata office unit bought for AED 1,400,000 with a AED 600,000 mortgage outstanding, and a small retail unit bought outright for AED 900,000.
Paid equity is AED 800,000 on the office plus AED 900,000 on the retail unit, or AED 1,700,000 in total. On the Dubai reading set out above — where the outstanding balance does not count toward the threshold — that falls AED 300,000 short of the golden route, even though the gross value of the two assets is AED 2,300,000. Her realistic options are to pay down AED 300,000 of the mortgage before applying, or to apply for the 2-year Taskeen investor visa now, which carries no minimum value for a sole owner, and move to the golden route later.
Two further checks apply to her specifically, and both are the unresolved questions set out earlier rather than settled rules. Both assets are commercial, which no authority page itemises either way. And if she had held either unit through a company for corporate tax reasons, the under-the-applicant's-name wording would need resolving before she applied. Note what that means in practice: the arithmetic above tells her she is AED 300,000 short, but even at AED 2,000,000 of paid equity she would still have two open eligibility questions to close. Before committing, model the full acquisition outlay with the Dubai buying costs calculator — transfer and registration costs sit outside the qualifying value but very much inside your capital requirement.
Four of these are open questions that no authority page settles. They are the ones to put in an email to Dubai Land Department or GDRFA and keep the reply.
- Confirm the route before the asset. Golden, retiree and Taskeen have different thresholds, documents and durations. Establish which one you are actually eligible for.
- Confirm paid equity, not headline price. For the golden route, get the mortgage balance in writing and check the paid amount clears AED 2,000,000.
- Confirm the duration in writing. ICP's service card and both Dubai authorities say 10 years; the UAE Government portal's summary table says 5 for real estate. Nothing published reconciles them, so get your own answer on the record.
- Confirm the asset class in writing if your holding is commercial only. GDRFA's "all types of properties" wording is encouraging but is not an itemised confirmation, and its other property route imposes a habitability condition.
- Confirm the title position. An electronic title deed is required; an Oqood registration is not the same document, and no authority page cited here says whether an Oqood-registered unit can be certified for the golden route.
- Confirm the ownership name. Personal-name title is what the service pages describe; corporate, SPV and trust holdings are simply not addressed, so check before the title is issued rather than after.
- Accept the lien. If you may want to sell within the permit term, the continuity-of-ownership condition is a material constraint, not a formality.
- Budget the fees separately from the purchase price and from transfer costs.
If the reply you get from an authority differs from anything on this page, the authority is right and this page is out of date. Tell us and we will correct it.
For general purchase mechanics, our article on how to buy property in Dubai as a foreign investor covers the transaction path, and how to get 10-year residency with Dubai Golden Visa property investment covers the residency angle in more depth.
We work alongside licensed immigration advisers to establish which property-linked route realistically fits an investor's holding, and to check the paid-equity position against the AED 2,000,000 threshold before an offer is made rather than after. Where a mandate is commercial-only or held through a corporate structure, we will tell you plainly that the eligibility question needs confirming with Dubai Land Department or GDRFA first. If residency is part of your reason for buying, talk to us early — it changes which assets are worth shortlisting.
This guide is for general information only and is not immigration advice. Figures and conditions are quoted from ICP, GDRFA and Dubai Land Department service pages retrieved in August 2026, and UAE visa policy in this area has changed more than once recently. Confirm current eligibility, thresholds, durations and loan-financing rules directly with ICP, GDRFA or Dubai Land Department, or a licensed immigration adviser, before making a property purchase decision based on visa eligibility.
In closing
Key Takeaways
- Three separate Dubai routes tie residency to property, and they are not tiers of one scheme. A 10-year Golden Visa from AED 2,000,000, a 5-year retiree permit from AED 1,000,000 for applicants over 55, and a 2-year investor visa with no minimum value for sole owners. Conflating them is the most common research error.
- The Golden Visa threshold is AED 2,000,000, certified by Dubai Land Department. GDRFA Dubai requires ownership of one or more properties with a total value of no less than AED 2,000,000, evidenced by a property status statement certificate issued by Dubai Land Department.
- Mortgaged property is expressly acceptable on the Dubai route. GDRFA states that mortgaged property is acceptable; Dubai Land Department requires a bank no-objection letter setting out the amount paid and the balance, and evidence that AED 2 million of the value has been paid.
- The qualifying property is locked in. GDRFA requires a lien to be placed on the property to secure continuity of ownership, and states the property may not be disposed of throughout the 10-year residency period.
- Published costs and timelines differ by authority. Dubai Land Department publishes AED 9,884.75 in total for the 10-year investor permit and 7 to 10 business days; GDRFA publishes an expected completion time of 5 days; ICP's federal entry permit card shows three separate AED 100 fees and 2 days.
- The 2-year investor visa no longer carries a minimum property value for sole owners — but a co-owner's share must be worth at least AED 400,000.
- One official duration figure still does not reconcile, and no ICP publication settles it. ICP's own service card for real estate investor residency says the permit is issued for a period of 10 years, and Dubai Land Department and GDRFA both describe a 10-year permit. The eligible-categories table on the UAE Government portal — attributed to ICP, page updated 28 July 2026 — instead lists 5 years for real estate investments. Get the duration confirmed in writing before you rely on it.
- Three open questions are not settled by any authority page, and they are set out in the open below rather than glossed: whether a purely commercial asset qualifies, whether a company-held property qualifies, and whether an off-plan unit can be certified for the golden route before handover. If any of those describes your purchase, treat this page as a list of questions to put to Dubai Land Department, not as an answer.
This page is general information only, based on official sources retrieved in August 2026. It is not immigration advice. Confirm current terms directly with ICP, GDRFA or Dubai Land Department before making a property purchase decision based on visa eligibility.
Frequently asked questions
0701Which Dubai property routes actually lead to residency?
Three, and each is administered as its own service with its own threshold, duration and document list. The table below reflects what each authority publishes on its own service page. One caveat on the first row before you read it: the 10-year figure is what Dubai Land Department, GDRFA and ICP's service card all publish, but a federal summary table lists 5 years for real estate investors and nothing published reconciles the two. That conflict is set out in full further down.
| Route | Minimum property value | Duration | Key conditions | Authority service |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Golden Visa — real estate investor | AED 2,000,000 (one or more properties) | 10 years, renewable | Value certified by DLD property status statement; mortgage permitted with bank NOC; lien placed on property | DLD Golden Visa application - Investor; GDRFA golden residence permit (investors) |
| Golden Visa — retiree | AED 1,000,000 (one or more properties) | 5 years, renewable | Applicant over 55; value paid in full, or bank letter evidencing AED 1 million paid; spouse may share one property | DLD Golden Visa Application - Retiree |
| Investor residence (Taskeen) | None for sole owners; AED 400,000 share for co-owners | 2 years | Electronic title deed; Dubai good conduct certificate; applicant attends in person | DLD Investor Residence Application (Taskeen) |
The draft this page replaces described the middle route as a 5-year property-investor visa with age-linked variants. That framing was wrong. It is the retiree route, and the age condition is not a variant but the core criterion: Dubai Land Department's service terms state the applicant must be over 55 years old and that the investment value in the property is AED 1 million under the applicant's name.
One misconception is worth naming directly, because it is common and it is expensive: there is no 5-year visa for property purchases below AED 2 million. The 5-year property-linked route is the retiree Golden Visa, and it is gated on age — over 55 — and on AED 1,000,000 owned outright, not on being a lower tier of the investor route. Below AED 2 million the route is the 2-year Taskeen investor residence visa, which is an ordinary residence visa rather than a Golden Visa. The only official source that attaches five years to a general property purchase is the UAE Government portal's summary table, and that table calls it a Golden Visa at the same AED 2 million threshold.
The table is also not quite the whole menu. GDRFA runs a fourth property-linked service — issuance of a residence permit for the owner of a property — which states no minimum property value but requires the property to be fully owned, entirely constructed and habitable, and imposes a condition that appears on no Dubai Land Department page: a monthly income of no less than AED 10,000. Its service page does not state the permit's duration. If you hold property below the Golden Visa threshold and are comparing routes, ask about this service alongside Taskeen, and expect the income test.
If you are working out which route your holding falls into, start with the legal, tax and ownership hub guide for how the ownership, tax and residency questions interact, and check who can own commercial property in Dubai and where first — freehold eligibility in the relevant area is upstream of any visa question.
02What does the 10-year Golden Visa require for a property investor?
Ownership of Dubai property worth at least AED 2,000,000, certified by Dubai Land Department, plus valid UAE health insurance and a passport with at least six months' validity.
ICP's service card for Entry Permit Issuance for Real Estate Investor Residency describes the service as issuing a visa for real estate investors to complete the procedures for obtaining the Golden Residency for a period of 10 years. Its stated conditions are a valid health insurance policy within the UAE, a passport valid for no less than six months, and that the property be fully owned by the investor. Its required documents are a passport, a personal photo, and a letter from the Real Estate Registration Department confirming ownership of property worth at least AED 2,000,000.
GDRFA Dubai's golden residence service adds the operational detail. The applicant must own a property or group of properties with a total value of no less than AED 2 million; the value must be certified by a property status statement certificate issued by Dubai Land Department; a valuation certificate from a DLD-licensed office may be accepted; and where the holding is a share in a joint property, that share must itself be worth no less than AED 2 million. Note the asymmetry — you may aggregate several wholly owned properties to reach AED 2 million, but you cannot rely on a part-share worth less than AED 2 million of a larger asset.
Does a purely commercial asset qualify?
Nobody publishes a straight answer, so here is exactly what is and is not on the record.
The strongest wording available is GDRFA's. Its golden residence service describes the real estate category as owning a property or group of properties within the UAE, adding in parentheses that mortgaged property is acceptable and that the category includes all types of properties. Dubai Land Department's investor service imposes a value test and an ownership test and no property-type test at all. Read on their face, those pages do not exclude an office, a retail unit or a warehouse.
This guide does not treat that as settling it, for two reasons. First, "all types of properties" is a parenthetical, not a definition, and no page cited here itemises commercial against residential. Second, GDRFA runs a second service — issuing a visa to a foreigner who owns property — whose conditions require the property to be entirely constructed and habitable, exclude the yard from a landowner's holding, and which carries its own golden-residency sentence: if at least AED 2 million of the property's value is paid, the owner is entitled to obtain golden residency. So a habitability condition does exist on one of the two GDRFA routes to the same permit, and habitability is not an obvious fit for a warehouse or a shell-and-core floorplate.
What to do about it: if your qualifying asset is commercial only, ask Dubai Land Department or GDRFA to confirm eligibility in writing against the specific title before you commit, and ask which of the two GDRFA services your application will actually run through. An agent's reassurance is not the answer here, including ours.
Does property held through a company qualify?
No authority page cited here says yes, and none says no. That is the honest position, and it bites commercial buyers harder than anyone else.
What the pages do say all points the same way. ICP's service card conditions the permit on the property being fully owned by the investor. Dubai Land Department's investor service requires the AED 2 million to be wholly owned by the investor and held under the name of the applicant. GDRFA's golden residence page, re-read on 16 August 2026, addresses individual ownership and joint ownership and says nothing whatever about companies, SPVs or trusts. Every published condition is framed around a natural person's name, and silence about corporate structures is silence, not permission.
Commercial buyers frequently hold through a company for sound tax and liability reasons — see UAE corporate tax and VAT on commercial property — so this is a genuine trade-off, not a technicality. Settle it with Dubai Land Department or GDRFA in writing before the title is issued rather than after. Moving a property from a company name into a personal name later is a transfer, and it carries transfer costs and a fresh tax question with it.
03How long is the permit actually valid for?
Every Dubai-facing service says 10 years. One federal summary table says 5, and no official source reconciles the two.
On the 10-year side: Dubai Land Department describes its investor service as leading to a 10-year renewable residence permit. GDRFA's golden residence service states in terms that the residence permit is valid for 10 years and can be extended if the same conditions are met, and its conditions refer repeatedly to that 10-year period — the property may not be disposed of during it, and the Authority reserves the right to check that conditions are still met throughout it. ICP's own service card for Entry Permit Issuance for Real Estate Investor Residency states that the visa is issued for a period of 10 years.
Against that, the eligible-categories table on the UAE Government portal, last updated 28 July 2026 and attributed to ICP, splits the investor category into 10 years for public investments and 5 years for real estate investments. We went to ICP for a tie-breaker and the position is no cleaner there: ICP's live service card says 10 years, while a separate ICP article dated 13 June 2020 and shown as last updated in September 2023 states that the Cabinet reduced the residency of investors in property to five years. Both are on icp.gov.ae today. Neither page acknowledges the other.
Two further ICP pages were checked for a tie-breaker and neither assigns a duration to the real-estate category: "What is Golden Residency?" (22 November 2021, last updated 5 September 2023) describes a long-term residency of five to ten years, and "Golden Residency As a Part of the Authority's Proactive Services" (25 January 2023, last updated 5 September 2023) says 5 or 10 years. Both leave the categories unassigned. Note also that every ICP page carrying the five-year figure was last updated in September 2023 or earlier, and that the five-year figure matches the pre-October-2022 scheme, under which a property investment of AED 5 million carried a five-year visa. That is a plausible explanation for the discrepancy — legacy text that was never revised — but it is an inference, not a published correction, and the UAE Government portal reprinted the figure on a page dated 28 July 2026.
This guide does not guess which governs, and you should distrust any source that does so without showing you a citation. The practical reading is that the permit issued against a Dubai property comes from GDRFA, usually through Dubai Land Department's channel, and both of those describe ten years — but that is a reading, not a published reconciliation. Ask for the duration in writing at application, and be especially careful before you let a ten-year assumption drive something that a five-year permit would not support: a holding period, a school enrolment, a financing term.
04Does a mortgaged property still qualify?
Yes on the Dubai route, provided you can evidence that AED 2 million of the value has actually been paid.
This was the most contested point in the previous version of this page, and the authority pages now settle it. GDRFA's golden residence service describes the real estate category as owning a property or group of properties within the UAE, and states in terms that mortgaged property is acceptable. Dubai Land Department's investor service goes further on process: the property may be mortgaged, and a no-objection bank letter must be submitted indicating that the bank does not object to a residence permit being issued on the property, indicating the paid amount and the balance. Its service description requires, in the event of a mortgaged property, a bank letter indicating AED 2 million paid amount as proof.
GDRFA's separate property-owner visa page states the same principle from the other direction: if at least AED 2 million of the value of the property is paid, the owner is entitled to obtain golden residency.
The practical reading is consistent across all three. A mortgage does not disqualify the asset, but the outstanding balance does not count toward the threshold — the AED 2 million must be equity you have actually paid. One nuance worth noting for completeness: ICP's federal service card still carries the condition that the property must be fully owned by the investor, which reads more restrictively than the Dubai pages. For a Dubai property processed through DLD or GDRFA, the Dubai service terms are the operative ones, but do not be surprised to see the stricter federal wording quoted back at you.
If mortgage finance is part of your plan, read banking and commercial property finance in Dubai for non-residents alongside this page, and model the equity position with the mortgage repayment calculator before you assume a leveraged purchase clears the threshold.
05Does off-plan or under-construction property count?
At federal level, yes — on the record since April 2022. In Dubai practice, probably not before handover, on the evidence of the document requirements.
GDRFA's property-owner visa conditions state that the property must be entirely constructed and must be habitable, and that landowners must not include the yard. Both Dubai Land Department property-visa services list an electronic certificate of title or title deed among the required documents. A pre-handover off-plan unit registered on Oqood does not yet have a title deed, so it cannot produce the document the service asks for.
The federal position is now on the record. Announcing the Cabinet's approval of the Executive Regulations on 18 April 2022, the UAE Government Media Office stated that investors "can also obtain Golden Residence when buying one or more off-plan properties of no less than AED2 million from approved local real estate companies", and that investors "are also entitled to obtain the Golden Residence when purchasing a property with a loan from specific local banks". The primary text of Cabinet Resolution No. 65 of 2022 remains unavailable — the UAE Legislation portal returned HTTP 403 when checked on 28 August 2026 — but the off-plan provision no longer rests on a chain of secondary sources.
That does not make an off-plan purchase a straightforward route in Dubai today. Dubai's own service pages have not been written around it: both Dubai Land Department property-visa services require an electronic certificate of title, neither mentions Oqood, and GDRFA's property-owner conditions require the property to be entirely constructed and habitable. So the federal rule permits off-plan while the Dubai document list still asks for a document a pre-handover unit does not have. Whether Dubai Land Department will issue a property status statement certificate against an Oqood-registered unit is still not addressed on any published service page — ask before you rely on it. Until you have that in writing, treat an off-plan purchase as a route to residency after handover and title registration, not at signing — and price the gap between the two, because on a long build programme it can run to years. For how the registration layers differ, see RERA, Ejari and Oqood explained, and for the purchase mechanics themselves our article on how to buy off-plan property in Dubai.
06What does it cost and how long does it take?
Costs and timelines differ by authority because each publishes fees for its own part of the process. The figures below are quoted from each authority's own service page.
| Service | Published fees | Published time |
|---|---|---|
| DLD — Golden Visa, investor (10 years) | AED 700 medical, AED 1,153 Emirates ID, AED 2,856.75 residency confirmation, AED 4,020 DLD fees, AED 1,155 administrative — total AED 9,884.75 | 7 to 10 business days |
| DLD — family or parents permit (10 years) | AED 5,774.50 each, plus AED 318.75 sponsorship file opening, plus AED 100 per sponsored person | 7 to 10 business days |
| DLD — Investor Residence, Taskeen (2 years) | AED 10,212.50 | 7 to 10 business days |
| DLD — Golden Visa, retiree (5 years) | AED 700 medical, AED 653 Emirates ID, AED 2,456.75 residency confirmation, AED 2,020 DLD fees, AED 1,155 administrative — total AED 6,984.75 | 7 to 10 business days |
| GDRFA — golden residence permit (investors) | AED 1,100 permit fee, AED 10 Knowledge Dirham, AED 10 Innovation Dirham, AED 500 fee inside the country, AED 20 delivery | 5 days |
| ICP — entry permit, real estate investor residency | AED 100 application, AED 100 issuance, AED 100 smart services (ICP publishes the three lines separately and prints no total) | 2 days |
Do not add these columns together as if they were one bill. They are fees for different services at different points in the process, and which of them you actually pay depends on the channel you use and whether you are inside or outside the country when you apply. GDRFA also notes that its issuance fee increases by AED 100 annually whenever the residency runs over two years.
On channels: GDRFA's golden residence service runs through its smart services system 24/7 or in person at an Amer service centre during normal operating hours, and it names the accredited centres for the real estate investor category as Al Tarash, Gulf Vision, Golden Cube, Al Yalayis and AGS H. Dubai Land Department's investor service is centre-based and lists six channels of its own: Al Manara Center (Cube), Dubai World Trade Centre, the Golden Cube, EGSH Real Estate Registration Agent, Alyalayis Real Estate Registration Trustee Services and Gulf Vision Real Estate Registration Agent. DLD is explicit that only the applicant may attend, that escorts are not allowed, and that applying through a representative is not permitted — so build a trip to Dubai into the plan if you are applying from abroad. For orientation on the wider portal landscape, see how to use Dubai's property government portals.
The previous version of this page repeated a secondary-source claim about a unified GDRFA-DLD digital platform with a five-working-day target. No authority page confirms a unified platform, so the claim has been removed. The five-day figure does exist, but as GDRFA's own expected completion time for its own service.
07Who can you sponsor, and what happens if you sell?
You can sponsor spouse, children and parents — and you are expected to keep the qualifying property for the life of the permit.
Dubai Land Department's investor service states that the husband or wife, children and parents can be sponsored, and lists the supporting documents: a notarised no-objection letter from the father where the mother is the sponsor, an undertaking that sons or daughters over 18 are unmarried, the sponsor's original ID and passport, health insurance, a certified marriage contract, certified birth certificates and an IBAN. Parents' residence requires a certified dependency certificate from the consulate.
On continuity, GDRFA is unusually direct. It requires a lien to be placed on the property to ensure continuity of ownership throughout the validity of the Golden Residency, in accordance with Land Department procedures. It states that the Authority reserves the right to take measures to ensure holders continue to meet the conditions throughout the validity period, and that the property may not be disposed of throughout the 10-year residency period. It also notes that maintaining the permit requires the ability to support oneself and one's family without government support.
There is a genuine benefit on the other side of that constraint: GDRFA states that Golden Residence holders are exempt from the 180-day residency rule, and that the residency is considered void only if it expires while the holder is outside the country. For an investor who does not intend to live in Dubai full time, that exemption is often the single most valuable feature of the permit.
Next step
Discuss what this means for your position
Tell us what you are weighing up — a building, a project, an area, or a rule you need to get right — and we will come back with the specifics that apply to it.
Updated 28 August 2026 by Mitchell's Realty. Market figures quoted reflect the data available at that date.
