Dubai: real estate remains the main driver of the Golden Visa

The Emirates grant a long-term residence permit to foreigners who acquire a property above a value threshold. In Dubai, this threshold is from AED 2,000,000¹, or about about €520,000².

The permit is granted for 10 years³, renewable, and allows the holder to sponsor family members as well as domestic staff.

The other routes — talent, capital investors, highly qualified professionals — require a qualification, a project or recognition, whereas the property route requires only a cheque.

This explains its predominance: it is the only route whose conditions are entirely objective and verifiable in advance.

It is also the only one that ties the right of residence to a market asset, which is not without consequences.

This objectivity has a downside that is rarely pointed out: it attracts demand that buys for the permit rather than for the yield. Part of the supply is therefore priced just above the threshold, and price formation at that level reflects the administrative value of the property as much as its use or rental value.

Keeping the permit requires keeping the property. A sale has consequences for the right of residence, which sales presentations rarely mention.

This constraint reduces the effective liquidity of the segment concerned: a resident owner hesitates to sell even when the market would be favourable, since the sale calls their presence in the country into question.

It also creates a circular exposure for an off-plan purchase. The staggered payment schedule is a commitment over several years, and a payment difficulty puts the property at risk, and the property determines the permit.

The Dubai market has also experienced two severe corrections in twenty years, one of which left developments unfinished. This history is short but documented, and it justifies examining completion guarantees as closely as location.

We do not publish transaction volumes, a price index or the share of buyers by nationality: the Dubai Land Department publishes statistics, but we have not been able to verify the current figures directly, and we do not reproduce agency figures.

A ten-year permit is not a tax residency certificate. The Emirates require presence of from 183 days⁴ over twelve months, and the certificate is a separate procedure.

Without it, the tax treaty concluded with France cannot be invoked. A non-resident owner remains taxable in France on their Emirati rental income.

The tax framework for holding property has changed. Individuals are not taxed — 0%⁵ — but holding through a company falls under corporate tax, at 9%⁶ above AED 375,000⁷.

The choice of holding structure is therefore no longer neutral, and it must be decided before the purchase, not after.

1. Confirm that the property is located in a zone open to foreign freehold ownership.
2. Cost out service charges and registration fees, which are left out of advertised yields.
3. Examine the completion guarantees and the escrow mechanism for an off-plan purchase.
4. Assess how exposed the payment schedule is to the end of an employment contract.
5. Apply for the tax residency certificate if a genuine move is planned.

A purchase in Dubai should therefore be judged like any foreign property investment: yield net of charges, real liquidity, high market risk, and zero currency risk for a dollar budget since the dirham is pegged to it. The residence permit is an accessory to the transaction, not a return — the opposite of what most presentations suggest.