Get a Residency Visa in Dubai
Offshore Affairs provides Visa related services in Dubai, allowing you to relocate to Dubai, and to change your tax residency to a tax free jurisdiction
One of the simplest ways to get a Dubai Residency Visa is by opening a Dubai company, which can sponsor the company owners, employees, relatives, and friends of legal age under the employment scheme to obtain a Dubai Residency Visa.
The company can request the residency visa right after it is opened, meaning it does not need to have "substance" in the sense that does not need to have office space in Dubai or to have previously traded to become eligible to sponsor the shareholder or its employees. We can request the residency visa right after the company is formed, and even before the company even has a bank account.
​
Residency visas can be divided in two, one is the Partner or Investor visa destination, and the employee visa designation. Once a resident visa is issued, the resident can sponsor their family members to become a UAE resident.​​​
Visa Designation
Visa designations can be classified as Partner or Investor visas, and Employee visas where the designations are titles like Administrative Supervisor, Company Clerk, Lawyer, Doctor, Teacher, Receptionist, Sales Manager, Hr Director, and much more.
​
The visa designations can be also be classified as designations that do not require a Degree Certificate, like Partner, Investor, Receptionist, Marketing Assistant, etc, and designations that require a Specialized Degree Certificate like Doctor, Lawyer, or Teacher, Administrative Director, Office Manager, Sales Manager, etc.
Investor or Partner Visa.
Both the Investor and Partner Visa grant the same immigration flexibility, only difference is that if you want the visa designation to say Partner, the company needs to have at least 2 owners.
If the company only has 1 member, we can only apply for the Investor visa, which is the same as the partner visa, the only difference is that it says Investor instead of Partner.
For a shareholder to apply for a Partner or Investor Visa, the shareholder must own at least AED50,000 of the company share capital.
Yearly presence requirement for Investor or Partner Visa Holders
An Investor or Partner visa requires you to only visit Dubai 1 day per year to maintain your residency visa status.
Employment Visa
There is also the option to obtain a residency visa as an employee of the company. In this case the designation will be different, these could as General Manager, Marketing Manager, counselor, etc.
A General Manager visa costs 1,000 AED (US$275) less, but it will require you to visit Dubai 1 year every 6 months, while the investor visa costs 1,000 AED (US$275) but it only requires you to visit Dubai 1 year every 12 months (1 year).
General Manager Designation
A General Manager designation can be obtained under the Employment Visa scheme, but only the individual who appears on the Company License as General Manager can apply for this Visa Designation title.
The General Manager visa, besides its title on the residency visa, will not have more benefits than, for example, an employee who gets a residency visa as a consultant under the employment visa scheme.
Yearly presence requirement for Employee visa holders
An Employee visa requires you to only visit Dubai 1 day every 6 months to maintain your residency visa status.
Authorized capital considerations in relation to the visa process
To apply for the Investor or Partner visa, the company needs to hace an authorized share capital of AED50,000 per shareholder that will apply for the Investor or Partner visa. For shareholders that will apply for the Employee Visa, the share capital per Shareholder to apply for the Employee visa has to be of at least AED10,000.
Must the Authorized Share Capital be paid to open the company?
No, it must not be a paid-up capital, unless the social capital exceeds AED 150,000.
What if the company’s social capital exceeds AED 150,000?
If the social capital exceeds AED 150,000, regardless of the reason why it exceeded that amount, the full social capital must be deposited into a bank account in Dubai, which might become complicated if the owners do not have a residency visa yet.
One of the main reasons the share capital could exceed AED 150,000 is because the company needs to allocate more than 3 investor or partner visas, hence AED 50,000 is needed per shareholder, which exceeds the AED 150,000 threshold.
If the share capital exceeds AED 150,000, it must be deposited into a Dubai Bank Account, which is difficult for persons not yet residents.
That is why initially Dubai Companies are, in general, only able to allocate 3 investors/partner visas per company when these owners are not yet UAE residents because if the share capital exceeds 150,000 (AED 50,000 per shareholder needed for Investor/Partner Visa), the company must deposit that into a bank account, which we repeat, is kind of impossible for a company without UAE current resident owners.
A way to get around it is for example, if there are 3 shareholders, 3 shareholders can apply for an Investor or Partner Visa, and the remaining 4th shareholder can apply for an Employee Visa as a General Manager.
What is the Dubai Residency Visa Process Like?
Application from inside or outside the UAE
In regards to the residency visa request process, we must first differentiate between two different procedures:
1- Requesting the residency visa while the requestee is outside of the UAE.
2- Requesting the residency visa while the requestee is inside the UAE (under a tourist visa).
In both scenarios, you cannot change the visa status before the e-visa is granted.
Meaning, if we request the residency visa while you are outside of the UAE, if you enter the UAE under a tourist visa before your e-Visa (residency visa) is pre-approved, this would cancel your residency request process, same thing happens if you apply for the residency visa while in the UAE and you decide to exit the UAE while under a tourist visa (before your e-Visa is approved), this will cancel your residency visa application. Therefore, we highly recommend you to plan ahead to avoid these “insignificant mistakes” to affect your residency visa application.
Process
After the Company in Dubai has been formed, we can apply for the Residency Visa. This whole process can take about 2 weeks. After you obtain the Residency Visa, and get the Emirates ID, you will be able to open bank accounts in the UAE, and to obtain services in the UAE available only to UAE or Emirati ID holders like being able to rent an apartment for a year, open bank accounts in the UAE, and more.
First, we start by filling out the Application Form. This form requires the company License and Establishment Card information, applicant personal details, visa designation, entry stamp in case of in-country applications, etc.
The employment agreement is signed. Application is submitted and e-visa is granted for the Applicant to come to Dubai and get Medical Fitness Test, biometrics (if required), get the Emirates ID Registration, and obtain Medical Insurance.
After the aforementioned procedure has been performed, the Residency Visa is granted. ​
In how many days do I have to submit the Medical Fitness Test Results and biometrics after the e-visa is granted?
60 days after e-visa is granted. This is the timeframe to submit the Medical fitness test result and biometics after the e-Visa is obtained, so you should, at the latest, enter Dubai 45 days after the e-Visa is granted, nonetheless, it is better to request the residency visa one or two weeks before you are able to travel to Dubai to take care of these tests, or to open the company and request the residency visa right after you arrive in Dubai as a tourist Visa.
The above is because, as mentioned before, if you enter Dubai under a tourist visa, and then you need to exit the UAE because your tourist visa is about to expire but you are not granted the e-visa yet (Residency visa pre-approval) if you exit and try to do a “visa run”, your residency visa application will be canceled and rejected
Visa Related expenses
-
Establishment Card: AED 2,000
-
Visa Status Change fee: AED 1,600 (applies only to residency visa applications from inside the UAE)
-
Investor or Partner Visa designation: AED 1,000
-
Medical Fitness and Biometrics: n/a
Estimated timeline and process to open a Dubai Offshore Company and get the Residency Visa
The timeline set below are estimates, it includes the timeline to form the company and getting the Residency Visa. The timeline below is for processing the forms, it excludes our timeframe for filling the forms
​
-
5 working days for opening the company and getting the license.
-
2 working days for the establishment card
-
7 working days for the E Visa
-
Once all the above is issued, the client has 60 days to come and stay in Dubai for a week to finish the formalities here (medical, biometrics and passport stamping).