AD Gaming residency and the Abu Dhabi Golden Visa
There is no standalone AD Gaming visa. We will find the published category each person in your studio actually qualifies under, get the endorsement it names, and file it in the right order.
Golden Visa term
Срок золотой визы
10 years in Abu Dhabi
10 лет в Абу-Даби
Talent categories
Категорий талантов
5 in Abu Dhabi
5 в Абу-Даби
AD Gaming visa
Виза AD Gaming
no such category
отдельной нет
Employment permit
Разрешение на работу
2 years, via employer
2 года, от компании
When you need AD Gaming residency support
You are opening a studio
The company and the residence are two projects, not one. Registering an entity in Abu Dhabi does not by itself give anyone the right to live there.
You are moving your team
Every person on the list needs their own basis. A lead engineer, a contractor and a founder rarely qualify through the same door.
Someone promised you a gaming visa
There is no residence category with that name. An application still has to sit on a published route, and an offer that skips this step is selling the wrong thing.
You freelance for foreign studios
Working remotely for clients abroad is its own case, with its own income and document conditions. Borrowing an employment category to cover it fails at filing.
Your family comes with you
Dependants are filed after the main applicant is approved, and each needs valid insurance. Approval for you does not extend automatically to anyone else.
What you get
- A written route for each person
- The endorsing body identified
- Evidence gaps named early
- Company steps done in order
- Residence and Emirates ID tracked
What is required for residency in Abu Dhabi gaming
Abu Dhabi Gaming, usually written AD Gaming, is the government-side body for the emirate's game development and esports sector. It helps studios establish themselves, connects them to funding and talent, and works with academic and training partners. Issuing residence permits is not among the things it does.
That distinction decides how a relocation is planned. If the company has to exist first, that is company registration and runs as its own workstream; if the person qualifies on their own merits, the route is the UAE Golden Visa.
What AD Gaming actually offers
Its own site is precise about this: long-term residency routes and Golden Visas are available to eligible game developers, creators and industry professionals who meet published eligibility criteria, and AD Gaming helps assess whether a team qualifies and how to apply. Read that carefully and it says the sector gives you context and support, while eligibility still comes from the published category and the decision still belongs to the immigration authority. Abu Dhabi's own talent list runs to five categories, all of them ten-year, and neither gaming nor esports appears among them.
Routes a gaming file uses
Talents in digital technology
The closest fit for most engineers and technical leads, and it needs a recommendation from the Emirates Council for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transactions or another competent local body.
Creatives in arts and culture
Designers, artists and narrative leads are assessed here, on a recommendation from the Department of Culture and Tourism and a record of work shown in recognised forums.
Innovators and inventors
Founders with something patentable or genuinely novel go this way, endorsed by the Ministry of Economy or the emirate's competitiveness office.
Employer-sponsored residence
The ordinary route, where the studio sponsors the person and applies for the work permit; it depends entirely on the company's own records being in order first.
What the file has to show
- Identity and current immigration status, reconciled: passport, any existing permit, residence history and expiry dates that agree with one another.
- Evidence matched to the chosen category, and to that category only. Talent, employment and investor files should not be merged into one folder.
- The endorsement or nomination from the body the category names, obtained before the dependent filing, never alongside it.
- Sponsor readiness where a company is involved: the entity file, the signing authority and access to the government service the filing goes through.
Sources: Abu Dhabi Gaming; Abu Dhabi Golden Visa talent categories (Abu Dhabi Residents Office); Golden visa (UAE Government portal).
Stages of work
Recording the facts behind the pitch.
Nationality, current status, residence history, the actual role in the studio and who is coming along. The route follows from these, and never from a programme name.
Choosing the published category.
We will match each person to a current category and record a second option where the first one depends on evidence you do not have yet.
Getting the endorsement.
Talent categories run on a recommendation from a named body, and that body sets its own criteria and its own pace. We will prepare the submission it expects.
Company steps, where they apply.
Where the studio sponsors, the entity file, the establishment card and access to the filing channel are finished first. A registered company is not yet a ready sponsor.
Filing, medical and Emirates ID.
We will file through the correct channel, answer the authority's queries, and track the medical test, the residence and the Emirates ID as connected but separate outputs.
Family, and what renewal will test.
Dependants are filed once your status is approved. We will hand over what each document says, its validity, and the changes that would need advice before you make them.
The other ways into the country are set out under Immigration & Visas.
Our case studies
FAQ
Discuss
the Task
Speak to our team
Speak to our team. Tell us about your task –
we’ll help you with it in any jurisdiction.