Retirement visa in the UAE
We will establish which directorate will actually receive your file, test your age, service record and money against its published card, and assemble the evidence before a single fee is paid.
Permit term
Срок разрешения
5 years, renewable
5 лет, с продлением
Age at application
Возраст при подаче
55 completed years
55 полных лет
Service required
Требуемый стаж
15 years
15 лет
Income proof
Порог по доходу
AED 240,000 a year
240 000 в год
When you need retirement residence
Your residence ended with your job
A permit an employer sponsored stops when the employment does. This route puts the status on your own name and takes the company out of the middle.
You are 55 and staying
The Dubai card opens at fifty-five, with a working life behind it. Below that age the file has to be built on some other basis.
You live on savings and rent
Income without an employer is what this route is designed to read: a deposit, a fixed annual income, a property inside the country. Each has its own evidence.
Yearly renewals wear you down
The permit runs five years at a time. Banking, health cover and tenancy stop being annual paperwork and become decisions taken twice a decade.
Your papers sit in three countries
Service records, pensions and bank history spread across employers and borders need legalisation and certified translation before any of it counts as proof.
What you get
- The channel that receives you
- The financial test named
- Evidence prepared before filing
- Five years, then renewal
- Fees listed line by line
What a retirement file requires
Retirement residence is a five-year permit granted without a sponsor or a host inside the country, and renewed on the same terms it was first given on. It is the long route where the qualifying facts are your own history and your own money, and no company stands between you and the authority.
Two neighbours are easy to confuse with it. Where a property is the qualifying asset, that is residence through property; where the file runs on a talent or investment category, the route is the Golden Visa.
Who the Dubai card opens to
The emirate's residency directorate sets a documentary threshold before it looks at money at all: service of at least fifteen years, completed inside or outside the country, and fifty-five completed years of age. Where a career is spread over several employers, those fifteen years still have to be evidenced — by service letters, pension statements or social-insurance records.
The money the card reads
Three financial proofs are named. Property inside the country from AED 1 million, valued by the competent authority in the emirate. A deposit from AED 1 million, transferred into a financial institution inside the country within sixty days of the residence being issued. A fixed annual income from AED 240,000, shown by six months of bank statements. The card's own wording groups the first two in one condition and sets income opposite them, so the applicable combination is confirmed with the receiving authority before the file goes in.
A mortgaged home
A mortgaged title deed is accepted, on a condition the card states plainly: the amount already paid towards releasing the mortgage has to reach AED 1 million at the moment the application is made. What is measured is the paid share, and the deed by itself does not show it.
| What the Dubai card fixes | The published figure |
|---|---|
| Residence term | 5 years, renewable |
| Age at application | 55 completed years |
| Service before retirement | 15 years |
| Property proof | from AED 1 million |
| Deposit proof | from AED 1 million |
| Income proof | from AED 240,000 a year |
| Stated decision time | 48 hours |
Fees and the clock
The card prices the residence permit at AED 200, with AED 10 for the knowledge dirham, AED 10 for the innovation dirham, AED 500 as the fee inside the country and AED 20 for delivery. Issuance then rises by AED 100 for every year the residence runs beyond two. The grace period to remain in the country after the permit expires or is cancelled is sixty days.
Sources: Issuing a residence permit for the retired foreigner (General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs, Dubai).
Stages of work
The receiving channel first.
We will establish which directorate will take the file before any threshold is applied. A figure borrowed from a neighbouring emirate does not bind the one that receives you.
Age and service, evidenced.
We will assemble the proof of fifteen years and of age: service letters, pension statements, social-insurance records, and legalisation where the documents are foreign.
The financial limb chosen.
Property, deposit or income — we will pick the one your papers actually prove and confirm with the authority how its wording applies to your combination.
Filing and the fees.
We will submit through the channel identified, pay the listed lines and answer the queries the officer raises about valuation, transfers or the source of income.
Medical, biometrics, the card.
Fitness screening and the identity steps happen inside the country, and the card comes out together with the permit, carrying the same five-year term.
Five years, then renewal.
Renewal tests the same conditions again, so a sold property or a moved deposit becomes a status event. You will get the dates, and the transactions worth planning around them.
Our work on the other residence routes sits under Immigration & Visas.
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