UAE work and freelance visas
We will separate who sponsors you from what makes your income lawful, name the permit that fits both, and test your salary or your invoices against the published conditions.
Green residence
Зелёный статус
5 years, renewable
5 лет, с продлением
Skilled salary floor
Порог по зарплате
AED 15,000 a month
15 000 в месяц
Freelance income
Доход фрилансера
AED 360,000 a year
360 000 в год
Standard work visa
Обычная рабочая виза
2 years, renewable
2 года, с продлением
When you need a work or freelance route
You have an offer but no permit
A signed contract is not permission to earn. The labour law makes working without a ministry permit unlawful, and that permit is the employer's application.
You bill several clients
Being paid by more than one payer needs a permit built for it. An employment permit ties you to one establishment; the freelance permit does not.
Your status depends on your job
An employment route ends when the employment does. The self-sponsored route runs five years and survives a change of client, of contract or of mind.
You are hiring into a free zone
A zone company files through its own authority, and how many permits it may hold follows the package it bought. On the mainland the number is a ministry quota.
Your family is waiting on this
Only some of these routes let you sponsor a household. The five-year self-sponsored status does; a short assignment permit was never built for it.
What you get
- The permit type named
- Salary and income tested
- The filing channel identified
- Two years or five
- Renewal terms in writing
What each work route requires
Two questions decide everything here, and they are separate questions. Who sponsors you settles whether your status survives a change of employer. Which permit you hold settles whether you may lawfully be paid at all. Article 6 of the 2021 labour law puts the second one bluntly: nobody may work in the country without a valid permit from the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, and no employer may engage anyone without one.
The documents themselves are covered on residence and the Emirates ID. Where an entity has to exist before it can hire, the starting point is company registration.
Employment: who applies
The employer applies for the standard work visa, and it runs two years, renewable on the terms the issuing authorities set. The ministry keeps thirteen permit types and matches them to the nature of the job: recruiting from abroad, transferring between establishments, hiring a resident already on family sponsorship, a temporary assignment, a mission, part-time work. A part-time holder may work for more than one employer once the ministry approves it.
Self-sponsorship: green residence
Green residence is a five-year renewable status needing no sponsor inside the country, and the holder may sponsor a spouse and children. A skilled employee reaches it with a valid employment contract, an occupational classification in levels one to three, a degree of bachelor's level or above, and a monthly salary from AED 15,000.
| What the route asks | The published figure |
|---|---|
| Standard work visa | 2 years, renewable |
| Green residence | 5 years, renewable |
| A skilled worker's salary | from AED 15,000 a month |
| Occupational classification | levels 1 to 3 |
| Freelance income over two years | from AED 360,000 a year |
| A freelancer's qualification | degree or specialised diploma |
| Permit types the ministry keeps | 13 |
The freelance permit itself
The freelance work permit is issued to a person and not to an establishment, and it exists so that someone can be paid without an employer sponsoring them and without an active employment contract. Income comes from providing a service for a period, completing a task or delivering a defined piece of work, and the payer does not become an employer by paying. For the five-year status a freelancer also needs a degree, specialised diploma or equivalent, evidence of stable income or solvency, and annual freelance income over the two previous years of no less than AED 360,000.
Where the file goes
A mainland company files through the ministry, and the number of people it may hire runs off a quota. The ministry weighs the company's legal status, how large its work facilities are, which projects it has undertaken and what the business needs. A company inside a free zone applies through the zone's own authority, and the permits available to it follow the package it signed up for.
Sources: work permits (UAE Government portal) and Green Residence Guide (Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security).
Stages of work
The two questions separated.
We will write down who will sponsor you and what will make your income lawful. Kept apart, the two give different answers, and the permit has to satisfy both of them.
The permit type chosen.
Thirteen types exist and they are not interchangeable. We will name the one that matches the job, the payer and the place, and note the alternative if the first one leans on paperwork you have not got.
Salary, classification, income.
We will test your contract against the classification levels and the salary floor, or your invoices against the two-year income condition, before anything is filed.
The company side made ready.
Where an employer files, the entity record, the establishment card and the quota or the zone package have to be in order first. Being registered and being able to sponsor are two different states of a company.
Lodging the file.
We will lodge it where it belongs, deal with whatever the officer comes back with, and keep the fitness result, the residence record and the card each moving on its own clock.
Renewal and job changes.
A change of employer, of client mix or of contract can be a permit event. You will get the list of changes that need a filing before they happen.
For the rest of what a move needs, see Immigration & Visas.
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