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The UAE rewards people who arrive correctly structured, and quietly penalises those who do not. Mirabello has held a DMCC licence in Dubai since 2020. We advise on the whole move: which residence route genuinely fits, how the company and its visa quota should be shaped before anything is bought, what a UAE bank will actually ask for, and how the departure from your home country is handled cleanly. Whether you are planning the move or already living here, start with the route that is right for you.
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The two situations need different answers, and most published guidance only addresses the first.
On the ground in Dubai since 2020
The UAE rewards people who arrive correctly structured, and quietly penalises those who do not. Mirabello has held a DMCC licence in Dubai since 2020. We advise on the whole move: which residence route genuinely fits, how the company and its visa quota should be shaped before anything is bought, what a UAE bank will actually ask for, and how the departure from your home country is handled cleanly. Whether you are planning the move or already living here, start with the route that is right for you.
Most people arrive in the UAE having chosen a visa. The ones who do well arrive having chosen a structure. Those are different decisions, and the second one is the expensive one to get wrong.
Mirabello has held a DMCC licence in Dubai since 2020, and our managing presence in the country goes back to 2015. That is long enough to have watched the same avoidable mistakes repeat: the free zone chosen on headline price that turns out to carry a one-visa ceiling; the company formed for a residence goal that a bank then declines to serve; the two-year property visa renewed three times when the ten-year route was closer than the client realised; the move completed beautifully in Dubai and handled carelessly at the point of departure, where the real tax consequences lived.
There is no universal winner among UAE residence routes. The right one depends on whether you are employed or self-employed, whether you are buying property, how much time you will actually spend in the country, who is coming with you, and what your tax position looks like in the country you are leaving. A route that is excellent for a salaried professional in Dubai is frequently the wrong answer for a founder relocating a business to Abu Dhabi.
If you are planning the move, the sequence matters more than the paperwork. Which route genuinely fits comes first, then how the company and its visa quota should be shaped, then what a UAE bank will actually require of you, and only then the residence itself. Run that order backwards and each step constrains the next.
If you already live here, the question is usually whether your current arrangement is still the right one. Residence rules changed materially in 2026, and a permit that made sense when you took it may now be the more expensive option. We look at what you hold, what you qualify for, and whether moving is worth it. Frequently it is not, and we will say so.
We advise, we prepare, and we manage the process end to end with a single point of contact. Applications in the UAE are decided by the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship and by the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs, and they are lodged through licensed channels. No consultancy is an authorised or approved party to that decision, ours included, and any firm suggesting otherwise is telling you something that is not true.
What we can do is make sure the file that reaches those authorities is complete, accurate and evidenced, that the structure behind it holds up, and that you understand the decision before you commit money to it. Government fees are passed through at cost, on their own line, with the receipts. We take no commission from any free zone, developer, bank, lender or insurer, which is the reason our advice on which of them to use is worth having.
Dubai's two-year property investor visa (Taskeen) carries a government fee of AED 10,212.50. The ten-year Golden Visa, applied for through the Dubai Land Department, carries a government fee of AED 9,884.75. The shorter permit costs more than the longer one. For a buyer sitting below the AED 2,000,000 Golden Visa threshold, the gap to that threshold is often smaller than the lifetime cost of renewing the two-year route repeatedly. That is arithmetic, not salesmanship, and it is the single most useful calculation we run for property buyers.
Second: an ordinary UAE residence permit lapses after 180 consecutive days outside the country. Golden Residence and Green Visa holders are exempt. For anyone who genuinely lives across borders, that exemption quietly decides which route is viable, and it is the reason a cheaper permit is sometimes the wrong permit.
The UAE end of a relocation is increasingly well automated by the UAE itself. The part that is not automated, and not commoditised, is the part that happens where you are leaving from: exit taxation, deemed disposal, extended limited tax liability, controlled-foreign-company and place-of-effective-management exposure, and whether your new residence will actually be respected by the authorities in the country you left. We coordinate that work with your own tax counsel in your home jurisdiction, who authors and owns the analysis. It is the reason a Swiss firm is worth engaging for a move to Dubai, and it is the step most people discover too late.
Questions
No. Property is one route among many, and for a lot of people it is the wrong one. The UAE offers employment-sponsored residence, the five-year Green Visa for skilled employees, freelancers and investors, freelance permits, a one-year remote-work route, family sponsorship and a retirement route for those aged 55 and over. Property matters if you want the ten-year Golden Visa through the AED 2,000,000 investment route, or Dubai's shorter two-year investor permit. We start by ruling out the routes that do not fit you, and we put that in writing.
In government fees, no. Dubai's two-year investor permit (Taskeen) carries a government fee of AED 10,212.50 against AED 9,884.75 for the ten-year Golden Visa applied for through the Dubai Land Department. The shorter permit costs more. Whether the Golden Visa is right for you depends on whether you can reach the AED 2,000,000 property threshold, and how the difference between your budget and that figure compares with renewing a two-year permit repeatedly. That calculation is specific to your numbers and we run it before recommending anything.
No, and neither can any other consultancy. Applications are lodged through licensed channels and decided by the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship or, in Dubai, the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs. No advisory firm is an authorised or approved party to that decision. What we do is assess which route fits, prepare and quality-assure the file, coordinate the government and agent liaison, and stay as your single point of contact from the first call through to the Emirates ID and beyond to renewal.
That is the question most people ask last and should ask first. Holding a UAE residence permit does not by itself end your tax residence elsewhere. Depending on where you are leaving, you may face exit taxation, deemed disposal of assets, an extended period of limited tax liability, or continued exposure through controlled-foreign-company and place-of-effective-management rules. The answer is specific to your country and your circumstances, and it is authored by your own tax counsel there. We coordinate that work and make sure the UAE side of the structure supports it rather than undermining it.
An ordinary residence permit lapses after 180 consecutive days outside the country. Golden Residence and Green Visa holders are exempt from that rule. If you travel heavily or keep a base elsewhere, this single difference often decides which route is actually viable for you, and it is a common reason a cheaper permit turns out to be the wrong one.
No, and any firm that says otherwise is worth treating with caution. The decision rests solely with the UAE authorities. What we can influence is the quality and completeness of what reaches them, the soundness of the structure behind it, and whether you meet the published criteria before you spend anything. Where you do not meet them, we tell you plainly and explain what would have to change.
We prepare you for it. UAE bank account opening is genuinely demanding, and most refusals trace back to an incomplete file, a source-of-wealth narrative that is not evidenced, or a company structure the bank was never going to be comfortable with. We build the file to what banks actually require and identify which institutions' published criteria you meet. You apply directly, and the decision is entirely the bank's. Our fee is fixed and payable for the work whether or not an account is opened. We accept no commission from any bank.
It depends on how many visas you will need, whether you require physical premises, what your activity codes must cover, and which zones your intended bank is comfortable with. Visa quota is a function of licence type and leased space and is set by each free zone independently, so there is no single federal table to consult. Choosing on headline setup price and discovering a one-visa ceiling when you need four is the most common and most expensive founder error in the UAE, and it typically locks you in for twelve to twenty-four months. We take no commission from any free zone, so the recommendation reflects your requirements rather than ours.
For UAE residents
Everything on this page is free to read and we would rather you had it. Advisory engagements for clients already resident in the UAE are not open while we complete the local licensing position, and we are not going to solicit them before that is settled.
Leave an address and we will tell you once it opens. Nothing else, and no follow-up in the meantime.
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