The fee behind the sticker is AED 9,884.75

Everyone quotes AED 2 million. Almost nobody itemises the rest.

The AED 2,000,000 threshold is real, and it sits in Cabinet Resolution No. (65) of 2022, Article 8, as the value a real-estate investor's property must reach. What that headline leaves out is a second, fully itemised government fee schedule sitting on Dubai Land Department's own investor page, and a 4% transfer fee that has nothing to do with the visa at all. Our cost chapter and the country hub already round this stack to roughly AED 9,900. This page prints the line items behind that round number, because a line item is checkable against your own invoice and a round number is not.

This is not a rebuild of the cost chapter, and it is not a rebuild of our citizenship chapter. Its job is narrower: put the DLD fee table, the lien, and the 2021 nationality amendment on one page so a buyer can see exactly what the AED 9,884.75 plus AED 2,000,000 bought, and what it did not.

The DLD fee schedule, line by line

DLD's investor service page, live and last updated 19 to 21 August 2026, publishes a total of AED 9,884.75 for the main applicant's 10-year residency permit, broken into five named lines.

The same page prices family and staff separately. A 10-year family residence is AED 5,774.50, with a AED 318.75 file-opening charge and AED 100 per sponsored person on top. Parents get their own 10-year line at AED 5,774.50 each. Stated service time is 7 to 10 business days, through named channels, the Al Manara Cube, the DWTC Golden Cube, and named trustee offices including EGSH, Alyalayis and Gulf Vision. None of that is optional paperwork; it is the schedule you are actually billed against.

GDRFA's fee rail does not add up to a single total the way DLD's does

The same four GDRFA Dubai service pages for investors, entrepreneurs, specialised scientists and talented geniuses, all fetched live on 21 August 2026, quote a residence-permit fee rail rather than a single bundled total: a residence permit fee of AED 1,100, a Knowledge Dirham of AED 10, an Innovation Dirham of AED 10, a fee inside the country of AED 500, and a delivery fee of AED 20. A note on the same pages says the issuance fee increases by AED 100 annually whenever the residency runs over two years. If that note means an additional AED 100 for each of the eight years beyond the first two on a 10-year permit, the residence-permit line alone works out to roughly AED 2,440. Medical examination and Emirates ID, which DLD bundles into its 9,884.75, are not itemised on the GDRFA card at all.

The 4% transfer fee sits outside the visa fee entirely

Dubai Land Department's own legislation reference, reproducing Executive Council Resolution No. 30 of 2013, prices registering a real property sale contract at 4% of the value of the sale contract. DLD's investor-rights booklet describes that 4% as payable in equal parts by the seller and the purchaser, unless agreed otherwise. In practice the buyer frequently covers the whole 4%, which on a AED 2,000,000 deed is AED 80,000 rather than the statute-default AED 40,000. Mortgage registration adds a further 0.25% of the loan value, per the same booklet.

Agency commission is not a DLD fee at all. It is market practice, typically quoted around 2% of the price, and it does not appear on any of the DLD line items above. Our cost chapter's "~2% agency" note is describing the market, not a government schedule, and this page keeps that distinction explicit rather than letting it blur into the DLD total.

The all-in calculator

Use the inputs below to build your own scenario. The government lines come from the DLD schedule above. The transfer split and the agency estimate are flagged as such, because one is a statute default that the market frequently overrides, and the other is not a government fee at all.

What the Golden Residence Permit does not give you

None of the routes buy citizenship. The route that comes closest is the January 2021 amendment to Cabinet Decision No. 2/1972, the implementing regulation to Federal Law No. 17 of 1972 Concerning Nationality and Passports. The official announcement is specific about the mechanism: acquiring Emirati citizenship runs through nominations from Rulers' and Crown Princes' Courts, Executive Councils and the Cabinet, based on nominations from federal entities, and investors are separately required to own property in the UAE. That is a nomination condition attached to a discretionary process, not an application form. There is no published fee, timeline or count of how many Golden Visa holders have actually been naturalised this way, and we are not going to estimate one.

The permit is also not a tax residency test. Our tax chapter covers Cabinet Decision 85/2022 and the 183-day treaty test in full; the short version is that zero personal income tax applies regardless of visa category, and a tax residency certificate still runs on days present, not on the type of permit you hold.

And it is not visa-free Europe. GDRFA's additional information for investors, entrepreneurs, scientists and geniuses says Golden Residence Permit holders are exempt from the 180-day residency law, meaning the permit does not lapse purely for time spent abroad unless it has already expired. That is a rule about keeping the permit alive. It says nothing about entering Schengen, and the UAE passport's own mobility is a separate document that a Golden Visa does not issue.

The February 2026 "50% gone" claim, and why we are not resolving it

Our own hub, our own cost chapter and several agent pages, Property Finder, RE/MAX HUB, Mirabello and Real Estate Club Dubai among them, attach a 20 February 2026 circular that supposedly removed a 50%, or AED 1,000,000, paid-up test for property Golden Visas. We went looking for that circular on this pass and did not find it.

• DLD's own investor service page, last updated 19 August 2026, still asks a mortgaged applicant for a bank letter showing AED 2,000,000 paid.
• ICP's Golden Residency Guide, updated 20 August 2026, still describes the real-estate route as without loans.
• uaelegislation.gov.ae's page for Cabinet Resolution 65/2022 lists its last update as 3 June 2026, and Article 8 already permitted a local-bank loan and off-plan purchases from approved companies back in 2022, well before any 2026 circular.
• ICP and GDRFA newsrooms did not surface the circular in this pass either.

Packaging versus the statute

The AED 2,000,000 figure gets marketed as one price point across every route, property, deposit or business share. It is not one price point once the official fees are added, and it is a different kind of commitment depending on the route. A property purchase is recoverable capital, subject to a lien for the term of the permit, plus roughly AED 90,000 of transfer and visa fees on top if the buyer covers the whole 4%. A fixed deposit of the same AED 2,000,000 is explicitly not a loan under Cabinet 65/2022 and is frozen for at least two years, with withdrawal not permitted through the 10-year term per GDRFA. A skilled-professional route needs no capital at all, just an AED 30,000 monthly salary and MoHRE classification, and cancels the day the salary or the contract does. Reading all three as the same AED 2 million commitment is the packaging error this page is trying to correct.

Whether you are actually eligible for the 10-year term on the door you are using, rather than the 5-year term some official pages still print for property and entrepreneur routes, is a separate question from cost. Our sibling extra, which 10-year visa you actually qualify for, works through that fork against the same official pages.

Frequently asked

Named gaps

• The February 2026 circular removing a 50% or AED 1,000,000 paid-up test was not found on DLD, ICP or the Federal Gazette on this pass. DLD's live page, updated 19 August 2026, still asks for AED 2,000,000 paid.
• GDRFA does not publish a single all-in fee total for talent or entrepreneur routes the way DLD does for property investors. The roughly AED 2,440 residence-permit figure here is our own arithmetic on the published fee rail, not an official total.
• No official count of how many Golden Visa holders have actually been naturalised under the January 2021 Cabinet Decision No. 2/1972 amendment was found. No percentage is given here for that reason.
• An official Green Visa fee schedule was not fetched on this pass, so the Green route is described only by its published capital tests, not by a fee total.
• u.ae's Golden Visa overview timed out twice on this pass. Nothing on this page is sourced to it from memory.

Not legal, tax or immigration advice. Figures here reflect DLD, GDRFA, ICP and uaelegislation.gov.ae as available on 21 August 2026. Fee schedules and eligibility tests change; confirm current line items with DLD or a licensed trustee office before wiring funds.