Moving to Oman from the UK

Our residency index: 45/100, possible, with conditions. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Oman is for UK citizens, based on the routes Oman publishes. Long-term self-sponsored residency runs through Oman's relaunched Golden (10-year) and Silver (5-year) investor visas via property, company, bond, listed-equity or fixed-deposit investment, plus a retiree route for over-60s with high fixed income; otherwise residency is employer-sponsored.

The cheapest self-funded routes we track:

• Income: about $10k a month (Oman retiree residency permit (age 60+), fixed monthly income of at least OMR 4,000/mo; OMR pegged at 1 OMR = 2.6008 USD; as of June 2026)
• Investment: about $520k (Oman Silver (5-year) visa lowest tier, OMR 200,000 one-time via listed equities, fixed deposit or company registration; OMR pegged at 1 OMR = 2.6008 USD; as of June 2026)

Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.

For short visits, UK passport holders can get a visa on arrival for a visit, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.

Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold UK passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year.

1. 1

   1. Şalālah

   57% match

   Est. cost

   €2,705/mo

   Avg temp

   26°C

   Safety index

   82/100

2. 2

   2. Muscat

   56% match

   Est. cost

   €2,959/mo

   Avg temp

   29°C

   Safety index

   82/100

3. 3

   3. ‘Ibrī

   53% match

   Est. cost

   €2,706/mo

   Avg temp

   29°C

   Safety index

   82/100

Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €2,705 a month in Şalālah to €2,959 in Muscat. For comparison, we estimate €4,315 a month in London. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.

Oman is in our zero or very low tax tier (little to no personal income tax); the UK is in our high tax tier (high personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in the UK after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.

• Best places to live in the Middle East and North Africa
• Best warm, dry cities to live in
• Warm, affordable cities to live abroad
• Best cities to live in with zero or very low income tax

• Moving to Oman from the US
• Moving to Oman from Canada
• Moving to Oman from Australia
• Moving to Oman from Ireland
• Moving to Oman from New Zealand

Every country and origin we cover

Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:

• Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
• Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
• City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding UK passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
• Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
• Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.