Moving to the United Arab Emirates from the UK
UK passport holders can visit the United Arab Emirates visa-free for up to 30 days, but living there takes a residence permit. The self-funded residency routes we track start at an income of about $4,084 a month or an investment of about $545k, and our residency index rates the United Arab Emirates 85/100 for UK citizens (comparatively open). We estimate €3,402 a month for a couple living centrally in Sharjah and €3,499 in Dubai. The United Arab Emirates is in our zero or very low tax tier. Check the official requirements before you apply.
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- Short stays
- Visa-free 30 days
- UK passport
- Residency
- 85/100
- Comparatively open, our index
- Tax tier
- Zero or very low
- Little to no personal income tax
- Est. cost for two
- From €3,402/mo
- Sharjah, our estimate
Living there long term
Our residency index: 85/100, comparatively open. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in the United Arab Emirates is for UK citizens, based on the routes the United Arab Emirates publishes. Long-term residency is realistic via the renewable 10-year Golden Visa (property or capital), the 5-year Green Visa for skilled workers, freelancers, and investors, or a retirement visa for applicants over 55, with no personal income tax; the dirham is pegged at AED 3.6725 to USD 1.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track:
- Income: about $4,084 a month (UAE retirement (5-year) visa sufficient-income route, AED 15,000/mo (AED 180,000/yr), single applicant, age 55+ with 15 years' work history; as of June 2026)
- Investment: about $545k (UAE Golden Visa real-estate investor route, AED 2,000,000 in property (same threshold for the public-investment/fund deposit route); 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 visit visa-free for up to 30 days, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).
Where in the United Arab Emirates to start
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.
Cost of living for two
Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €3,402 a month in Sharjah to €3,499 in Dubai. For comparison, we estimate €4,315 a month in London. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.
Source: our cost model: a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026). An estimate, not a survey of current prices.
Taxes
The United Arab Emirates 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.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Compare cities in the United Arab Emirates
Lists with cities in the United Arab Emirates
Moving to the United Arab Emirates from elsewhere
How we built this page
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.