Visas & immigration
Family visa salary requirements
AED 4,000 for a spouse or child. Around AED 20,000 for parents. Both are administered by each emirate rather than set federally, and how your salary is structured decides whether you clear them.
What it is
Who this is actually for.
Family sponsorship rests on the sponsor's income, and the applicable figures are administered by each emirate's residency directorate rather than fixed in a single federal schedule. The generally applied position is that a resident may sponsor a spouse and children on a monthly salary of AED 4,000, or AED 3,000 where the employer provides accommodation. Sponsoring parents sits much higher, with AED 20,000 a month the figure commonly applied in Dubai. Profession is no longer a condition, which it once was — the test is income and accommodation, not job title.
How your salary is composed matters more than most people realise. UAE packages are routinely structured with a modest basic salary and substantial allowances for housing and transport, partly because end-of-service gratuity is calculated on basic pay. Whether an immigration officer reads the basic figure or the total on your labour contract can therefore decide a marginal application, and the answer is not uniform across emirates. If you are anywhere near a threshold, the fix is to have the salary certificate and the labour contract state the figures in a way that leaves no interpretation to be made — which is a conversation with HR, not with immigration.
The conditions, precisely
- Spouse and children
- AED 4,000/month, or AED 3,000 with accommodation
- Parents
- Substantially higher — AED 20,000/month applied in Dubai
- Profession
- No longer a condition
- Accommodation
- Registered tenancy required — Ejari or Tawtheeq
- Set by
- Each emirate's residency directorate, not federally
- Evidence
- Salary certificate and attested labour contract
How long it takes
The sequence
How it runs, in order.
- Find out which figure your emirate appliesDubai, Abu Dhabi and the northern emirates administer this separately and the published guidance is not always current.
- Check how your package is statedBasic versus total. Near a threshold this is the whole question.
- Get the salary certificate in the right formIssued by the employer, recent, and stating the figure the authority will read.
- Register the tenancy firstAccommodation evidence is a separate condition from salary and is checked independently.
- If you are short, look at the alternativesA self-sponsored Green Visa, a restructured package, or employer-provided accommodation each change the calculation.
Related
Questions
AED 4,000 generally, or AED 3,000 where the employer provides accommodation. The lower figure is not available if you rent privately.
Practice varies by emirate and by officer. If you are close to a threshold, have the certificate state the figures unambiguously.
Golden and Green Visa holders sponsor family under their own file, and the accommodation condition still applies. The salary test operates differently where there is no employer.
Yes, if you hold a residence that permits it and can evidence income and accommodation. The evidence is harder to assemble than a salary certificate.
One question
Which part of the family are you trying to bring?
The straightforward case, and the timeline is decided almost entirely by attestation. The marriage or birth certificate has to be authenticated in the country that issued it, which cannot be done from Dubai. Start that before you move, not after.
What attestation involvesOr just ask usBoth of these have their own rules and both catch families out. Parent sponsorship needs a much higher salary, renews annually and carries an insurance premium that is usually the largest cost. A son's dependency ends at 25 with no discretionary extension.
The harder sponsorshipsOr just ask usThe thresholds are administered by each emirate rather than set federally, and how your package is composed can decide a marginal case. If you are near a line, the fix is usually a salary certificate that leaves nothing to interpretation.
The salary thresholdsOr just ask us