Visas & immigration
Sponsoring your children
Daughters can be sponsored while unmarried, sons until twenty-five. The age cut arrives faster than families plan for, and there is a defined route past it.
What it is
Who this is actually for.
A resident sponsors children on broadly the same conditions as a spouse: salary above the threshold, evidenced accommodation, and attested documentation — here a birth certificate rather than a marriage certificate, showing the parental relationship. Unmarried daughters may be sponsored without a specified age limit. Sons may be sponsored up to the age of twenty-five. Children with disabilities are sponsored without an age restriction. Each sponsored child over eighteen completes the medical fitness test in the same way as an adult dependant.
The son's age limit is the provision that catches families out, because it arrives at exactly the point the family is busiest with something else — a university application, a first job, a move abroad. When a son turns twenty-five the dependency ends and he needs his own basis to remain: a student residence if enrolled, an employment visa if working, or a Green or Golden Visa if he qualifies. None of these is difficult, but all of them take time, and a family that starts the month before the birthday is managing an overstay rather than a transition. The date is knowable twenty-five years in advance and is still the most common family immigration emergency here.
The conditions, precisely
- Sons
- Sponsored to age 25
- Daughters
- Sponsored while unmarried, no specified age limit
- Disability
- No age restriction
- Documents
- Attested birth certificate showing parentage
- Medical
- Required for dependants over 18
- Schooling
- Enrolment generally requires a valid residence and Emirates ID
How long it takes
The sequence
How it runs, in order.
- Attest the birth certificateIn the country of birth, then MOFAIC on arrival, and translated if not in Arabic or English.
- Confirm salary and accommodationThe same conditions as spouse sponsorship, assessed on the sponsoring parent.
- Apply for the entry permit or change statusChildren already in the country on a visit visa can usually change status without leaving.
- Complete medical where applicable and Emirates IDUnder-eighteens are generally exempt from the fitness test; over-eighteens are not.
- Diarise the twenty-fifth birthday for sonsStart the alternative route at least six months out — student, employment, or a self-sponsored visa.
Related
Questions
Twenty-five. After that he needs his own basis to remain — study, employment or a self-sponsored route.
Unmarried daughters may be sponsored without a specified age limit. Marriage ends the dependency.
Dependants aged eighteen and over complete the fitness test. Younger children generally do not.
It is possible with additional documentation, including evidence of custody and, where applicable, a no-objection from the other biological parent.
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