Dubai Investor Visa: AED 750K Minimum Removed (April 2026)

Last reviewed: 2026-04-29. Reflects Dubai's April 2026 visa rule change announced via the DLD Cube platform and the February 2026 federal policy circular on the Golden Visa.

Dubai removed the AED 750,000 minimum property value for the 2-year investor visa where the buyer is the sole owner. A sole owner of any qualifying Dubai property in a freehold zone now meets the value test for the 2-year renewable investor visa, regardless of the price paid. Joint ownership has a new floor: each co-owner must independently hold at least AED 400,000 in the property. The change took effect in April 2026 and is processed through the DLD Cube platform.

This post breaks down what changed, who qualifies under each route, the parallel updates to the 10-year Golden Visa (off-plan and mortgaged property are now eligible, the AED 1 million upfront cash requirement was removed in February 2026), and the practical decisions buyers should now run before signing. Source: Gulf News reporting on DLD Cube, plus the February 2026 federal policy circular.

Two changes matter most for non-resident buyers. First, the floor for sole-owner residency dropped from AED 750,000 to zero. Second, the Golden Visa now accepts mortgaged and off-plan property at the AED 2M threshold, so a buyer with AED 500K in equity and a AED 1.5M mortgage on a single qualifying property now meets the value test.

The previous regime required AED 750,000 minimum property value for the 2-year visa. That threshold blocked a meaningful slice of the buyer market: most JVC studios, most older Sports City units, and a large share of off-plan one-bedroom inventory in non-prime communities sat below AED 750K. The April 2026 update removes that wall for sole owners.

Joint owners are treated differently. Two spouses buying a AED 600,000 apartment together do not each clear AED 400K (each holds AED 300K) and would not qualify under the new joint-ownership rule. The same couple buying a AED 800,000 property as joint owners would each hold AED 400K and qualify. The rule is per-investor, not per-property.

On the Golden Visa side, the February 2026 federal policy circular removed the AED 1 million upfront cash requirement and confirmed that off-plan and mortgaged property qualify on the basis of total property value as recorded on the DLD title deed or Oqood contract. This is the larger structural change for buyers who previously needed to clear a mortgage before applying.

Sole owner of any value in a freehold zone: 2-year investor visa.

Two or more joint owners with at least AED 400K stake each: 2-year investor visa.

Owner of property worth AED 2M+ (including mortgaged or off-plan): 10-year Golden Visa.

Investor aged 55+ with AED 1M in property: 5-year retiree visa, with alternative financial criteria available.

Smaller buyers gain access. A AED 500,000 studio in JVC, Dubai South, or Sports City now qualifies a sole owner for the 2-year visa. The previous wall was AED 750K. This widens the entry-level Dubai property buyer pool meaningfully and is likely to compress yields slightly in the AED 400K-750K segment as visa-motivated demand catches up.

Couples should rethink ownership structure. A two-investor joint purchase with each below AED 400K does not qualify either of them. If both spouses want visas, the property must be at least AED 800K, or one spouse takes sole ownership and sponsors the other.

Off-plan investors get the largest open on the Golden Visa side. A buyer of an AED 2.2M apartment off-plan with a 50/50 payment plan can apply for the Golden Visa as soon as the title deed or Oqood records the AED 2.2M value, even with significant payments still outstanding. Pre-April 2026, the Golden Visa required full payment.

Mortgaged Golden Visa applicants no longer need the AED 1M upfront cash either. The federal policy circular treats total property value (per title deeds or Oqood contracts) as the qualifying metric.

Company-owned property still does not qualify. The title deed must be in your personal name. LLC and free zone entity holdings have to be restructured before applying.

Off-plan property qualifies for the 2-year visa once a DLD-issued title deed exists. Oqood pre-registration alone is not sufficient for the 2-year visa, but it is sufficient for the Golden Visa following the February 2026 circular.

The 6-month rule on the 2-year visa still applies: cannot be outside the UAE for more than 6 consecutive months or the visa is automatically cancelled. The Golden Visa, by contrast, has no minimum-stay requirement.

The AED 400K joint-owner test is per investor, not per couple. A single buyer plus one parent (joint owners) with AED 1M total but AED 200K split for the parent would not qualify the parent.

Example 1, sole owner, JVC studio: purchase price AED 520,000, sole title. Sole owner qualifies for the 2-year investor visa (no minimum). Pre-April 2026, this purchase did not qualify for any visa.

Example 2, joint owners, Business Bay 1-bed: purchase price AED 750,000, two joint owners at 50/50 = AED 375,000 each. Neither qualifies under the joint-ownership rule (AED 400K floor per investor). Restructure as one sole owner sponsoring the spouse.

Example 3, Golden Visa, off-plan with mortgage: purchase price AED 2,200,000. Buyer has paid AED 700,000 to date, AED 1,500,000 mortgage outstanding. Qualifies for the 10-year Golden Visa under the post February 2026 rule (total property value AED 2.2M as recorded on Oqood contract).

Run your scenario in our calculator: Golden Visa Calculator.

If you were holding off because your target property fell below AED 750K and you wanted the visa, the wall is gone for sole owners. A AED 500K-750K apartment in a freehold zone now both meets the 2-year visa requirement and likely offers better yield than premium addresses.

If you were planning a joint-ownership structure to share visas, recheck the per-investor AED 400K floor before signing.

If you have a Golden Visa application that was paused because you had a mortgage, reactivate it. Off-plan and mortgaged property are eligible at AED 2M total value.

Browse Dubai projects with current pricing and Oliva scoring at /en/projects. Methodology and scoring inputs at /en/learn/methodology.

Gulf News, 'Dubai scraps minimum property value for solo investor visas, sets joint ownership floor: what it means': https://gulfnews.com/business/property/dubai-scraps-minimum-property-value-for-solo-investor-visas-sets-joint-ownership-floor-what-it-means-1.500523065

DLD Cube platform processing rules (April 2026).

UAE federal policy circular, February 2026, Golden Visa property eligibility update.

General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA), UAE.

Investors searching for guidance on Dubai Investor Visa typically need three things up front: a quick framework for the decision, a sense of what data points actually matter, and a way to translate the topic into action. This section consolidates those three.

For visa-linked property decisions, the practical framework is: confirm the threshold rule that applies to your ownership structure, verify the property type is eligible (freehold zone, title deed or Oqood recorded value), confirm joint versus sole title implications, and sequence the property purchase with the visa application timeline.

These framework points are the same ones used inside the Oliva 6-dimension scoring model: Financial Value, Market Dynamics, Location, Developer Trust, Risk, Macro Context, and Liquidity. Investors who internalise this framework typically reach a decision faster and with fewer revisions later in the diligence cycle.

Investors looking into Dubai Investor Visa typically surface five recurring questions. We answer each briefly here, with cross-references into the deeper post body and the related guides below.

Can off-plan property qualify for the visa? Recent rule updates expanded off-plan eligibility for the long-term Golden Visa using the Oqood-recorded value rather than the paid-to-date amount. Always confirm the current rule with DLD or a licensed broker before committing capital.

How does Oliva approach this topic? Oliva scores each project on the 6-dimension framework using DLD-sourced inputs. The scoring does not predict the future, it standardises the comparison across hundreds of Dubai projects so investors can shortlist on like-for-like data rather than on marketing copy.

What data sources should I trust? Trust DLD transaction data, Ejari rental registrations, and the official regulator portals (RERA, DLD). Be sceptical of unsourced AED figures in marketing material. When in doubt, ask for the transaction reference numbers or developer registration record so you can verify directly.

What is the most common mistake here? The most common mistake investors make is anchoring on the headline AED price or the headline yield without testing the assumption against secondary-market transaction depth. A property at an attractive price is only attractive if a comparable property has actually transacted near that price recently and if the next buyer can be expected to do the same.

These worked examples are framed generically and use the same input fields that appear in the Oliva calculators. Run your own numbers through those calculators for property-specific output. Below are typical decision shapes investors face on this topic.

Example shape A, the sole-owner family buyer: targets the entry-level threshold under their ownership structure, confirms freehold zone status, and sequences the visa application after title deed registration. The most common error here is purchasing in a non-freehold zone and discovering the property does not anchor a visa.

Example shape B, the joint-owner couple: each co-owner must independently meet the per-investor floor under the current rule. The most common error is structuring as 50/50 on a property where neither co-owner individually meets the threshold, leaving both ineligible and forcing a restructure.

Example shape C, the diversified portfolio buyer: spreads capital across two or three sub-segments to reduce concentration risk. For this profile, the right answer is usually a basket of mid-priced units across different communities rather than a single premium asset. Oliva is designed to support this comparison across hundreds of Dubai projects in one workflow.