On the investor route, GDRFA Dubai lists a residence permit fee of AED 1,100, a Knowledge Dirham of AED 10, an Innovation Dirham of AED 10, and AED 500 more when you apply from inside the country. Delivery adds AED 20. Medical tests, the Emirates ID and the investment itself are separate.
What does GDRFA actually charge?
Five lines, and the first one carries almost all the weight. The permit fee dwarfs the rest, which is why a consultant quoting "around AED 1,200 in government fees" is not necessarily wrong, and why one quoting AED 20,000 is charging you mostly for something else.
Show the numbers as a table
| Item | Amount (AED) |
|---|---|
| Residence permit fee | AED 1,100 |
| Applying from inside the UAE | AED 500 |
| Delivery | AED 20 |
| Knowledge Dirham | AED 10 |
| Innovation Dirham | AED 10 |
Source: GDRFA Dubai service page, checked 2026-09-12
The AED 500 line only applies if you are already in the UAE when you apply, which most people are. It is worth asking a consultant whether their quote assumed an application from outside the country, because that is one of the quieter ways two proposals end up different.
What is not in that fee?
The permit is one step. The medical fitness test and the Emirates ID are charged by other bodies, and neither GDRFA page prices them. The closest published figure comes from a free zone: Meydan puts the medical test and Emirates ID together at AED 2,000 to AED 2,500 in a solo founder's first year. Treat that as an estimate by a company, not a government tariff.
How long does it take, and how long does it last?
GDRFA gives an expected processing time of 5 days for this service. The permit runs for 10 years, and can be extended if the same conditions still hold. That last clause matters more than the fee: the permit is tied to the investment that qualified you, so selling or restructuring it is a residency decision, not only a business one.
There is also a small compounding line most summaries skip. GDRFA states that the issuance fee rises by AED 100 a year for every year the residency runs past two. On a ten-year permit that is a modest addition, but it is real and it is published.
Where does the AED 2 million come in?
The UAE government portal lists AED 2 million as the minimum capital on the investor route. That is the threshold you have to meet, not money you hand over to the immigration department. Quotes that blur the two, a "golden visa package" priced as though the investment were a fee, are worth a second read.
What this guide does not claim
The fees above are the ones GDRFA Dubai prints on the investors service page. Other routes, talent, scientists, top students, have their own service pages with their own fee lines, and other emirates run their own administrations. If your route is not the investor one, read the matching page rather than assuming the same numbers carry over. Popular blog totals of "AED 14,000 to 25,000 all in" are not sourced to any page we could open, so you will not find them repeated here.