{"id":36,"date":"2012-10-14T12:55:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T08:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/2012\/10\/dubai-residence-take-5.html"},"modified":"2015-08-06T18:54:46","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T14:54:46","slug":"residence-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/2012\/10\/residence-update.html","title":{"rendered":"Dubai residence&#8230;take 5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stu and I set off this morning to (finally) apply for my new residence visa. He has changed jobs, and so has a new visa, which means I too must change (as he is my sponsor). This is the 5th time I am doing a residence visa, I had one in my own right once upon a time (ie employer sponsored) but this will be my 4th overall as the &#8220;housewife&#8221; (haha).<\/p>\n<p>Anyway you would think that we are old hands at this based on the number of times we have done it, certainly it works out at more than once a year. But of course nothing is ever that simple. Besides the fact that things are not the same if you are doing a Dubai proper visa, a Freezone visa (Jebel Ali), a Freezone visa (Tecom) or a Freezone visa (DMCC*) the requirements within each section also change. I have no problem with that, things evolve over time. What does get my goat is that these requirements are not widely known or published**, and sometimes it can really depend on the day, the office and the officer you speak to at immigration on how strictly they are enforced.<\/p>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_233\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-233\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/pulling-hair-out.jpg\" alt=\"pulling-hair-out\" title=\"pulling-hair-out\" width=\"300\" height=\"279\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/pulling-hair-out.jpg 320w, https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/pulling-hair-out-300x279.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-233\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">[makes me crazy]<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nSo of course the point of my rant today is that the requirements have changed once again, and we didn&#8217;t have the needful papers. I should just travel with a filing cabinet in the car when I go to do these things as I&#8217;m bound to need that one obscure thing I didn&#8217;t pack &#8211; it&#8217;s the corollary to Murphy&#8217;s law (he was an optimist apparently).<\/p>\n<p>In the hope that I save just one other person from a wasted couple of hours here are the requirements (as of 14 October 2012) for a man working in the DMCC Freezone to sponsor his wife on a Dubai residence visa***.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Application form (must be done at typing center in Arabic)<\/li>\n<li>Cash money (no cards)<\/li>\n<li>His passport &#038; copy<\/li>\n<li>His visa &#038; copy<\/li>\n<li>Her passport &#038; copy<\/li>\n<li>Her passport photographs (8 is a safe bet)<\/li>\n<li>ATTESTED marriage certificate &#038; copy<\/li>\n<li>His salary certificate from his sponsor \/ zone (seems unclear if this should be issued by the company or the zone he is in i.e. DMCC)<\/li>\n<li>Latest utility bill (in his name)<\/li>\n<li>Tenancy contract (in his name) attested**** by the Dubai Land Department<\/li>\n<li>Her Emirates ID card or an application will need to be done for that at the same time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nWith all these items you can then apply for a visa, have your medical test and then hopefully get your official residence permit once you pass that.<\/p>\n<p>Costs quoted today: AED 780 (for the application) + AED 630 (to change visa) + AED 750 (for the medical) + AED 530 (to issue the visa and insert into passport) + AED 380 for the Emirates ID (new one I presume so an update should be less).<\/p>\n<p>Good luck!<\/p>\n<p>p.s. This change was actually <a href=\"http:\/\/gulfnews.com\/news\/gulf\/uae\/visa\/tenancy-contract-must-for-sponsoring-family-1.1008930\">published in the Gulf News in June<\/a>. I didn&#8217;t see it as I don&#8217;t read that paper much now. <\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>\n* helpfully the DMCC website Visa Section is &#8220;awaiting content&#8221;.<br \/>\n** even good old <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dubaifaqs.com\/visa-husband-wife-dubai.php\">trusty Dubaifaqs.com<\/a> was wrong on this point as well.<br \/>\n*** yes a woman may sponsor her husband but the requirements and conditions for that are different again.<br \/>\n**** make sure your lease agreement shows the plot number and size of your villa or you may need a copy of the title deed as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stu and I set off this morning to (finally) apply for my new residence visa. He has changed jobs, and so has a new visa, which means I too must change (as he is my sponsor). This is the 5th time I am doing a residence visa, I had one in my own right once [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reality","category-the-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catinthedunes.com\/Dubai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}