Hourieh Memar: [00:00:00] After Covid, we all learned that for a lot of businesses, you don't need to be in your home country, or you don't need to manage your business from your home country. It can be managed or it can be set up anywhere around the globe. So tax haven is one of the options.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:00:22] Welcome to the Investment Immigration podcast by Uglobal.com, with weekly in-depth interviews with the world's leading investment immigration professionals. Welcome to another episode of the Investment Immigration Podcast brought to you by Uglobal.com. I'm your host, Salman Siddiqui. Today we are going to focus on the UAE. Now, the UAE has recently opened up its residency options to people from around the world. It was always a destination where people from all around the world came there, but people didn't really have long term residencies there. But recently, the entire Gulf region seems to be opening up to this idea of long term residency, especially this golden visa residency that they are calling. But is it really a golden visa program like we see in the other parts of the world where you can stay there for many, many years, gain permanent residency, and gain nationality there? It doesn't appear to be the case because in the Gulf, traditionally, getting your nationality or getting permanent residency has never been a strong case, let's say. But things are slowly changing there. We're going to try to find out in this episode what has exactly changed, how one qualifies for the Golden Visa program there, and whether there are any limitations. Now, to help us understand all of this, I have a very special guest in my show today. Her name is Hourieh Memar. She's the CEO of MISC Global. She has offices both in the UAE and Canada, and currently she is joining us all the way from Canada. Welcome to the show, Hourieh!

Hourieh Memar: [00:01:59] Hi Salman. Thank you for having me.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:02:02] Thank you so much. Let's start with an overview of the UAE's Golden Visa Residency program. So if you could just explain to us what it is all about its objectives and walk us through the different investment routes available under the Golden Visa program?

Hourieh Memar: [00:02:16] Sure. It's my pleasure to be with you guys today. Actually, the UAE Golden Visa is a long term residency allowing the people to live, work and study in the UAE without the need of a local to sponsor them.

We don't need actually file for those applicants in order to get them the Golden visa issued, so they can have also the 100% ownership of their businesses on the mainland in Dubai. Typically, there are some restrictions on the other zones, like the free zones. They always could have their 100% ownership, but on the mainland, they needed to have a sponsor in order to establish their businesses. So Golden Visa facilitates this and allow the applicants to have ownership of their actual businesses.

I'd like also to mention that this visa can be renewed. It is a ten year visa, and it can be renewed as long as the initial conditions are seen. Despite the other kind of visas that you need to, you cannot stay outside of UAE more than six months. This one, you can stay outside more than the usual period of six months.

But as you said, we'd like to say why the UAE added this to its program and the reason that they wanted to give this long term residency. It is mostly because the people who are highly skilled and the people who have made an outstanding contribution to the economy of the country, and the people who are working in the key industries, that they are crucial to the economic growth. They need it to have an option to live in Dubai permanently, or let's say, at least for long period of time, and being able to renew it as long as they want. So besides them, for sure, it is to attract more of the investors and entrepreneurs to choose Dubai. And I'd like to say that if I keep saying Dubai, then the UAE, because most of the entrepreneurs and investors coming to the UAE, they pick either Dubai or Abu Dhabi, and later I'm going to explain why that is.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:04:34] Because a lot of people don't know, the UAE has a lot of other emirates also, and they have their different residency requirements. So we're going to talk about that. Moving on, if you could explain to us the minimum investment requirements for the Golden visa in the UAE, I read that it's around $500,000 million, which is quite a lot of money. And does that mean you have to pay that upfront? How does this work?

Hourieh Memar: [00:05:00] You’re correct; it's 550,000 USD, but it is not. It's like versus a lot of countries that you pay them money and you don't get anything in exchange. It is mostly in the real estate industry. And so you are investing your money and you're not making a donation or you're not like just buying some funds or stuff. It is the real estate purchase that I'm going to more details because there are other sort of investment options, but this is the most famous and attractive among the investors.

And before we move forward, I'd like to say that there are some cases that the people are nominated for the golden visa by the government or by the senior Emiratis, and that can be stated case by case, because normally these are the questions that we answer. We've seen they didn't make that investment or any sort of other exceptions. Yes. In the UAE, there is always some sort of exceptions for different cases. Okay. But let's go back to our topic about the minimum investment for the category. I'd like to mention that there are three streams that we're going to cover today under the scope of this podcast, because there are six majors are eligible under Golden Visa.

Among them, as we are going to focus on the investment cases, I'll cover just the three public investment real estate investors and entrepreneurs option for the investors in the public investment. The investors need to have a deposit of an investment of the minimum of 2 million dirhams, which is equal to 550,000 USD. And this deposit investment must be in any sort of government approved fund, or the people can have the ownership of a company with a minimum of 2 million dirhams. So those are the minimum for the investors in the public investment. But if we want to talk about the real estate investor, that as I said, it is the most interesting and attractive option for most of the foreign nationals in my experience at least. And statistically, the real estate investor is quite, very straightforward, and as long as you purchase one or more property for the minimum of 550,000 USD, you are eligible to apply for your Golden Visa and you and your family get a ten year Golden Visa issued.

Hourieh Memar: [00:07:46] One of the very, very common questions that people ask us is that if the off-plan projects are eligible for the Golden Visa, yes they are. If the construction is completed for the minimum of 50%, and if they are paying over 54% of the value of the property, which should be equal but not lower than 2 million dirhams or 550,000 US dollar. So in those cases, yes, off-plans are also eligible. And actually they are very famous and very trendy for the foreign nationals that they start buying a property. They take different off-plan projects and they pay by installments. And once they completed, like the minimum requirements, they are eligible to apply for the Golden Visa. Inside this, I'd like to say to the potential investors that we have also an option to buy property for the minimum of 750,000 dirhams, and in those cases, they're going to get green visa that we call it investor or partner visa. I'm sure we're going to cover it later. But I just want to say that for the real estate investors, 2 million dirhams is for the golden visa. And there is another option of the lower amount so that still the investors can get their residency.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:09:04] I want to pick up on what you just said. So there's a difference between the green visa and the golden visa. If you could just explain a little bit of what that means, that would be helpful.

Hourieh Memar: [00:09:13] Definitely, there are different golden visas, but with the green visa we have three streams. Actually we have partner investor visa, we have skilled worker and we have self-employed people that we're going to talk about. the partner investor visa partner, investor visa for the green visa applicant or golden visa category is for the investor that are still willing to invest either on residential project or commercial project, but they're not seeking to invest that amount of 2 million dirhams.

So the option for them is to buy a property for the minimum of 750,000 dirhams, and they can apply for their investor partner visa. But for the entrepreneur who are willing to invest in a commercial project, there is actually no minimum of the investment. So the longest they can have a project that should not be necessarily an innovative or high tech project, as long as they want to start their own company in the UAE, they're eligible to apply for the green visa. That can be issued up to two years for Dubai applicants and up to five years for the Abu Dhabi applicants. So there is no minimum requirement for the green visa, specifically when they want to invest or let's say they want to start their commercial project.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:10:35] What I can understand from you is that the difference between the green visa and the golden visa is that the green visa is more focused on the foreign entrepreneurs, while the Golden Visa is targeted more towards investors who are maybe interested in buying real estate. Is that the difference?

Hourieh Memar: [00:10:52] I want to correct you that both can cover investors and entrepreneurs. The big difference is that for the investor cases, they need to have certain amount of the minimum and public investment, which can be sort of fund or other sort of government approved fund, or it can be an entrepreneur option. For the entrepreneur option, there need a local designated organization that first get nominated and get approved for their project in order for them to get their golden visas versus in green visa cases. We call it partner investor or the partner investor, which can be either investor or entrepreneur. And as I said, if it is investor cases, it can be in real estate with the lower amount of investment required, or it can be just simply starting an office in Dubai, starting a branch affiliate to your parents company. If you have a company in Canada, you can easily set up your company in Dubai and get your investor partner visa. There is no minimum of investment required for that visa. You are considered as investor, but practically and actually you are an entrepreneur.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:12:06] Understood. Okay, so now moving on. I just want to clarify these points that you mentioned you spent say for example, half a million and then you get a golden visa, which is valid for ten years only. Yes. And that's the kind of question which I get a lot from a lot of people, is that if you're spending that much amount of money, you would expect a little more. Why is that limit to just ten years, like, for example, in other places nearby, for example, in Turkey you can get citizenship. So why would an investor who is putting in that much amount of money would opt for ten year golden visa in the UAE? What's the big advantage for them to do that?

Hourieh Memar: [00:12:47] I can definitely address this question. First of all, and for most that I always tell every single of the clients coming to a mix, we tell them we should study the client profile. It is according to your portfolio, theprescription, the whole immigration citizenship/residency prescription will be customized according to the client needs.

So let me give you some examples and let me give you some more advantages of the program. The UAE Golden Visa, depending on the client needs and depending on the client's plan for the if they are willing to relocate, if they are seeking a tax haven country, they should consider this that this is one of the tax haven country. And the truth is that with the tax haven countries, you can legitimately and legally save more taxes depending on the nature of your business. That after Covid, we all learned that a lot of businesses you don't need to be in your home country or you don't need to manage your business from your home country. It can be managed or it can be set up anywhere around the globe. So tax haven is one of the options. And second of all, I still want to emphasize on tax, because the beauty is that there is zero income tax on your personal income. So that is one second of all, I will mention that the gross yield for the rental there is 5 to 10%, which is quite very satisfactory for the potential investors. You cannot find those numbers in many places around the globe.

Hourieh Memar: [00:14:25] And real estate price growth so fast. So not only are they receiving that 5 to 10% of the gross rental yields, the price is also going higher. And I want to address also your concern about why it is that why it is ten years and why it is not citizenship in Arabic countries. This is the law that you cannot become citizen other than the blood. Like this is the fact; they are seeking talented people and they are seeking entrepreneurs and investors, and they are giving the option that those people can choose the UAE as their second home and renew their residency every ten years. And it is not different than like, let's say we are talking about Portugal or Greece or Cyprus. It is the same story. You can renew your residency, but yes, if you meet certain conditions as like languages and those kinds of things, you can become citizen. In the Emirates we have also citizenship option, but it should happen by the approval Royal court in very exceptional cases. But the reality is that the people are there, most of them, they are not seeking the papers for the citizenship or the passports; they are seeking all the advantages of business hub, or it's becoming a center of the global trade. And this is the reality. So those are the reasons for the potential investors interested to live and pick the Emirates as their second home.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:15:54] With that background, I wanted to understand from you, do you see in the very near future, maybe UAE would be opening up that option because like you just mentioned, at the moment, it's a very exceptional place where the government nominates certain people for citizenship. But do you see that the program would eventually evolve to the point where maybe even permanent residency or citizenship would be on offer?

Hourieh Memar: [00:16:18] Personally, I might not see that option, at least for the near future if I want to answer diplomatically. But I'm going to say, like, you know, how many Americans and Canadians and European people are living in Dubai and living in other Emirates in the UAE, that they have the [good] passport, they don't need the passport. And since there are some specific advantages for the local people and the number of the local people, comparing to the, let's say, immigrant and comparing to other nationalities are very limited. So those people, they're not seeking for the passport, they already have their passport that have the validity.

It is not immigration; people who want to emigrate will pick Canada, Australia, USA to immigrate, to move to that country for one day, that they become citizen and to get the passport as their original passport may not have that credibility. But for Canadians, or let's say, American or European people, they're not seeking the documents like they're not seeking the passport. They are seeking all the advantages. And specifically it is the business hub. It is for the business people and investors. Because if want to just talk about Dubai, Dubai has a business friendly government. No matter what you want to do, they help you. There are not a lot of restrictions and a lot of regulations that limit the entrepreneur’s actions. Let us say in Canada, for example, there are a lot of rules that you have to follow. Even if you have that innovative idea, you need to follow certain rules and a lot of regulations. That makes it more difficult for an entrepreneur and specifically for the startup. Maybe in the future. But this is not the goal and the objective, at least for the potential applicants seeking to move to Dubai.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:18:10] So what happens after ten years in the renewal process? It's not like they have to reinvest their money or show half $1 million. They can just use their initial investment to just renew, isn't it?

Hourieh Memar: [00:18:22] After ten years, there are a lot of options open for us to apply for them. We see that the investor, let's say investor, has their son that they can be in the application until age of 25 years old. So once they are over the age, okay, what are the other options? If the son is a top ranked student, they will be eligible to get the Golden Visa. If we are talking about the main applicant and the investor if they are not willing, which is rare, that they're not willing to have their property. But let's say they don't want to keep their property, they want to get their money or, I don't know, invest in another options for them. Let's say that they are CEO or president of their own company, as long as they have a proof that they have the minimum salary of 30,000 dirhams monthly, they are eligible to apply for Golden Visa under talent category, under Outstanding Talent People. Or let's say they are entrepreneurs, they have their own company running in Dubai successfully. They have a successful project, sold it for 500,000 dirhams. They are eligible to apply for Golden Visa. So there are a lot of options that will be open within that ten period of validity of their Golden Visa. And depending on the client cases, we can study and we can give them options.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:19:40] So let's talk a little bit more about how to establish a business affiliate in the UAE. And the investor partner program is usually used for that or not.

Hourieh Memar: [00:19:49] I will talk about both procedure and program. This is very straightforward depending on the entrepreneur background and entrepreneur activity that they are doing, they need to define two things the activity code. What are they going to do? Because there are thousands of kinds of activity that can be registered and can be recognized. So first we need to find out what is the code of activity of the entrepreneur. Once we find out what is the activity code, we are going to see what sort of cooperation structures they wish to establish. They want to go under a civil or sole or LLC, whatever is the best solution for their business model. We need to register with the economy department. Once the Economy Department approved the whole activity and the business structure. They can be up to three partners. If they are seeking residency, they can be up to 50 partners in one license. But we go for their residency procedure. We have the approval, we apply for immigration. We go with the residency procedure. Once we have the approval, the client needs to be in the country. They need to go under the medical and fingerprints procedure. And once they complete the medical and fingerprint, they go for their visa stamping.

Hourieh Memar: [00:21:08] And the final stage, which is the ID print, the whole procedure going to be completed within a few days to a maximum of two weeks for the golden visa. We are looking into maximum a month, but for them for their partner investor, visa will be completed within two weeks. So it is so fast. And I'd like to say that comparing to other countries processing time specifically, like Canada and the U.S. that I'm dealing with them very regularly, that they kill us. They never respond to our clients on time. They are not responsive. But in the UAE there is online services 24/7. Besides, they are in-person services that that send a staff. We have problem with an application. We send someone to the immigration department, to the Ministry of Culture and to minister, and they respond to you, to the court, to federal court. They respond to you like they have an amazing customer services. They have an amazing system. You cannot compare it with any other country. I am dealing with Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Canada, US, even Caribbean - they are not fast comparing to UAE. The UAE has the top rank.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:22:27] Moving on, and we are also coming close to the end of our show. I want to also find out from you the kind of trend that you're seeing. I'm sure a lot of investors want to buy property compared to establishing their business. What's it like in your experience? Is it more for real estate?

Hourieh Memar: [00:22:43] Still, this trend of the business setup as the government facilitated so much and they facilitated like for the new entrepreneurs, they don't even need to have for the first year of their operation. I'm talking about Dubai. They don't need even to have a physical office. They don't need to have that rental contract that we need to have when we register a company. It used to be like that, but since last year when we do this online for the applicants, we don't need even to have the rental, which is so cost effective.

So they need to have the jury. They don't need to hire people; they don't need to have a minimum investment. So they just have one hand of their business in the Middle East. What can be better than that? They have hand in the Middle East, and once they have it and once they are in the country and once they study the market, or they ask us to study the market for them and do the market research, they're going to decide if they want to invest in real estate, that most of them will. They will decide, okay, they want to move on, or they want to spend more of their investment in Dubai real estate or in commercial sectors.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:23:52] Right. And lastly, I want to ask you, a lot of people wouldn't know the difference between seeking Golden Residency in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or the other Emirates there. So how do you advise your clients which state to choose within the UAE for their residency?

Hourieh Memar: [00:24:08] We should know that this is the federal authority. The golden visa goes on the federal authority and there should be approved by the federal government. But if you are asking like okay, how they pick one emirate over the other one, I will say depending on their own business or depending on their own needs, there are some people who are more into the manufacturing. So Abu Dhabi gives a lot of incentive to the energy or manufacturing versus Dubai. Ir let's say for the people who are more into the tourism, they go to Ras al-Khaimah or for people manufacturing, they go to Sharjah. This is depending on the client need and the customized solution for the client. But we should know that this is the federal authority who decides if you are eligible or not. If you are looking to the other streams eligible under Golden Visa. So it depends on which ministry you need to get the approval for you if you are an athlete, or if you are more into the culture and art. Depending on your profile and portfolio, we always see what the client's portfolio before we can make our final decision.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:25:24] And with that, we'll have to leave it at that. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode, and I really learned a lot from you. You explained the program very well, and I think a lot of our listeners would find it very helpful. So thank you again for joining our podcast. And in the end, I want to just give a message to our listeners that please stay tuned. We'll be bringing you more guests from all around the world.

Hourieh Memar: [00:25:45] Thank you so much.

Salman Siddiqui: [00:25:51] You've been listening to the Investment Immigration Podcast by Uglobal.com. Join us again soon for more in-depth conversations exploring investment immigration opportunities from around the world.

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