UAE Golden Visa Maid Visa Cost 2026: Every Fee

What the UAE Golden Visa maid visa cost is actually made of

Ask what it costs to put a housemaid, a nanny or a family driver onto your Golden Visa and you will be handed one number. We collected the numbers on the first page of results and they run from about AED 6,000 to about AED 17,000 for the same household hire. A spread of nearly three times is not a price range. It is a sign that the pages are quoting different bundles and calling them the same thing.

The UAE Golden Visa maid visa cost separates cleanly into three layers once you stop looking at totals. The first is the federal charge to issue the residence permit, which ICP itemises line by line. The second is the recruitment side, which is a work permit from the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation plus whatever the licensed agency charges to source and relocate the worker. The third is the part that never appears in a setup quote at all: the wage, the insurance, the accommodation and the return ticket you are required by law to provide.

Only the first layer has published numbers. We read ICP's residency permit service card, the federal portal's domestic workers page, the Golden Residency guide, and the 2026 reporting that records what replaced Tadbeer, and we have set out below exactly which figures are published and which are estimates. Where a figure is an estimate, we say so rather than dressing it as a fee.

One correction before the arithmetic. The headline benefit people buy this for is not a cheaper visa. A Golden Visa holder pays the same federal lines as anyone else. What changes is the term you are allowed to choose and the sponsorship right itself, and both of those are worth more than any fee difference.

• Layer one, the residence permit: ICP's published lines, including the AED 5,000 per-year recruitment guarantee. Verifiable before you pay.
• Layer two, recruitment: the MOHRE work permit plus an agency's sourcing, relocation and attestation charges. Commercially priced, not published.
• Layer three, the obligations: wage, health cover, accommodation, meals, clothing and a return ticket every two years. Statutory, recurring, and absent from every setup quote we read.
• Not a saving: the Golden Visa does not reduce any federal fee line on this file.

Treat any advertised all-in figure for this file as a package rather than a price. Two quotes can differ by thousands of dirhams and both be accurate, because they are covering different layers of the three above.

The fee lines ICP actually publishes

This is the part of the transaction you can check yourself, and it is the part the commercial pages skip. ICP's service card for issuing a residency permit publishes its fees in blocks, and the block that carries domestic workers reads: application fees AED 100, issuance fee of the residence permit per year AED 100, guarantee for the recruitment of domestic workers for a foreign resident per year AED 5,000, financial security deposit fee AED 20, status adjustment AED 500, and smart service fees AED 100.

Two of those lines are worth reading twice. The AED 100 issuance fee and the AED 5,000 recruitment line are both charged per year, so the term you pick multiplies them rather than spreading them. And the AED 500 status adjustment applies where the worker is already inside the country and changing status rather than entering on a permit, which is why two otherwise identical files can differ by that amount for reasons that have nothing to do with the worker.

The same card gives a service completion duration of two days and lists a single fine: AED 50 per day for expiry of the permitted stay or the entry visa. On the document side it requires a work permit from the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, a medical report, valid health insurance, and a water or electricity bill, with a passport valid for no less than six months.

Set that against the market. The best competitor page we read on this exact query itemises nine cost rows and reaches AED 7,850 to AED 15,000 for a package, but publishes no official link for any of it and explicitly leaves the AED 5,000 line unresolved. The second-ranking page quotes AED 8,500 to AED 12,000 for a first year and does not mention the AED 5,000 at all. Neither figure is wrong as a package price. Neither is a fee schedule.

These lines were read from ICP's published residency permit service card in October 2026. ICP groups fees in unlabelled blocks and category rules differ, so confirm which block applies to your file with the authority handling it before you budget. Published fees change without notice.

The AED 5,000 line is the one that decides your budget

If you take one number away from this page, take this one. In its fee block ICP calls it a guarantee for the recruitment of domestic workers for a foreign resident, per year, AED 5,000. In the terms on the same page it says a fee of AED 5,000 shall be collected from the sponsor or employer for the recruitment of domestic workers, for each year of issuance.

A guarantee and a fee are not the same instrument. A guarantee is money held against a future liability and released when the liability ends. A fee is money spent. On a two-year permit the difference between those two readings is AED 10,000 that either comes back to you or does not, and the authority's own page supports both words.

We are not going to resolve an authority's wording by picking the reading that makes the budget look better. The practical position is the conservative one: plan as though the AED 5,000 a year is spent, and ask ICP or the residency department handling your file to confirm in writing if you are relying on it coming back. Being wrong in that direction costs you nothing. Being wrong in the other direction costs you five figures on a two-year file.

It is also worth knowing why you will struggle to resolve this by reading agency pages. The commonly quoted refundable deposit on those pages is AED 2,000, not AED 5,000, and we could not match the AED 2,000 figure to any published federal line. Two different numbers described with the same word, one of them published and one of them not, is how a household budget ends up five thousand dirhams short per year of permit.

• ICP fee block wording: guarantee for the recruitment of domestic workers for foreign resident, per year, AED 5,000.
• ICP terms wording: a fee of AED 5,000 shall be collected from the sponsor or employer, for each year of issuance.
• On a one-year permit: AED 5,000. On a two-year permit: AED 10,000, because the line is charged per year of issuance.
• The AED 2,000 deposit figure repeated on commercial pages is a different number and we could not trace it to a published federal line.

Both quoted wordings were read from ICP's published residency permit service card in October 2026. Where an authority uses two different words for the same amount, the only safe reading is the one that costs you more until the authority confirms otherwise in writing.

One year or two: the term is a Golden Visa holder's choice

Here is the Golden Visa benefit that actually has a rule behind it. MOHRE publishes the domestic worker permit duration by sponsor type on its service card for issuing a new domestic worker work permit, and the entry reads two years for UAE citizens and GCC citizens, optional at one to two years for diplomats and holders of a golden visa, and one year for residents.

That is a genuine difference, and it is not the one the market advertises. Competitor pages assert a two-year maid visa for Golden Visa holders as though it were automatic. What MOHRE publishes is a choice between one and two years, which an ordinary resident does not get. The choice matters because of the previous section: ICP charges both the permit issuance fee and the AED 5,000 recruitment line per year of issuance, so a two-year term front-loads roughly twice the federal cost in exchange for halving how often you repeat the file.

The sponsorship right itself is published federally and is worth quoting precisely, because this is where the exaggeration happens. The ICP Golden Residency guide lists among its benefits the ability to sponsor domestic workers in accordance with the applicable regulations and procedures in the UAE. It sets no number. The federal portal's own Golden Visa page does not mention domestic workers at all; its listed benefits are the five or ten year renewable term, no sponsor required, longer permitted absence from the country, and sponsorship of family members including spouses and children.

So the word unlimited, which appears on a great many pages about this, is not on either federal page we read. The right is published. A cap is not published, and an absent cap is not the same claim as a published unlimited allowance. If the number of workers is central to your plan, that is a question for the residency department before you hire, not an assumption to take off a blog.

The duration rule above is published on MOHRE's service card at mohre.gov.ae, under Issuance of a New Work Permit for Domestic Workers. That host would not serve us from this network, so we have not quoted any MOHRE fee amount on this page. Read the fee table there yourself rather than taking a figure second hand.

Tadbeer stopped being the only route in 2022

Most of what is written about hiring a domestic worker in the UAE describes a system that changed four years ago. Ministerial Decision No. 92 of 2022 regulates the licensing of agencies recruiting domestic helpers in replacement of Tadbeer centres. Licensing is demanding by design: a bank guarantee of AED 500,000 that renews automatically, or an insurance policy in its place, a UAE citizen as licence owner, a UAE national as agency manager, a credit report from the competent authorities, annual renewal, and annulment if the licence is not renewed within thirty days of expiry.

Then in August 2026 MOHRE set out the two routes a household actually chooses between. Under traditional recruitment you hire through an agency licensed by MOHRE, your contract is with that recruitment office, and you keep the guarantees the Domestic Workers Law gives an employer. Under direct recruitment you submit an undertaking approved by MOHRE accepting full responsibility for the recruitment, and MOHRE states plainly that direct recruitment does not include the guarantees provided under the Domestic Workers Law.

That trade is the real decision, and it is not primarily a price decision. The clearest of the guarantees is the refund: under the law's executive regulations, recruitment offices must refund fees within two weeks where a worker is returned to the agency or reported to have stopped working. Give up the agency route and you give up the party who owes you that refund.

The enforcement numbers from the same reporting are the reason to care. In the first half of 2026, 42 recruitment offices were fined for 135 violations, and 106 of those violations were failures to refund fees in time. Read that two ways. The refund obligation is real and is being policed. And it is the obligation most often breached, so the agency route is a guarantee you may well have to enforce rather than one that simply works.

• Licensed agency route: contract with the recruitment office, Domestic Workers Law guarantees retained, fees refundable within two weeks where the worker is returned or stops working.
• Direct recruitment route: an MOHRE-approved undertaking, full responsibility on you, and no Domestic Workers Law guarantees.
• Agency licensing conditions: AED 500,000 bank guarantee or an insurance policy, UAE citizen owner, UAE national manager, annual renewal, annulment after thirty days unrenewed.
• First half of 2026 enforcement: 42 offices fined for 135 violations, of which 106 were late or missing refunds.

Decision No. 92 of 2022 and the licensing conditions above are as reported by Gulf News in March 2022; the two recruitment routes and the 2026 enforcement figures are as reported by Khaleej Times on 4 August 2026. Check an agency is currently licensed with MOHRE directly rather than relying on a centre's own branding.

The AED 25,000 income test, and the year it comes from

AED 25,000 a month is the figure every page on this topic repeats, and almost none of them date it. It traces to a January 2020 Gulf News report in which an unnamed Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation official said residents wishing to sponsor a domestic worker must earn at least Dh25,000 a month, up from a previous threshold of Dh20,000. The same report records that total household income, or either spouse's salary, could meet it, and that private sponsorship required a Dh25,000 salary certificate.

A figure from 2020 quoted as a 2026 rule is the single most common defect on this query. We are repeating it here because MOHRE's current document list for expatriate employers does still ask for a salary certificate confirming family income of not less than AED 25,000, together with a three month bank statement and proof of housing as a lease contract or title deed, which is consistent with the 2020 statement rather than a replacement for it. Consistent is not the same as confirmed, so treat AED 25,000 as the planning figure and the authority's current requirement list as the only thing worth relying on.

The 2020 report also carries the exemption route, which is still the shape of the answer for lower incomes: a resident below the threshold could hire a worker sponsored by the centre instead, paying all the costs involved plus a monthly salary, which waived the salary requirement on the resident. The tariffs quoted alongside it were AED 120 for four hours a day, AED 200 for eight hours a day, AED 1,120 for seven days and AED 3,500 for a month. Those are 2020 prices for a programme that has since been restructured, so read them as a model and not as a price list.

On whether a Golden Visa waives the income test, we will be blunt: several commercial pages say it does, and we could not find that exemption on any federal page. ICP's Golden Residency guide states the sponsorship right and says in accordance with the applicable regulations and procedures, which points at the income rule rather than away from it. If your file depends on an exemption, get it confirmed by the residency department before you pay anyone.

The AED 25,000 figure above is a January 2020 statement by an unnamed ministry official, reported by Gulf News, and the fine of up to Dh50,000 for hiring an illegal housemaid comes from the same report. Income thresholds, exemptions and fines change. Confirm the current figures with MOHRE or your emirate's residency department before you rely on any of them.

The costs that are not visa fees at all

The setup quote is the small half of this decision. Federal Decree-Law No. 9 of 2022, as amended by Federal Decree-Law No. 21 of 2023, puts a list of obligations on the employer, and the federal portal publishes them: provide appropriate accommodation, provide appropriate meals and clothing, provide medical care or health insurance, pay compensation for work injuries and occupational diseases, bear the expenses of returning the worker to their country, and pay the worker's heirs the wage for the month of death if the worker dies in service.

The entitlements side prices itself out in the same way. Wages are paid within ten days of the due date. The worker gets one paid rest day per week and twelve hours of daily rest including at least eight consecutive hours. Paid annual leave is no less than thirty days. Sick leave is capped at thirty days a year. And there is a round-trip ticket home every two years, which is a real line in a two-year budget and appears in none of the packages we read.

The law covers nineteen occupations, which is wider than most readers expect and worth checking against the job you are actually hiring for: housemaid, sailor, guard, shepherd, jockey, tamer, falcon care-taker, worker, housekeeper, cook, nanny or babysitter, farm worker or grower, gardener, personal trainer or coach, private tutor, home nurse, personal assistant, private agricultural engineer, and personal or family driver.

Two of the setup lines do have published prices, and both are ours to point at rather than estimate. Dubai Health Authority's medical fitness catalogue prices household domestic staff on their own tier at AED 300 for regular service at twenty-four working hours and AED 750 for express at six working hours, with AED 50 added for the pregnancy test and typing fees excluded from the published prices. Emirates ID is charged by ICP per year of residence, which is the same per-year logic as the permit, so the card cost follows the term you chose.

• Statutory and recurring: accommodation, meals, clothing, medical care or health insurance, work-injury compensation, and the cost of returning the worker home.
• Entitlements with a cost: wage within ten days of due date, one paid rest day a week, thirty days paid annual leave, a round-trip ticket home every two years.
• DHA medical fitness, household domestic staff tier: AED 300 regular at twenty-four working hours, AED 750 express at six working hours, plus AED 50 for the pregnancy test. Typing fees excluded.
• Emirates ID: charged per year of residence, so a two-year permit carries two years of card fees.
• Nineteen occupations are covered by the domestic workers law, from housemaid and nanny to private tutor, home nurse and family driver.

DHA states that its published medical fitness prices exclude typing fees, which is the line that most often turns a quoted AED 300 into something larger at the counter. Published fees and statutory obligations both change; the federal portal and DHA's own catalogue are the versions that govern, not this page.

How to price a first year without inventing a total

We are not going to hand you a single figure, because the honest version of this budget has a published floor and an unpublished middle. What we can do is tell you which is which, so you can price your own file instead of trusting ours.

The published floor on a one-year permit is the ICP block: AED 100 application, AED 100 issuance for the year, AED 5,000 recruitment guarantee, AED 20 financial security deposit fee, AED 100 smart services, plus AED 500 if the worker is changing status inside the country. Add DHA's AED 300 regular medical fitness for household domestic staff and the AED 50 pregnancy test, and the Emirates ID line for the year. Double the per-year items for a two-year term. Those are numbers you can check against the authorities' own pages before anyone quotes you.

The unpublished middle is the agency's charge to source, attest and relocate the worker, the health insurance premium, and the monthly wage. Market reporting puts wages in the low thousands of dirhams a month and insurance in the hundreds a year, and we are deliberately not converting those into a total, because a wage is a negotiation and an insurance premium is a quote. A page that adds an estimate to a fee and presents the sum as a cost has told you less than the two numbers would have separately.

So the question to put to any provider is narrow and answerable: which of your lines are federal charges, which are your own, and is the AED 5,000 inside the total or outside it. A provider who can answer that in writing is quoting you a file. One who answers with a single all-in number is quoting you a package, and you will not find out which lines it omitted until the counter.

Nothing on this page is legal, tax or immigration advice, and no figure here is a promise about a fee, a permit term, a refund or an approval. Published fees, thresholds, durations and eligibility rules change, and the authority handling your file is the only source that governs it. Verify every number before you commit money or hire anyone.