As of July 2026, the Dubai Land Department (DLD) has removed the long-standing AED 750,000 minimum property value that sole owners once needed to qualify for the emirate's renewable two-year Property Investor Visa, according to the Cube Centre platform, a DLD-affiliated service portal. The change was rolled out quietly at the end of April, through that portal rather than a public decree, as first reported by Khaleej Times, and is still being pieced together by lawyers and agents three months on.
What actually changed
Under the updated rules published on the Cube Centre platform and mirrored on the official Taskeen investor-visa page, a sole owner of a completed residential unit in Dubai can now apply for the two-year investor visa "regardless of the property value." The AED 750,000 floor that has applied since the visa's introduction no longer features in either listing of requirements.
For jointly owned properties, the bar has been lowered rather than removed. Each co-owner now needs a share worth at least AED 400,000 to qualify, down from the earlier standard under which the property's total value had to clear AED 750,000 before joint owners could apply at all, per the same Cube Centre guidance. In practice, as Arabian Business illustrated, two buyers splitting an AED 800,000 unit can now each secure their own residency visa, something that was not possible before.
The 10-year Golden Visa is unaffected. Its AED 2 million property threshold remains exactly where it was, confirmed by Arabian Business, meaning the two-year and 10-year residency tracks are now more clearly split by price point than ever: any completed unit for the two-year visa, AED 2 million and above for the decade-long one.
An unusually quiet rollout
What has drawn as much attention as the substance of the change is the way it was announced. Khaleej Times first reported the update on 29 April, describing Cube Centre as an entity affiliated with the DLD and noting that no formal circular or gazette notice had accompanied the change. AGBI likewise flagged that the shift arrived purely as a platform update rather than through the more typical legislative channel Dubai usually reserves for changes of this scale. A KPMG GMS Flash Alert published in May, aimed at global mobility teams advising relocating employees and investors, confirmed the same mechanics, describing the DLD as having revised the rules "through its Cube platform" while citing press coverage rather than any published circular or decree as its underlying source.
By mid-July, three months on, both the Taskeen portal and the Cube Centre's residency page confirm, in near-identical wording, that sole owners face no minimum value and joint owners need AED 400,000 per share, which suggests the change has now been absorbed into the standing rulebook even without a published decree behind it.
Why it matters for the market
The practical effect is to open the two-year visa route to a tier of the market that previously sat just below the qualifying line, chiefly studio and one-bedroom units in mid-market communities such as Jumeirah Village Circle, Dubai South, and International City. Arabian Business put the figure at roughly one in four ready-home sales in the first quarter of 2026 falling under that AED 750,000 mark, an indication of how much of the existing resale and end-user stock had, until now, carried no residency incentive attached to it at all.
That timing is not incidental. Consultants quoted by AGBI framed the move as a way to broaden the buyer pool and absorb incoming handovers at a moment when sales momentum has cooled from the pace set in 2025, with the same report citing a roughly 20% monthly decline in residential sales values in March tied to regional instability. Widening visa eligibility to lower-priced, completed units is a low-cost lever for DLD to pull if the goal is to keep demand steady for the wave of new supply expected through 2026, without touching the higher Golden Visa threshold that anchors the top of the market.
For buyers, the immediate takeaway is that price is no longer a gatekeeper for the two-year route: any fully owned, completed unit qualifies, and a jointly owned property only needs each partner's stake, not the total price, to clear AED 400,000. Given that the rule lives on an operational platform rather than in a published law, buyers and their lawyers should still confirm current requirements directly through Cube Centre or the Taskeen portal before relying on them in a purchase decision.
FAQ
Does the AED 750,000 minimum still apply to any Dubai visa? No, it has been removed for sole owners applying for the two-year Property Investor Visa. It never applied to the 10-year Golden Visa, which uses a separate AED 2 million threshold that is unchanged.
What do joint owners need now? Each co-owner needs a share worth at least AED 400,000, regardless of how ownership is split or what the total property price is.
Is this change written into a law or decree? Not as a published circular or gazette notice. It appears as an update on the DLD-affiliated Cube Centre platform and is now mirrored on the official Taskeen investor-visa page, but no formal legislative text has been issued.
Does off-plan property qualify? The guidance for both the sole-owner and joint-owner categories refers to completed units; buyers with off-plan or under-construction properties should confirm current eligibility directly with Cube Centre before assuming they qualify.
Sources
- Dubai Land Department, Taskeen Investor Residence Visa page
- Cube Centre (DLD-affiliated service portal), 2-Year Investor Property Visa
- Khaleej Times: Dubai property investor visa rules removes minimum property value requirement
- Arabian Business: Huge Dubai visa update increases demand for property as major rule gets scrapped
- AGBI: Dubai scraps property visa minimum value for investor residency
- KPMG GMS Flash Alert 2026-125
