The ‘golden visa’ isn’t just for the rich: UAE offers 10-year residency to $545,000 property buyers—or for nurses, teachers, and e-sports pros

The standard golden visa bargain was simple: residency in exchange for money.

Wealthy foreigners put hundreds of thousands of dollars into real estate or businesses, and governments gave them a foothold abroad.

But the United Arab Emirates stretched that model further.

When the Gulf state launched its golden visa in 2019, the government offered 10-year residency to people who could invest at least $545,000 into property as well as to researchers, teachers and specialized talent.

It expanded again in 2020 and 2022 to include doctors, nurses, engineers, tech workers, and e-sports gamers.

It’s part of the country’s effort to organize talent into needed industries without having to fully assimilate foreigners as citizens—expats make up 90% of the UAE’s population.

And that community has grown even after Iran launched thousands of missiles and drones at the UAE during its war with the U.S.

In essence, the UAE took a visa status normally associated with the rich and powerful and turned it into an umbrella program for both capital and talent, blending labor and industrial policies, according to Kristin Surak, a professor of political sociology at the London School of Economics and author of The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires.

Indeed, Dubai has used golden visas to build up specific sectors.

It gave more than 1,400 nurses and midwives golden visas and over 223 educators from private schools, universities, and early childhood centers.

The city has also made long-term residency one part of a push to build up its gaming industry by 2033 , giving e-sports professionals a chance to apply for the golden visa in an effort to create 30,000 gaming jobs and add about $1 billion to GDP, now being home to over 350 gaming companies.

“It’s not a traditional golden visa,” Surak told Fortune .

“Gold sounds cooler.

You want a lead scientist? You call [the visa] gold.” That branding taps into the language of a wider market for second residences, with around 100 countries having golden visa programs, including Portugal, Australia, Canada, Greece and, more recently, the U.S. with Trump’s “ gold card ” in 2025.