Dubai visa and Emirates ID timeline and fees

The honest answer to how long a Dubai residence takes is 2 bis 3 Wochen for the visa run itself, and 4 bis 6 Wochen if a bank account is opened in the same stretch. Inside that window sit two shorter clocks: the medical result comes back in 24 Stunden, and the Emirates ID follows 5 bis 10 Werktage nach der Biometrie. Those four periods, as of 2 September 2026, are what a relocation calendar should be built on.

Each step, its period and its fee

Periods of time and fees in AED, as of 2 September 2026. The middle column holds durations, not amounts, and each one is measured from the point named in the last column. No case count applies here: these are published fees and stated processing times, not a sample.

How to read the periods

Each period has a starting point, and confusing them is what makes people miss flights. The 24 Stunden is the wait for the result, not the wait for an appointment. The 5 bis 10 Werktage nach der Biometrie is counted from the biometrics appointment, not from the day the application was filed. The 2 bis 3 Wochen covers the whole run, so it already contains the two shorter periods rather than sitting after them. And the 4 bis 6 Wochen figure is the same run with a bank account opened alongside, which is why it is longer and not because anything went wrong.

They are ranges for a reason. Nothing on this page is a promise about your file, and none of these four numbers is a fee: they are lengths of time, and the only sensible use for them is booking a return flight or a hotel with enough slack at the far end.

The money that lands in the same weeks

The visa fees themselves are modest next to the cost of moving in. Take the cheaper end of an apartment arrival: AED 320 for the medical test, AED 370 for a three year Emirates ID, AED 220 to register the tenancy and AED 2,000 as the utilities deposit. That is AED 2,910 of fees and deposit before a single month of rent. In a villa the utilities deposit alone is AED 4,000, which is AED 2,000 more than the apartment figure.

The choice between the two Emirates ID cards is the one small saving in the list: AED 370 for a three year card against AED 270 for a two year card, a difference of AED 100, and the card term follows the residence term rather than a preference. The medical test is the line that scales with the family, since the AED 320 to AED 750 range is per person, not per household.

Planning around the gap

Because the run takes 2 bis 3 Wochen, most people land before the paperwork is finished and therefore need somewhere to sleep that does not require a registered tenancy. The dependency runs the other way round as well: the tenancy has to be registered before the utility account and the family file behave normally, and the AED 220 registration and the AED 2,000 deposit are what unlock that. If a bank account is part of the plan, budget for the 4 bis 6 Wochen version of the timeline and carry rent for that period in cash or from abroad.

What this page deliberately does not say

There is no entry permit fee here, no change of status fee, no typing centre charge and no express service surcharge. Those amounts are not in the data set behind this page. The figures above are the ones we can point at, and where a period is a range we print the range instead of picking a comfortable number in the middle.

Source and how these numbers were built

Fees and processing periods as of 2 September 2026, from our running list of UAE fees and processing times. The only calculated figures on this page are the arrival total of AED 2,910, which adds the four amounts named in the same paragraph, and the two differences between the cards and the deposits. Fee changes and shifting processing times are posted the day we see them on our Telegram channel, t.me/dxbradar.

FAQ