UAE investor visa (partner visa): documents to prepare

An investor visa, called a partner visa where the company has more than one shareholder, is a residence permit sponsored by the company you own. The file is handled by GDRFA or ICP, or through your free zone. This guide covers the documents that file may draw on and which foreign documents may need attestation. Visa fees, eligibility and processing times are set by the immigration authority; check the current service card before applying.

Documents the company side may need

EasyAttestation is an information and referral portal operated by Sandesh Solutions FZE. We do not form companies, issue licences, perform attestation or provide legal or tax advice. A referral does not certify a provider’s credentials or guarantee an application outcome.

The residence file sits on top of the company’s own licence and immigration file. If a shareholder is a company registered abroad, the licensing authority may ask for that shareholder’s incorporation, constitutional, resolution, good-standing and incumbency records, and may require them to be legalised. Where UAE attestation applies, each commercial document is AED 2,000 at MoFA. The checklist, and which items may need attestation, are on documents required for business setup.

Personal documents that may need attestation

Where your activity is regulated, the regulator may assess your qualification, and a degree issued abroad may need attestation first. Check which activities are regulated on trade license Dubai, and the route on degree certificate attestation.

MoFA’s FAQ places educational documents in the individual-affairs band and treats a certificate and its transcripts as two different documents.

If you later sponsor family

A family sponsorship file commonly draws on a marriage certificate for a spouse and birth certificates for children. Ask GDRFA or ICP for the current list, then see attestation for a family visa, marriage certificate attestation and birth certificate attestation. MoFA lists birth and marriage certificates as individual-affairs documents.

MoFA fees for these documents

MoFA charges AED 150 per individual-affairs document and AED 2,000 per commercial document, with its own courier at AED 40 for a three-working-day service covering up to 25 documents.

Worked example: degree (AED 150) + transcript counted separately (AED 150) = AED 300 before transaction charge and courier.

If your only attestation need is a degree and a marriage certificate, that is AED 300 in MoFA fees, plus the checkout transaction charge and courier, and any issuing-country and UAE mission stages. Compare any quote against those components.

The rule governing all of these: the UAE is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention. An apostille alone is not enough. A document issued abroad needs home-country authentication, then UAE embassy attestation in the country of issue, then MoFA attestation inside the UAE — unless your UAE mission runs MoFA’s combined ‘one service, two attestations’ route, where both attestations are made under one application — see MoFA attestation.

What to confirm with GDRFA or ICP

Ask the immigration channel before you order documents

• The current document list for an investor or partner residence file, for your emirate and licence type
• Which foreign documents it needs attested, and whether certified copies are accepted for any of them
• Whether it needs any document translated, and which translator it accepts
• The current fee, eligibility conditions and processing time on its service card
• Whether your free zone submits the file for you