Want to move to Dubai, visa options?

Hi there,

I spent a month in Dubai in early '08 and enjoyed myself quite a bit, made some great friends, etc. I saw some great (and not so great) aspects of Dubai.

At this point I am strongly considering moving to DXB and am wondering what my options are in my situation and how feasible they are. I am 21 years old, male, Canadian citizen. It would only be myself (no spouse/dependents.)

All I absolutely require is permission to reside in Dubai. Work Visa is not 100% necessary as I am self-employed (own my own online investment business) and my income is largely passive.

Unfortunately I have no secondary education diploma so I could not imagine a local firm wanting to employ me nor could I imagine the compensation to be anything worth my time.

Any ideas on the different ways to legally reside in DXB and the associated costs with each method? I've heard of starting a business, buying property, buying a visa (not sure if this is legitimate or not.) Any explanation or further thoughts are appreciated.

If anyone's gone through the process of starting a business in a FTZ and getting a visa that way I would love to ask a few questions such as how long/difficult it was and how much it ended up costing you.

Thank you very much.

There are several options, but the best one i would guess is to register at a Freezone (there's tons of them, several in Dubai, and there's another one in Ras Al Khaimah that apparantly has cheaper fees than the ones in Dubai).

I suggest you google them and call them, but the process to register takes anywhere from 1 week to 6 months, depending on what you want to register and your capital and so on and so forth.

With a canadian passport you can come here, and every 40 days u'll need to do a visa run to the omani border (about 100km from dubai), and ur visa will be renewed again; unlimited number of times.

PM me if you need any more help