also called Green Residence UAE · UAE Green Visa
A five-year UAE residence visa for skilled workers, freelancers and the self-employed that does not need an employer or national sponsor, so the holder sponsors themselves.
The Green Visa is a five-year UAE residence permit for skilled workers, freelancers and the self-employed that lets you sponsor yourself instead of needing an employer or local sponsor. It is a separate, lower tier from the Golden Visa, which sits above it, and mixing them up trips people up. It also sets a bar, typically a degree plus proof of a certain self-employment income, that many freelancers struggle to document even when they earn enough.
You freelance well from Dubai and want to sponsor your own residence, so you aim for the Green Visa. Your income is fine, but the scheme wants formal proof of a qualification and documented annual earnings, and your patchwork of client invoices does not line up neatly with what they ask to see.
It is longer and more independent than a standard employment visa, but it sets an income and qualification bar, typically a degree plus a proven annual self-employment income, that many freelancers cannot document. It is easy to confuse with the Golden Visa, which is a separate, higher tier. Match your evidence to the Green Visa's specific thresholds rather than assuming any long UAE visa is the same.
The full United Arab Emirates file →
The difference is the whole point, so here is each one in a line.
These let you live in a country while earning from outside it, and are the named programmes people search by name.
A digital nomad visa is the general category, and most countries have their own badge for it: South Korea's F-1-D, Malaysia's DE Rantau, Hungary's Feher Kartya, Brazil's VITEM XIV, the UAE's Virtual Working Programme, and Colombia's V, M and R families.
A freelance visa is for self-employed people working with clients, GoFreelance and Wathiqat Al-Amal Al-Hurr are the Dubai and Saudi freelance permits, the UAE Green Visa lets a skilled worker self-sponsor, and a working holiday visa lets young people travel and work for a capped period.
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