What is the Processing Time for UAE Golden Visa?

Before you ask about the processing time for the golden visa to the UAE, it is important to know whether you qualify for one in the first place. This special type of visa is a long-term residency that is given to wealthy people, entrepreneurs, investors and outstanding talents in various fields. If you belong to any of the mentioned categories, then you can go ahead and apply for the golden visa. 

The time taken for a golden visa to be processed is usually 2 to 3 weeks for most cases. Your application may take longer to be ready depending on the type you are applying for. There is the 10 years and the 5 years visa and also different categories for each type of visa. 

You should therefore be flexible when applying for the visa and know that it may take longer than you expect. You cannot know the exact time your visa will be ready because it is only the UAE authority that decides whether to accept your application and also when to do it. 

The number of days that an application takes to get processed is usually different for every case. Different types of applications usually have different processing times. Also, there are factors that may cause your application to delay or take longer than the normal time. Some of these factors include:

1.    Type of Application:

As mentioned above, there are different categories of golden visa applications such as golden visa for investors, entrepreneurs and exceptional talents. Each category has different eligibility criteria and the required documents usually vary. These two may influence the time your application will take. The category that requires few documents will be processed faster because it will take the authorities less time to go through the individual documents.

On the other hand, the category that needs you to have many documents may take more time to be processed since it will equally take the immigration more time to go through the documents submitted for verification.

2.    Your Nationality:

The UAE government takes more measures when doing the background checks for the citizens of some countries. This makes the golden visa processing times a bit longer compared to other countries. 

Also if a country has some diplomatic issues with the UAE government the processing time might take longer. It is therefore advisable to check if your country falls among these categories so that you are aware of how long it might take.

3.     Immigration History:

It might take longer to have your Golden visa processed if you have a history of violating visa rules or have a criminal record. This is to give room for the authorities to do background checks on you and also evaluate your case correctly.

If found guilty of the violations, your application may even be rejected because of the bad history. When you apply for this long-term residency to the UAE you should therefore keep in mind that if you have a history of visa violations, your application will be delayed or even denied.

4.    Accuracy and Timeliness of the Documents:

If the documents you submit during your application are not accurate, the processing may take longer. You should therefore ensure to submit all the required documents, make sure they are correctly filled and submit them in good time so that your application may be processed faster. 

The UAE in an attempt to simplify the golden visa program and also shorten the processing time has made new reforms to help out. The first thing is that the country has simplified the required documents by allowing people to submit the documents digitally through the ICP platform. You now don’t have to visit the embassy to apply for the golden visa because you can just scan the documents and send them through ICP.

To save the time you can now apply for the comprehensive assurances at the same time with the visa. This means that both will be processed at the same time rather than waiting for one and applying for the other later.