The step-by-step plan for Dubai

This step shows you what everything in Dubai revolves around. Living in the UAE (the United Arab Emirates) is sponsored residence: your visa hangs on your employer, your investment or your income. A visa always runs for a term of one, two, five or ten years.

Permanent residence doesn't exist. Nor can you apply to become an Emirati citizen (naturalisation). So formally you always remain a guest there.

Two clocks come with that:

• If your job falls away, in Dubai you get a grace period of sixty days: the time to find a new sponsor or to leave. With a Green Visa that period is 180 days.
• If you're outside the UAE for more than 180 consecutive days, your visa lapses automatically. That doesn't apply if you have a Golden or Green Visa.

This isn't small print but the character of the country. Everything in this journey follows from it.

In this step you choose the visa route that fits you. There are five routes. Points or a lottery play no part.

• The employer route is the standard. You find an employer who sponsors you, and they arrange your visa: two years, renewable.
• The Golden Visa (10 years) you buy with AED 2 million in property. Or you earn it with a specialist salary from AED 30,000 a month.
• The Green Visa (5 years, without a sponsor) asks as a freelancer AED 360,000 annual income over the last two years. As a skilled worker you need AED 15,000 a month.
• The remote-work visa (1 year) is possible from USD 3,500 a month. It's for whoever brings their Dutch job along and works remotely.
• The retirement visa (55+, 5 years) is the visa for retirees. In Dubai it asks AED 240,000 annual income, or AED 1 million in savings plus AED 1 million in property.

Choose on the basis of what you have, not what you hope. The thresholds are hard.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost you. The good news: the government asks remarkably little here. The fees for your applications are in the hundreds of dirhams, not thousands of euros.

The money is in life itself, and in Dubai you pay for it in advance:

• The annual rent, paid up front in cheques, and the deposits.
• Private health insurance.
• Private education.
• A car, because almost everyone buys one there.

Budget the first months generously. Without a buffer you don't start in Dubai.

With this step you decide together whether it will be Dubai. Also discuss the things the recruitment stories skip, before you decide.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you leave behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Agree on three evenings, a week apart:

• Evening 1, why. What do we hope to find in Dubai? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What has to be in place for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what would be a reason for us to go back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4.

On those evenings, take these four points along too:

• The summer is real. From June to September life happens indoors.
• The rules are real. What you say online falls under a criminal law. And eating or drinking in public is forbidden during the fasting hours of Ramadan, for you too.
• The pension gap is real. Every year in Dubai is a year without accrual. The AOW drop for single people is in phase 3.
• The farewell is different. You build a life in a country that formally never becomes yours.

For many people the trade-off is worth it. But make it out loud.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers for the visa, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of your own? Whoever lives in Dubai and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually no longer builds up AOW, the Dutch state pension. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. You have one year for that, counted from the moment you're no longer insured. Also discuss whether that partner keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on large expenses.

Married, registered or living together? That can make a difference for your partner's residence permit, for co-insurance in healthcare and for inheritance. In Dubai it matters a lot. Whoever sponsors their family hands in a certified marriage contract for the partner at the GDRFA, Dubai's immigration service. If you're not married, you can't sponsor your partner that way. Check at the family visa further on in your plan what applies to you.

Are children coming? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four. Tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed routines, such as the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school. Tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, such as their room.
• Teenagers. Involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs the most. Agree how they keep in touch and when they'll see their friends again.

In Dubai every school is private. How to choose is in the article about schools with this step.

Who learns the language, and when? You probably speak English already, and with it you usually get a long way in Dubai. Do agree who will dig into the rules and customs of the country. Often the partner without work needs contact with the outside world most, and that's exactly the one without colleagues. Plan that together, preferably before you leave.

Choose below the date on which you want to be in Dubai. The step-by-step plan works out whether that's feasible with what still has to happen. Dubai is a fast destination, so surprisingly often the answer is "yes". A target date is yours: moving it is always allowed.