GDRFA Services in Dubai for Individuals and Companies

Entry permits

The entry permit is the key that precedes residency. Article 10 of the Executive Regulation limits entry visas to five types: visit, temporary or emergency, work, residence, and the visa for GCC residents and their companions. In practice the visit category branches into many purposes – tourism, visiting relatives and friends, job exploration, business exploration, treatment, study, transit and business visits. Some of these need no host or sponsor inside the country; others are issued only on the application of an establishment registered in Dubai.

We issue the permit under the category that genuinely fits your case rather than the one that is easiest to file, extend or cancel it, or arrange a status adjustment from inside the country, depending on the visa type and the circumstances. Once an entry permit is approved, the holder must enter within the period stated on it; miss that window and the permit lapses, and a fresh application and a fresh fee follow. This is why we press clients to fix the travel date before filing, not after.

Residency permits

The residency permit is what makes a long stay lawful, and its duration follows its category. Residency tied to ordinary employment may be issued for two years and renewed, with the period varying by category and by the licensing authority. Green residency for skilled workers, self-employed professionals and investors runs for five years; golden residency for ten. Other categories stand on their own: retirement residency, property-owner residency, the remote-work residency the Regulation addresses expressly, and residency issued without work permission. The practical difference is that some categories rest on a sponsor and others have no sponsor at all – a distinction that changes the shape of the file entirely.

We handle issuance, renewal, data amendment and cancellation, whether for you or for a spouse, children and parents under your sponsorship, along with moves from one establishment or sponsor to another, which may require cancelling the existing residency and issuing a new one, or a status adjustment, depending on the case. Attached to all of this are the medical fitness test required of anyone aged eighteen or over at first issuance and at renewal, and the Emirates ID steps with the federal authority – a step that is often forgotten, leaving the file incomplete after the residency itself has issued.

One point deserves emphasis: residency lapses where the holder remains outside the UAE for 180 consecutive days, under Article 59 of the Executive Regulation, subject to the exceptions in the article that follows it and to categories treated differently. And where the file sits in Dubai, the directorate is your reference point, since the channels for handling long absence differ according to the authority that issued the residency.

Establishment services and the establishment card

The establishment card is the company’s file with the directorate, and no entry permit or employee residency opens for a company before its card is valid. We handle issuance for private-sector and free-zone establishments and for government entities, renewal before expiry, data amendment when the name, ownership or authorised signatories change, and cancellation when the activity closes. Alongside it sits the public relations officer’s card – issuance, renewal, amendment and cancellation – the capacity in which a company representative transacts with the directorate.

And a point many get wrong: the work permit itself is not GDRFA’s to issue. It is issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation for mainland establishments and by the relevant free zone authority for its own companies; only then does GDRFA issue the entry visa and the residency permit. Start at the wrong door and you will be sent back from it.

Violator-related matters

This category covers staying on after an entry permit or residency has expired or been cancelled and the grace period has run out, together with the fines, exit permits and settlement steps that follow. Article 64 of the Executive Regulation sets a ceiling on the daily fine for unlawful stay and leaves the operative amount to the schedule of fees and fines. Grace periods are not uniform: they are fixed per category and, in total, do not exceed six months.

We check what is actually recorded against your file or your dependants’ and establish the real figure before you decide anything; we settle it; we file for settlement of a violator’s status under whichever service or initiative is in force at the time; we apply for the exit permit where someone wants to leave and close the position; and we handle what the case calls for by way of an administrative-list circular, its removal, or an application for exemption from the fine, using whatever service is officially available. With one caution we give every client: those last applications are discretionary, each case is examined on its own, and nobody – this office or any other – can promise their outcome.