Family Visa Support with PROXPAT

Who You Can Sponsor

A resident can typically sponsor a spouse and children, and in defined circumstances parents. Each category carries its own conditions.

Spouse

Requires an attested marriage certificate. Where the marriage took place in the UAE, attestation is generally not needed — the certificate is already issued locally, which removes a step that catches out couples married abroad.

Children

Sons can usually be sponsored up to an age limit set by the authority, after which a different visa route is needed. Daughters can generally be sponsored while unmarried. An attested birth certificate is required in both cases, and the parents' names on it must match their passports.

Parents

Parent sponsorship is treated as a separate category with stricter conditions than spouse or children — typically a higher income requirement, medical insurance covering the parents, and additional supporting evidence. Parents are normally sponsored together rather than individually.

Please note: salary thresholds, age limits and accommodation requirements for family sponsorship are set by the UAE immigration authority and are revised from time to time. We confirm the current position before an application is prepared.

Documents You Will Need

From the sponsor

Passport and visa copy, Emirates ID, tenancy contract registered as Ejari, bank statements covering the last six months, employment contract or salary certificate, and a working mobile number and email address. If you own the company rather than being employed by it, the trade licence and Memorandum of Association replace the salary certificate.

For a spouse

Passport copy, attested marriage certificate, and a clear photograph against a white background.

For children

Passport copies, attested birth certificates, photographs against a white background, and existing Emirates ID where the child is already resident.

Where applications lose time

Four causes come up again and again: a salary certificate that does not state the figure in the format the authority expects; a tenancy contract that is not registered as Ejari, or is in someone else's name; an attestation chain completed in the wrong order; and a name transliterated differently on the certificate than in the passport. None of these are refusals on the merits — each simply costs a resubmission cycle.

Indicative Government Fees

These are the amounts the authority charges. PROXPAT's service fee is separate and is set out below.

Every figure above is indicative and rounded. Government fees are set by the UAE immigration authority and are revised from time to time without notice. What you actually pay depends on the emirate, the visa duration, whether the applicant is inside or outside the country, and your own circumstances. We confirm the current figures against the authority before submitting, and you pay the authority's charge at cost.

PROXPAT service fee

AED 500 per family member, for the complete process — eligibility check, document preparation, sponsor file, entry permit, status change where needed, medical, Emirates ID and stamping, all the way through. Not per step, and not per visit to a department.

This is exclusive of 5% VAT and exclusive of the government fees above, which you pay at the authority's own cost. If you are sponsoring several family members at once, or you also run a company with visas to manage, our monthly PRO packages usually work out cheaper.

How the Process Runs

The sequence is the same for each family member, though the stages differ depending on whether they are already in the country.

1. Eligibility check

We confirm your salary meets the threshold for the category, that your accommodation is appropriate to the family size, and that your Ejari and residence visa are valid for long enough to support the application.

2. Sponsor file opening

Where you have not sponsored anyone before, a sponsor file is opened with the immigration authority. This is a one-off step — later applications for other family members use the same file.

3. Entry permit

Issued before the family member enters, or before an in-country status change. Entry permits carry a validity window, and the following stages must be completed inside it.

4. Status change or entry

If the family member is already in the UAE on a visit or tourist visa, their status is changed in-country. If they are abroad, they enter on the permit instead. Which applies decides both the cost and the timeline, so it is worth settling before flights are booked.

5. Medical fitness test

Required for applicants above the age the authority specifies. Younger children are generally exempt. The certificate carries a validity period, and stamping must be completed within it.

6. Emirates ID

Biometrics are captured at an authorised centre. The card is issued once the visa is stamped, and it is what most other services — schools, banking, insurance — will ask for afterwards.

7. Visa stamping

The residence visa is issued and linked to the passport. At this point the family member is legally resident and the sponsorship is complete.

Processing times are set by the authority and vary with workload and with the individual case. Each stage has its own validity window, and missing one restarts part of the sequence rather than the whole application.

Renewal, Cancellation and Changes

Renewal

Family visas run for a fixed term and are renewed before expiry, alongside a renewed Ejari and a sponsor visa that remains valid. There is a grace period after expiry, after which overstay fines accrue daily. An expired dependant visa also invalidates the Emirates ID, which tends to surface as a blocked school or bank transaction before anyone notices the expiry itself.

If the sponsor changes job

A dependant visa is tied to the sponsor's own residence visa. When the sponsor changes employer, the dependants' visas usually need to be updated or reissued to follow the new sponsorship — a step that is easy to overlook during a job move and awkward to fix afterwards.

Cancellation

If the family leaves the UAE permanently, their visas should be cancelled properly rather than left to expire. An open visa left behind can complicate a future application, and cancellation is far simpler to complete while everyone is still in the country. See our visa cancellation services.

How PROXPAT Helps

We check eligibility before you spend anything, tell you plainly if the salary or accommodation requirement is not met yet, prepare and review the full document set, coordinate attestation and legal translation where documents were issued abroad, and manage the entry permit, medical, Emirates ID and stamping stages through to completion. If you also need the wider picture, see our residency services and immigration services.

Approvals and processing times remain with the relevant UAE authorities.