Check if your salary meets the family sponsorship minimum, in AED.
Eligibility
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Required minimum
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Shortfall
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The salary gate before you can bring your family over
Bringing your spouse and children to live with you in the UAE turns on a salary test. Before the residency authorities, the GDRFA in Dubai and the ICP federally, will issue dependant visas, they want to see that the sponsor earns enough to support the family. The headline rule is a minimum monthly salary, with a lower figure permitted when the employer provides accommodation rather than a cash housing allowance. This tool takes your monthly salary and the accommodation answer and tells you whether you clear the threshold and, if not, by how much you fall short. Because there is no personal income tax on salaries in the UAE, the salary the authorities assess is your gross contractual figure, with nothing deducted first, which keeps the comparison clean.
The threshold is a floor, not a guarantee of approval, and certain dependants carry higher or different requirements. But for the common case of sponsoring a spouse and children, the salary check is the gate you have to pass first. Clearing it still leaves a checklist to assemble. You generally need a valid residency visa of your own as the sponsor, an attested tenancy contract or other proof of suitable housing for the family, and valid medical insurance arranged for each dependant. You also have to produce attested civil documents, a marriage certificate for a spouse and birth certificates for children, with legal translation where they were issued abroad. And budget for the process itself, since it charges application, medical testing, and Emirates ID fees for every dependant you add, which mounts up for a larger family.
Clearing the bar by AED 500
Run the defaults: a monthly salary of AED 4,500 with no employer accommodation. The applicable minimum the tool uses for that case is AED 4,000, so the salary clears it with room to spare and the shortfall is nil.
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The chart shows the salary against the applicable threshold and the shortfall or margin.
Read the accommodation rule carefully
The lower AED 3,000 threshold is not a discount you can claim just because you receive a housing allowance in your pay. It generally applies when the employer provides the accommodation itself, that is, housing in kind rather than cash. If your salary slip shows a housing allowance that lands in your bank account, the authorities usually treat that as ordinary salary and apply the higher AED 4,000 figure. So answer the accommodation question by what your employer actually does, not by how your pay is itemised. And remember the bigger picture: sponsoring parents, and some other categories, often carry materially higher salary requirements and extra conditions such as medical insurance and a larger deposit. The figures this tool uses are its working assumptions for the common dependant case; the salary thresholds and the rules for specific relatives change, so confirm the current requirements for your emirate and your exact dependants with the GDRFA or the ICP before you commit to an application.
Sponsorship questions
Can a woman sponsor her husband and children in the UAE?
Yes. A working woman can sponsor her family, and in practice the authorities may look for the salary to meet the threshold and sometimes ask for a profession that fits the sponsorship category. The salary test in this tool applies to her in the same way. Because conditions for a wife sponsoring a husband have specific documentation requirements, check the current GDRFA or ICP guidance for your case.
Does my salary need to be the basic figure or my total package?
Authorities generally assess the salary stated on your attested employment contract, which is often the total of basic plus allowances, but the way housing is treated can shift which figure matters. Enter your contractual monthly salary here for a first check, and verify with the GDRFA or ICP which components they count, since getting this wrong is a common reason applications stall. Bear in mind they read the formally attested and registered salary on your labour contract, not an informal total you and your employer agreed verbally, so the figure on the official record is the one that counts.