Moving to Dubai from Germany: Visas, Taxes and Property

The most important points in 60 seconds

• The visa is rarely the hard part. Employees get an employer-sponsored work visa, buyers of property worth AED 2 million or more can apply for the 10-year Golden Visa, and professionals or freelancers have the Green Visa and freelance permit routes.
• The Germany-UAE double taxation treaty expired on 31 December 2021 because Germany chose not to extend it. Since 1 January 2022 only German domestic law applies, with no treaty protection.
• As long as you remain tax resident in Germany, meaning you keep a residence or your habitual abode there, Germany taxes your worldwide income, including a Dubai salary and Dubai rental income.
• Deregistering at the Bürgeramt does not end German tax liability. What matters is residence under Section 8 and habitual abode under Section 9 of the German Fiscal Code, not the form and not a 183-day count.
• Under Section 2 of the German Foreign Tax Act, a move to a low-tax jurisdiction such as the UAE can trigger extended limited tax liability for up to ten years if substantial economic interests remain in Germany.
• The German exit tax under Section 6 of the Foreign Tax Act applies only to shareholdings of 1 percent or more in corporations, typically an owner's GmbH. It does not hit every emigrant.
• Dubai levies no personal income tax. The budget is shaped by rent, health insurance and school fees, not by taxes. This guide is orientation, not tax advice; a German departure belongs in the hands of a cross-border tax adviser before it happens.

Two questions, not one

A relocation from Germany to Dubai stands or falls on keeping two processes straight. The first runs in the UAE and answers the question of what your residence there is based on. The second runs in Germany and answers the question of when, and to what extent, German tax liability actually ends. Most relocations that go wrong do not fail on the visa. They fail because the German side was planned late or not at all. One clarification before the tax sections: we are property advisers, not tax advisers. The sections below describe the framework and name the statutes so that you can walk into a conversation with a qualified cross-border tax adviser prepared. They do not replace that conversation.

Visa routes to the UAE

German citizens have several established routes into UAE residence. The employment visa is carried by the employer, usually runs for two years and ends with the job. The Golden Visa through property requires real estate valued at AED 2 million or more, roughly half a million euros; in Dubai the valuation through the Dubai Land Department is what counts, not the historic contract price, and mortgaged or off-plan property can qualify under conditions. It runs for ten years, is renewable, and lets the holder sponsor a spouse and children. Approval is an examined application to the immigration authorities, not an automatic consequence of the purchase. The Green Visa offers professionals, freelancers and the self-employed a five-year self-sponsored residence against qualification and income evidence, with the current thresholds published on the official UAE government portal, and a freezone freelance permit with a residence visa on top remains the low-cost entry point for one-person businesses.

The terminated double taxation treaty

The 2010 double taxation treaty between Germany and the UAE expired on 31 December 2021. According to the German Federal Ministry of Finance, Germany informed the UAE in June 2021 through diplomatic channels that it did not intend to extend the treaty, and as of 2026 no new agreement exists. Since 1 January 2022, taxation is governed by German domestic law alone.

The practical consequence: as long as you are tax resident in Germany, your worldwide income is subject to German income tax, including a Dubai salary and rent from a Dubai property. There is no treaty left to assign those earnings to the UAE, and because the UAE levies no personal income tax, there is also no foreign tax for Germany to credit. The widespread idea that Dubai income is tax-free for Germans holds only under one condition: German tax residence must genuinely have ended, and even then the two rules in the following sections can still reach across the border.

Deregistration and the 183-day myth

German unlimited tax liability does not end with the deregistration form. It ends when neither a residence under Section 8 nor a habitual abode under Section 9 of the German Fiscal Code remains in Germany. A residence exists where you maintain a dwelling under circumstances indicating you will keep and use it: the apartment still available to you, the room kept at the family home, the nominally rented-out flat you hold keys to. All of these can keep you fully taxable regardless of what the population register says. The habitual abode rule adds a second track: a continuous stay of more than six months in Germany always counts, and short interruptions do not reset the clock.

From these rules grew the myth that anyone spending fewer than 183 days in Germany is automatically out. It is wrong in both directions. A German residence keeps you fully taxable even at 30 days of presence a year, and day-counting is no substitute for demonstrably giving up the dwelling and moving the centre of life to the UAE. After a clean departure, Germany can still tax genuinely German-source income, such as rent from a property kept in Germany. That is ordinary limited tax liability, and it is distinct from the extended version below.

Germany's extended tax reach: Section 2 AStG

Section 2 of the German Foreign Tax Act is the rule a Dubai move triggers most reliably and plans for least often. It applies to German citizens who were subject to unlimited German tax liability for at least five of the ten years before departure and who move to a low-tax jurisdiction. The UAE qualifies without debate: the statute asks whether the income tax burden on 77,000 euros of income is more than one third below the German level, and in the UAE it is zero for individuals. The third condition is substantial economic interests remaining in Germany, measured by thresholds that include German-source income above 30 percent of total income or above 62,000 euros, and German-situs assets above 30 percent of total assets or above 154,000 euros, as well as business or shareholding positions. A kept rental flat, a securities account with German positions or a GmbH stake clears those bars quickly.

The consequence is that Germany continues to tax an extended range of income at progressive rates until ten years after the end of the departure year, in any year where the income concerned exceeds 16,500 euros. How hard Section 2 bites therefore depends almost entirely on what you leave behind in Germany, which is exactly what can be structured before the move and barely afterwards.

Exit taxation under Section 6 AStG

The German exit tax is often presented as a threat to every emigrant. It is not. Section 6 of the Foreign Tax Act applies only to shareholdings within the meaning of Section 17 of the Income Tax Act, meaning stakes of 1 percent or more in a corporation held at any point in the past five years, typically the owner's own GmbH, and only where the person was subject to unlimited German tax liability for at least seven of the last twelve years. Employees without such stakes are outside its scope. Those inside it are hit hard: on departure the stake is treated as sold at fair market value, so tax falls due on a gain that never turned into cash, payable on application in seven equal annual instalments. For shareholders that is not a reason to abandon the move, but it is a compelling reason not to start it without structuring advice, because valuation, timing and possible reorganisations decide six-figure outcomes here.

Living costs, and rent or buy

With no income tax, the budget question shifts to living costs, and rent dominates. Housing in Dubai is priced per year and traditionally paid in one or a few cheques, and the spread between a studio in an outer district and a family apartment in an established community is a multiple, which is why generic monthly budgets are of little use; the Dubai Land Department's rental index for the specific district is the better reference. On top of rent come the municipal housing fee of 5 percent of annual rent collected through the utility bill, DEWA utilities, the 5 percent VAT in force since 2018, mandatory health insurance, which employers must provide at basic level in Dubai, and private school fees, which for families are among the largest single lines in the budget.

For the first year, renting is usually the better opening move: you learn districts and commutes before committing capital. Buying becomes interesting once the stay is long-term, and it carries one UAE-specific feature: at a property value of AED 2 million or more it opens the Golden Visa route and decouples residence from employment. The purchase maths should include the Dubai Land Department transfer fee of 4 percent, typically around 2 percent agency commission and the building's service charges. One tax footnote that matters more since the treaty ended: while German tax residence continues, or while Section 2 AStG applies, Dubai rental income can be taxable in Germany. The purchase decision belongs inside the departure plan, not next to it. For the market itself, our analyses of whether Dubai off-plan is safe in 2026 and of Dubai versus Abu Dhabi as an investment location are the deeper reads.

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