oman golden visa cost
Oman Golden Visa Cost 2026: The OMR 200,000 Test
The Oman golden visa cost splits into two numbers that do not agree with each other, and most pages ranking for this phrase publish only one of them. Oman's own investment agency puts the threshold at OMR 200,000 — about USD 520,160 at the rial's fixed peg — across seven routes. Big-four and law-firm summaries written months later still say OMR 500,000 for ten years and OMR 250,000 for five. We traced both figures back to the documents that state them, checked which permit fee has an official source behind it, and found the cost almost nobody prices: roughly 56,000 people have applied, and on the last government figures not one approval had been issued.
Key takeaways
The official threshold is OMR 200,000, about USD 520,160. Invest Oman's launch announcement of 1 September 2025 states a "minimum capital threshold of OMR 200,000 (approximately USD 520,000)" across seven investment routes. The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion repeated the same figure in September 2025, and the ministry's own consumer portal lists the same six qualifying activities with no higher number anywhere on it.
OMR 500,000 and OMR 250,000 are the superseded tiers, and they are still being published. Those were the ten-year and five-year thresholds of the investor residency scheme that ran before 31 August 2025. A Deloitte Middle East note and a Trowers & Hamlins briefing from September 2025 both attach them to the new launch, and a Gulf business title was still quoting a OMR 250,000-to-OMR 500,000 range in June 2026. Press coverage dated 23 and 24 August 2025 describes the old tiers because it was written a week before the relaunch.
No government page publishes a fee schedule. The OMR 551 and OMR 326 card fees that every advisory page repeats trace to pre-launch news reporting, not to a ministry document — and a well-ranked guide gives OMR 500 plus OMR 100 per joining family member instead. We could not find any of the three on a gov.om domain. Budget the fee as a few hundred rials and do not treat any published figure as fixed.
Roughly 56,000 people have applied and nobody has been approved. Oman's economy ministry told state television that applications averaged about 5,500 a month through the first five months of 2026, for about 56,000 in ten months, and that about 70% of applicants were expatriates already living in Oman. Processing was to begin in the third quarter of 2026 with approvals expected within the following three months. The money goes in before the permit comes out.
A ten-year permit now has to outlive Oman's income tax. Royal Decree 56/2025 of 22 June 2025 makes Oman the first GCC state with a personal income tax: 5% on income above OMR 42,000 a year, from 1 January 2028, on the worldwide income of anyone in Oman 183 days or more. A permit bought in 2026 runs five years past that date, and the Gulf comparison tables still file Oman under "no income tax".
On this page
Every figure below is attributed to the body that published it, with the date it was published, because that is the only way to tell the current threshold from the old one. Invest Oman and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion are the primary sources for the programme; Arabian Gulf Business Insight is the source for the ministry's application figures and for the June 2026 land amendment; PwC Middle East is the source for the income tax decree. Dollar figures use the Central Bank of Oman's fixed peg of USD 2.6008 to the rial, unchanged since the last change in parity in 1986. Where a number circulates widely with no official source, the text says so rather than rounding it into a table. This site's renderer does not emit heading anchors, so the list below is a map rather than jump links.
- Oman golden visa cost in 2026: two official numbers that disagree
- The OMR 200,000 test, route by route
- Where OMR 500,000 and OMR 250,000 come from
- The permit fee is the worst-sourced number on this page
- The real cost is the queue, not the threshold
- What the June 2026 land amendment changed
- The 2028 income tax a ten-year permit has to outlive
- Oman against the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain
- Related guides on Domicila
Oman golden visa cost in 2026: two official numbers that disagree
Search the Oman golden visa cost and you will be handed a threshold with great confidence. The problem is that you will be handed a different one depending on which page you open, and both of them come with an official-looking citation.
The figure Oman's own institutions use is OMR 200,000. Invest Oman's launch announcement, dated Muscat 1 September 2025, says applicants "must meet a minimum capital threshold of OMR 200,000 (approximately USD 520,000)" and lists seven investment-based routes. The agency's follow-up three months later repeats the same threshold as USD 520,000 across "seven clearly defined routes". The ministry's own public-facing portal at omanresidence.gov.om lists the qualifying activities and names no higher figure.
The figure the professional-services market uses is OMR 500,000 for ten years and OMR 250,000 for five. Both appear in material published after the launch, which is what makes this genuinely confusing rather than merely stale. We go through where each one comes from two sections below.
One thing both camps agree on, and it is worth saying plainly before any table: the threshold is capital you commit, not a price you pay. Property, company equity, bonds, listed shares and bank deposits are all assets you continue to own. The money the government actually keeps is the permit fee, and that is the number with the weakest paper trail of all.
| What you are pricing | Amount | USD at the 2.6008 peg | Do you get it back? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qualifying capital, official figure | OMR 200,000 | 520,160 | Yes — you own the asset |
| Qualifying capital, pre-launch 10-year tier | OMR 500,000 | 1,300,400 | Yes — you own the asset |
| Qualifying capital, pre-launch 5-year tier | OMR 250,000 | 650,200 | Yes — you own the asset |
| Permit fee, 10 years, most-repeated figure | OMR 551 | 1,433 | No |
| Permit fee, 5 years, most-repeated figure | OMR 326 | 848 | No |
| Retiree income test, monthly | OMR 4,000 | 10,403 | Not applicable — income, not capital |
Dollar conversions at the Central Bank of Oman's fixed peg of USD 2.6008 per rial. Only the fee rows are money you do not get back.
That last column is the one to argue with an advisor about. On the official threshold, the non-recoverable cost of an Omani permit is roughly a thousand dollars plus professional fees — which would make it one of the cheapest long-term residence permits in the world, and almost nobody describes it that way.
The OMR 200,000 test, route by route
Seven routes, one threshold. Invest Oman's announcement and the ministry's portal describe the same set, and the practical differences between them are about liquidity and lock-up rather than price.
| Route | What qualifies | Published condition |
|---|---|---|
| Company formation | A company registered in Oman, 100% foreign ownership permitted | Capital and assets at or above the threshold |
| Integrated Tourism Complex property | A completed residential, commercial or hospitality unit inside an ITC | Completed units; the ministry's portal says "property in tourism zones" |
| Government development bonds | Omani government development bonds | At least two years remaining to maturity at application |
| Listed shares | Securities listed on the Muscat Stock Exchange | Held at or above the threshold |
| Bank deposit | A fixed-term deposit with a licensed Omani bank | First term of at least five years |
| Omani employment | Owning a company that employs 50 or more Omani nationals | Employment test; capital treatment reported inconsistently |
| FCIL nomination | Nomination of key personnel or partners by a company regulated under the Foreign Capital Investment Law | The nominating company's capital must meet the threshold |
Routes as published by Invest Oman (1 September 2025) and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion's residency portal.
Two of those rows deserve a warning rather than a number. On the Omani employment route, Invest Oman's launch text reads as a standalone job-creation test with no capital attached, while Gulf News's launch-day report describes a company with at least 50 Omani staff and OMR 200,000 in capital. Nothing we could find settles it, so if that is your route, get it in writing before you hire.
The deposit route is the one with the real teeth. A five-year first term on a fixed deposit at the threshold is five years of capital you cannot touch, and a bond has to carry two years of remaining maturity on the day you apply — which quietly rules out the cheap end of the secondary market. The equity and property routes have no equivalent lock, which is why most of the demand has gone into property.
The family terms are generous and, unusually, documented. Invest Oman states that a successful applicant can sponsor a spouse and children with no age limits, own one additional property outside the tourism zones, employ up to three domestic workers, and use fast-track immigration lanes. Gulf News's launch report extends family inclusion to first-degree relatives with no restriction on age or number. If you are comparing programmes on family cost, that matters more than a few hundred rials of fee.
Where OMR 500,000 and OMR 250,000 come from
These were the real thresholds of the real programme — just not this one. Oman has run an investor residency scheme since 2021 with a ten-year tier at OMR 500,000 and a five-year tier at OMR 250,000, the five-year one widely marketed as a "Silver Visa" against the ten-year "Golden Visa". The relaunch of 31 August 2025 folded that into a single Golden Residency and, on the government's own account, lowered the entry point.
What makes the old figures sticky is their provenance. They are in a Deloitte Middle East note and in a Trowers & Hamlins briefing published 24 September 2025 — both dated after the launch, both correctly describing a scheme that had just been replaced. Arabian Gulf Business Insight was still writing "between OR250,000 ($650,000) and OR500,000" in June 2026. When a figure has that calibre of citation behind it, it does not die on schedule.
| Figure | Who publishes it | Date | What it actually describes |
|---|---|---|---|
| OMR 200,000, one 10-year permit | Invest Oman, MoCIIP, Gulf News | 31 Aug – 13 Sep 2025 | The Golden Residency as relaunched |
| OMR 500,000 / OMR 250,000 tiers | Khaleej Times, The National | 23–25 Aug 2025 | The pre-relaunch scheme, written before 31 August |
| OMR 500,000 / OMR 250,000 tiers | Deloitte Middle East, Trowers & Hamlins | Sep 2025 | The pre-relaunch scheme, dated after the launch |
| OMR 250,000–500,000 range | Arabian Gulf Business Insight | Jun 2026 | Ministry briefing, 10 months after the relaunch |
Every row is real reporting. The disagreement is about which scheme is being described, not about arithmetic.
There is a second, smaller discrepancy in the same family: whether a five-year permit still exists at all. The ministry's consumer portal advertises a ten-year residency and nothing else. AGBI, citing the ministry in June 2026, describes "renewable five and 10-year residency permits". Our reading is that the ten-year permit is the product being marketed and the five-year tier is a survivor of the old scheme, but we cannot source that, so we are telling you it is unresolved instead of picking one.
Practically: if you are at or above OMR 500,000 the question does not arise, because you clear every version of the test. The people who need this resolved are the ones between OMR 200,000 and OMR 250,000 — exactly the band the relaunch was meant to open up. Ask the ministry in writing, and do not let a law-firm brochure be the last word.
The permit fee is the worst-sourced number on this page
Every Oman golden visa cost page quotes a fee. We went looking for the document behind it and came back empty.
The figures in circulation are OMR 551 for ten years and OMR 326 for five. They appear in Khaleej Times's and The National's pre-launch reports of 24 and 25 August 2025, both attributing them to the Invest Oman platform, and they have been copied onward into law-firm briefings and advisory guides ever since. A separate well-maintained guide, reviewed in October 2026, gives OMR 500 for the principal ten-year permit plus OMR 100 per joining family member instead.
| Fee claimed | Applies to | Where it comes from | Official source? |
|---|---|---|---|
| OMR 551 (USD 1,433) | 10-year permit, main applicant | Pre-launch news reports, 24–25 Aug 2025 | None found |
| OMR 326 (USD 848) | 5-year permit, main applicant | Same reports | None found |
| OMR 500 (USD 1,300) | 10-year permit, principal | Advisory guide, reviewed Oct 2026 | None found |
| OMR 100 (USD 260) | Each joining family member | Same guide | None found |
We checked investoman.om, omanresidence.gov.om and tejarah.gov.om and found no published fee schedule for the Golden Residency.
None of this means the fees are wrong. OMR 551 and OMR 326 are oddly specific, and specificity of that kind usually comes from a real schedule rather than a rounded guess. But a figure whose only trail leads back to two newspapers written before the programme launched does not belong in a budget as a fixed line, and no page we read admits that.
What to do with it: treat the permit fee as a few hundred rials, around USD 850 to USD 1,450, and ask whoever is quoting you to point at the schedule. On the official threshold the fee is about a quarter of one per cent of the capital you are committing, so it should not change a decision — which is exactly why nobody has bothered to source it. For comparison, the cheapest golden visa options are ranked on precisely this kind of non-recoverable cost.
The real cost is the queue, not the threshold
Here is the part that no competing page on this keyword mentions, and it is the only part that would change what we did with our own money.
Oman's Ministry of Economy told state-owned Oman Television that applications averaged about 5,500 a month through the first five months of 2026 — roughly 56,000 applications in the programme's first ten months, reported by AGBI on 9 June 2026. About 70% of applicants were expatriates already living in Oman. India, the United Kingdom and Egypt were the three largest source countries.
And as of that reporting, no approvals had been issued. The ministry said processing of property-linked applications would begin in the third quarter of 2026, with approvals expected within the following three months. Read against a programme that launched on 31 August 2025, that is a cohort of applicants who have been waiting a year or more on an application the government had not started assessing.
The sequencing is what costs money. Every qualifying route requires the capital to be in place at application: the property bought, the deposit placed on a five-year term, the bonds held with two years left to run. So the OMR 200,000 is committed first and the decision arrives later — in a market where the volume of applicants is itself moving prices. Oman's total property sales rose about 6% to roughly USD 3 billion in the first five months of 2026, and local agents attribute the rise to the residency programme.
This is not a reason to avoid Oman. It is a reason to price the gap. If your capital is going into an ITC apartment you would happily own anyway, the queue costs you nothing but patience. If you were planning to lock OMR 200,000 into a five-year bank deposit purely to buy a permit, you are tying up the money before anyone has told you the permit is coming. Those are very different risks and no fee table shows either of them. Our guide to citizenship by investment processing time makes the same point about programmes that publish a timeline and then miss it.
What the June 2026 land amendment changed
On 23 June 2026 Oman widened the programme to cover land, not just finished buildings. Foreign investors can now qualify by buying land for the development of homes or residential rental units, under an amendment signed by Lieutenant General Hassan Al Shuraiqi, head of Oman's police and customs agency. The stated aim is to make Oman more attractive for real-estate investment by adding flexibility to the residency arrangements.
It is a bigger change than it reads. The property route had been restricted to completed units inside Integrated Tourism Complexes, which is a narrow and relatively expensive slice of the market. Land for residential development is cheaper per rial of eventual value and opens the route to anyone who wants to build rather than buy — and it brings build quality and timing inside the applicant's control rather than a developer's.
It also tells you something about how this programme is being run. Ten months in, with tens of thousands of applications and nothing approved, the government's response was to widen eligibility rather than clear the backlog. If you are modelling Oman, assume the rules will keep moving for another year or two. That cuts both ways: the threshold has already come down once, and a programme willing to amend its property rules twice in a year is not a programme whose terms you should treat as permanent.
What the amendment does not do is change the threshold or the fee. It adds an asset class to an existing test. Anyone pricing the land route should assume the same OMR 200,000 applies until the ministry says otherwise.
The 2028 income tax a ten-year permit has to outlive
Oman is the first GCC country to legislate a personal income tax, and a Golden Residency bought today runs well past the day it starts.
Royal Decree 56/2025, issued by Sultan Haitham bin Tariq on 22 June 2025, promulgates the Personal Income Tax Law. PwC Middle East's alert records the mechanics: a 5% rate on annual income above a threshold of OMR 42,000, effective 1 January 2028, with tax residents — Omani and expatriate alike — defined as anyone present in Oman 183 days or more and taxed on their worldwide income. Housing-loan interest, education and health insurance costs, charitable contributions and zakat are deductible, and the tax authority expects around 99% of the population to be unaffected.
| Element | Published position |
|---|---|
| Instrument | Royal Decree 56/2025, issued 22 June 2025 |
| Rate | 5% on income above the threshold |
| Threshold | OMR 42,000 a year (USD 109,234 at the peg) |
| Effective | 1 January 2028 |
| Residence test | 183 days or more in Oman in a tax year |
| Scope for residents | Worldwide taxable income |
| Executive regulations | Due within one year of publication in the Official Gazette |
Mechanics as recorded by PwC Middle East from Oman Tax Authority communications. The executive regulations will govern the detail.
Two readings follow, and which one applies to you depends entirely on whether you intend to live there. If Oman is a base you visit — the pattern for most golden-visa holders — the 183-day test is not met and the decree is irrelevant to you. If Oman is where you actually move, a household above roughly USD 109,000 of annual income is looking at 5% of the excess on worldwide income from 2028, in a country that currently markets itself on having none.
Either way, the comparison tables that file Oman under "no personal income tax" are describing a position with a published expiry date, and the pages that omit the decree are pricing a ten-year permit against a two-year tax regime. Nothing here is tax advice and the executive regulations are not out; take it as the reason to ask a qualified adviser a specific question rather than a general one.
Oman against the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain
Every Gulf state now runs a long-term residence permit, and they have split into two shapes: a large fee with no investment, or a small fee with a large qualifying investment. Oman sits firmly in the second camp, and on the official threshold it is the cheapest entry in the region that still asks for capital.
| Programme | Qualifying capital | Government fee | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oman Golden Residency | OMR 200,000 (USD 520,160) on the official test | No published schedule; ~OMR 326–551 reported | 10 years, renewable |
| Bahrain Golden Residency | BHD 130,000 (USD 345,745) on the property route; four routes need none | BHD 305 (USD 811) | Permanent, fee every 10 years |
| Saudi Arabia Premium Residency | None on the fee-only route | SAR 100,000 a year, or SAR 800,000 once | 1 year renewable, or permanent |
| UAE Golden Visa | AED 2,000,000 on the property route | Low hundreds of dirhams in government fees | 10 years, renewable |
Figures as published by each government; see our per-country guides for the itemised fee tables.
Bahrain is the sharper comparison than the UAE. It asks for about two-thirds of Oman's capital on its property route, charges BHD 305 in total, has four routes that need no investment at all, and issues a permanent status rather than a ten-year one. If the question is simply "what is the cheapest way into the Gulf with a long permit", Bahrain currently answers it.
What Oman has is the cheapest market. Property and living costs are materially below Dubai or Doha, which is the reason applicants give for choosing it, and it has been less exposed to the regional conflict than its neighbours. The competitive pressure is real, too: in April 2026 Dubai dropped the AED 750,000 minimum on its two-year property investor visa, though its ten-year Golden Visa threshold of AED 2,000,000 is unchanged. The cheap end of the Gulf is getting cheaper. Our golden visa cost comparison sets the European programmes against these on the same basis.
Related guides on Domicila
- Bahrain golden visa cost — the Gulf's cheapest government bill, and the closest comparison to Oman's.
- Saudi Arabia golden visa cost — the opposite trade: a very large fee and no investment at all.
- UAE golden visa cost — the regional benchmark, category by category.
- Cheapest golden visa — the low end of the market, ranked on money you never get back.
- Golden visa countries — every programme still open in 2026, and what each permit leads to.
- Golden visa health insurance requirements — the cover Oman and most other programmes ask you to produce with the application.
Common questions
How much does the Oman golden visa cost in 2026?
On Oman's own official figure, you must commit a minimum of OMR 200,000 in qualifying capital, about USD 520,160 at the rial's fixed peg of USD 2.6008. That is capital you continue to own — property, company equity, bonds, listed shares or a bank deposit — not a fee. The permit fee itself is widely reported as OMR 551 for the ten-year permit and OMR 326 for the five-year one, roughly USD 1,433 and USD 848, but we could not find either figure on a government page, so treat it as an estimate and ask for the schedule.
Is the Oman golden visa threshold OMR 200,000 or OMR 500,000?
Invest Oman's launch announcement of 1 September 2025 and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion both state OMR 200,000. The OMR 500,000 and OMR 250,000 figures are the ten-year and five-year tiers of the investor residency scheme that ran before the 31 August 2025 relaunch, and they are still being published by professional-services firms and Gulf business media. If you are above OMR 500,000 the conflict does not affect you. If you are between OMR 200,000 and OMR 250,000 it decides whether you qualify, so get the current threshold confirmed by the ministry in writing.
What are the qualifying routes for Oman's Golden Residency?
Seven, as published by Invest Oman: forming a company in Oman; buying a completed unit in an Integrated Tourism Complex; buying government development bonds with at least two years left to maturity; investing in shares listed on the Muscat Stock Exchange; placing a fixed-term deposit with a licensed Omani bank for at least five years; owning a company that employs 50 or more Omani nationals; or being nominated by a company regulated under the Foreign Capital Investment Law. Since 23 June 2026 land bought for residential development also qualifies.
How long does an Oman Golden Residency application take?
Longer than any published timeline suggests. Oman's economy ministry said in June 2026 that processing of property-linked applications would begin in the third quarter of 2026, with approvals expected within the following three months — on a programme that opened on 31 August 2025 and had received about 56,000 applications. No approvals had been issued at that point. Because every route requires the capital to be in place at the time of application, the money is committed well before any decision arrives.
Does Oman's golden visa lead to citizenship?
No, not as a feature of the programme. The Golden Residency is a renewable ten-year residence permit, and nothing in Oman's published material offers a route to nationality through it. Omani naturalisation is governed separately, is discretionary, and requires many years of continuous legal residence. No Gulf golden visa should be bought on the expectation of a passport at the end of it.
Will Oman's new income tax affect golden visa holders?
Only if you actually live there. Royal Decree 56/2025 of 22 June 2025 introduces a 5% personal income tax on annual income above OMR 42,000, about USD 109,234, with effect from 1 January 2028. Tax residence is defined as presence in Oman of 183 days or more in a tax year, and tax residents are taxed on worldwide income. A permit holder who visits rather than relocates does not meet that test. Executive regulations are still to be issued, so take specific advice rather than relying on a comparison table that lists Oman as having no income tax.
Can family members be included in Oman's Golden Residency?
Yes. Invest Oman states that a successful applicant can sponsor a spouse and children with no age limitations, and Gulf News's launch-day report extends this to first-degree relatives with no restriction on age or number. Holders may also own one additional property outside the tourism zones, employ up to three domestic workers, and use fast-track immigration lanes. Fees for joining family members are not published on any government page we could find; one advisory guide quotes OMR 100 per application.
Is Oman cheaper than the UAE or Bahrain for a golden visa?
It depends on which half of the cost you mean. Bahrain is cheaper on both: BHD 130,000 of property against Oman's OMR 200,000, and a total government bill of BHD 305. The UAE's ten-year Golden Visa property route asks AED 2,000,000, considerably more than Oman's threshold, although Dubai dropped the minimum property value on its shorter two-year investor visa in April 2026. Oman's genuine advantage is the price of the underlying market rather than the programme — property and living costs there are materially below Dubai or Doha.
Official sources to verify
- Oman Steps into the Global Spotlight with Launch of 10-Year Golden ResidencyInvest Oman, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion
- Oman's 10-Year Golden Residency Program Attracts Strong Global Interest Three Months After LaunchInvest Oman, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion
- Golden Residency Program — Sultanate of OmanMinistry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion, Sultanate of Oman
- Golden Residency: a minimum investment requirement of OMR 200,000Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion, Sultanate of Oman
- Oman officially launches 10-year golden residency to attract foreign capital and talentGulf News
- Oman extends golden visa to cover land bought by investorsArabian Gulf Business Insight
- Long-term view behind demand for Oman's golden visaArabian Gulf Business Insight
- Oman introduces Personal Income Tax (Royal Decree 56/2025)PwC Middle East
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