I will give you a brief overview what you should be looking at in your contract. Of course, the contract is different for everyone. This will only give you an idea what you can ask for.

Employment in Dubai

Benefits

• Housing is quite expensive here, so ask for a housing allowance. Most landlords also ask for an annual payment in one cheque. It would be better if it was paid by your employer rather than yourself.
• Real estate agent fee is normally 5% of the annual lease price. Ask your employer to pay for it.
• Housing security deposit is normally 5% as well. It is refundable but it is still some money you will have to pay immediately. Ask your employer to pay it for you and then deduct from your salary during a few following months (or from the first salary).
• Car is a must-have in Dubai. A company car or a car allowance will make your life easier. It should be at least about a monthly rent-a-car rate.
• Fuel is cheap, distances are quite high though. Having a fuel card will save you some money.
• Leave ticket for the employee or the whole family once a year is normally provided by Dubai employers. Ask for a possibility to encash it instead. If your home is somewhere in Chile, it can be a good deal!
• Schooling is expensive. Ask your company to pay for it.
• Medical insurance will help you a lot as good healthcare in Dubai costs a fortune.

Use living cost calculator to get an overview on the cost of living in Dubai.

Relocation

• Preview visit for you and your spouse would be quite a good deal. Dubai is a city that not everyone will like, so it may be worth to have a look at it first. Read more about a preview trip.
• One-way tickets for the whole family. Try not to pay for them yourself.
• Visas for the family. This will save you some time and money.
• Temporary accommodation in a serviced apartment for at least a month will help you to secure a permanent place to leave without any rush. It would be better if there was a kitchen in there. It will save you some money for eating. Otherwise, ask for a meals allowance.
• Relocation agents are quite useful in terms of searching for a place to live, preparing documents, etc. They cost some money though.
• Personal effects and furniture transportation and storage
• Relocation allowance or one-off payment to facilitate your move would be nice to have. This will allow you not to transfer your home currency into dirhams to live until you get your first salary. It may also help you to pay for some stuff you will need to settle in like utilities deposits, curtains, etc.

Redundancy / end of service

Of course, almost nobody relocates thinking of being made redundant. Though given the current economic downturn, it is worth to provide yourself with some security.

• Notice period is how many days/weeks/months they will give you in advance before the retrenchment.
• Severance pay. You never know if the employer will fire you or not to save costs. You may have bought a car, got a loan, etc. Make sure you are paid well if you are laid off.
• Repatriation is better to be paid by the company. Tickets for the whole family, furniture and other stuff transportation, tenancy termination fees, etc.

Miscellaneous

• Start (entrance) date. If you are relocating within the same company, make sure your new assignment is considered a continuous employment. So that 1) you don’t have a probation period and 2) you don’t lose any money in case of retrenchment or resignation.
• Sick leave and annual leave. I don’t know how they are regulated by law. I have them hard-coded in my contract. Why not?

Should you have anything else to add, please feel free to add a comment.

Dubai Visa

To enter the UAE you will need to either stamp a visa upon arrival or ask your employer to apply for a visa for you.

Read more about the visa in Dubai Visa post.

Shipping your stuff to Dubai

Check your contract if it includes shipping your stuff. It is quite expensive, and if it is covered by your employer, you would definitely save some money.

The shipping company you would choose to move your stuff to Dubai will depend on where you are going from. If you are moving from Europe, better to try using one of the major international moving companies. Check Crown Relocations and Interdean.

If you don’t want to be disappointed, I would trust professionals.

Fly Dubai

Some employers provide fly-in tickets with the contract. Check yours.

How you arrive in Dubai surely depends on where you are flying from. The most comfortable options out of EU are of course Lufthansa, Emirates, KLM and (I personally adore for a stunning service) Qatar Airways. However, if you are going to buy a one-way ticket, these may not be the most optimal.

As I wrote in Dubai visa post, it is better to fly to the city your visa issued by (shouldn’t really matter if you can buy a visa upon arrival).

Qatar Airways Plane

Temporary accommodation in Dubai

Check your contract if you’ve got a temporary accommodation for the period you will be securing a place to live.

While you are looking for an apartment, you will have to stay somewhere.

• If you have to pay yourself, then it can be a good idea to stay with friends if there are any, or to try to rent an apartment for a month.

• If the company pays for you, I would stay in a serviced apartment. There are a lot of such in Dubai. Just google them.

My move to Dubai

The company I work for uses Crown Relocations and Interdean, whatever is cheaper in a particular case, to ship employees’ personal stuff overseas. I had to collect quotations from both companies and provide them to HR.

• Crown sounded very professionally on the phone, they followed up everything, and I really liked the attitude.

• Interdean sent a lady to my home to assess the amount of stuff to move. I requested an appointment after working hours and they did it. It was very convenient; I really appreciate when service companies stick to your schedule not theirs. She came on time, had a look at the stuff, took notes and calculated approximate volume. It was almost precisely correct at the end.

At the end, Interdean quotation was cheaper, so they were chosen.

Three movers came to my apartment 5 minutes earlier than the booking time and finished in less than an hour with about 10 boxes. They packed everything themselves, including all the kitchen ware, dishes, electronics and even the washing machine using bubble wrap, paper and their own boxes as I didn’t have the stock package. After that I signed an invoice and they disappeared.

The stuff was shipped by sea-freight. The container had arrived a couple of days before I moved in my apartment in Dubai. Interdean hasn’t got a branch in Dubai, so another company called Writer Relocations delivered the shipment. They arrived on time and brought all the stuff into the apartment. Unpacking was also a part of the deal but I refused. Instead I checked a couple of boxes with the most fragile things (dishes and electronics). Nothing had been broken! That part of move was simply perfect.

I moved from Brussels and the only one-way option that was cheap enough was Turkish Airways via Istanbul. Can’t say that I really liked the journey, but that mostly relates to the fact that the plane was full. Service was fairly good.

With my contract, I was entitled with 1 month stay in an Angsana serviced apartment which was quite nice – a fourty something floors brand new building on Sheikh Zayed Road with a pool on the roof and free shuttle buses to Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates. We weren’t bored there. Although, Angsana was nice, it has gone bankrupt recently. So, you will have to find another place to stay at.

Angsana Living Room

Angsana Bedroom

Angsana Kitchen

To live and work in Dubai you will need an entry visa to enter the country and a Dubai residency visa stamped in your passport to live and work there.

Tips: Dubai tourist visa / Dubai entry visa

To enter the country you will have to have a valid UAE visa. It is called visit visa or entry visa. Normally it is issued for the period of one month.

If you are lucky enough to be a citizen of one of the countries listed below you won’t have to think about an entry visa.

List of countries those citizens may receive their visit visa upon arrival

UK (with the right of abode in UK), France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Finland, Spain, Monaco, Vatican, Iceland, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and holders of Hong Kong SAR passports will be granted a free of charge visa for a single visit upon arrival in the UAE. It should be noted that this list may vary slightly from time to time and it is therefore best to check with your local UAE embassy or the airline that you are using to fly to the UAE.

Check the official information for more info.

Otherwise, your Dubai visa needs to be sponsored by someone in the UAE.

There can be 3 options:

• If you are visiting Dubai for tourism purpose or an ‘orientation trip’ and will be going to stay in a hotel, the hotel will be applying for a visa for you. Normally it will take about 1-3 working days.

• If you are going to Dubai for employment your employer will need to request a Dubai entry visa for you. On the visa you will see something like “employment” meaning that you are coming to be a Dubai resident.

• If you are going to visit your friends or family residing in Dubai, they can sponsor your visa. They will need to apply to Department of Naturalization & Residency of Dubai (DNRD). I’ve not had a chance to do that, but my colleagues claim it is a very easy procedure that can be finished in less than an hour time. The only thing that is needed is to put a deposit (quite some money by the way) that is a kind of insurance for leaving the country before the visa’s expiration date (your sponsors just won’t get their money back if you don’t leave on time). Also check out this article.

If you are a lady from none of the countries above, you are below 30 and your home country is not a Muslim country, there may be issues. Check with your sponsor who will apply for visa for you.

Once the visa is ready, normally it will be sent to you by e-mail. Print it out and show to the Dubai airport customs officers. They will do a stamp in your passport and you are in the city.

Dubai airport has got a lovely duty free in arrival zone which is quite unusual but very convenient! Don’t forget to pass through.

Dubai residence visa

Dubai residence visa can be a work permit or just a permission to live in the UAE (your spouse will get that if he/she is not planning to work)

There are 2 types of Dubai residency visas: free-zone visa and ‘regular’ residence visa.

• Dubai free zone visa will be issued if you are employed with a company inside one of Dubai free zones like Jebel Ali (JAFZA), International Airport (DAFZA), Internet city or others. Dubai free zone visa is easier to get as it does not require approval of the Ministry of Labour. Your sponsor will be the free zone, not the company you work for. You can also change jobs with a little chance to be banned.

• Non free zone visa will be issued if you are going to work for a non Dubai free zone company. Your employer will be your sponsor and there is a kind of limitation out there. If you decide to change your job and your employer is not happy with that, he can ban your for entry in UAE for 6 months. So, be careful if you want to move to Dubai for a job that you don’t like hoping to change it for something better later. That may not work out.

Normally, the company should take care of your Dubai residence visa and organize the whole process for you. You will need to do an x-ray test and a blood test to prove that you are healthy enough and here you go. After about 2 weeks you will get your stamp.

After that you will need to sponsor your wife’s visa. Everything for my wife’s Dubai residence visa was organized by the company, so I didn’t have to worry about that. She also passed a blood test and an x-ray test and got a visa in about a week time. She can’t work though. If she wants to work she will need to find a job and then convert her visa to a work permit.

Some formalities for spouses

Even if your wife or husband falls under category that can get a visa upon arrival you will still have to complete some formalities to get a Dubai residence visa for her or him.

In order to get a Dubai residence visa for your spouse (or even to get a visit/entry visa to Dubai if he or she has not got the ‘right’ citizenship) your marriage certificate needs to be attested by your country authorities and also attested by the local UAE embassy or consulate (here is the list of UAE embassies and consulates worldwide).

If it is not in English or Arabic, it will have to be translated into either language.

This is not a problem if you know about that. But it might a painful experience like we had. Read the whole story at the end.

Arriving in Dubai

If you’ve got a Dubai entry visa, don’t fly into the country via other emirates. Well, it may work out, but it would be better if you fly directly into Dubai.

My story of getting a Dubai visa

We were supposed to go for a 2 days visit to Dubai in the middle of November 2008. We had booked and paid tickets for discounted price and then it got to getting visas.

There the problems began…

The hotel that was supposed to get visas for us just refused to apply for a visit visa for my wife, because she was under 30 years old. They required a marriage certificate in either English or Arabic attested by a UAE embassy or consulate.

I found out what needed to be done: the marriage certificate should have been translated, attested by my country’s Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice and then passed to the UAE consulate for final attestation. Getting that done with local authorities took about a week. After that I brought the document to the UAE consulate, paid the fee and collected the document back the same day after lunch.

We had to cancel flight bookings, paying the return fine (the tickets were bought at a discounted price) and buy new tickets after everything had been done.

The hotel received visas in just a couple of days when we had all documents ready.

At Dubai International Airport we went to the customs officers, they scanned my wife’s eyes (they said I didn’t need to go through that procedure), and there we go. All airport formalities were quite quick. We went in after a very short while.

I definitely recommend you taking your wife/husband with you when you go to Dubai, just because she or he might not like Dubai city and you won’t be able to do anything about it. There is nothing wrong with the city or the Middle East, it is just different.

Tips before you go to visit Dubai

• Read some tips from insiders. If you have friends living in Dubai it would be the best option. This will give you an overview of what the life in Dubai is from the eyes of a resident, but an agent who is paid to relocate you.

• Make a list of areas you would like to live in. Ask your employer to hire a relocation or real estate agent to show possible housing options. If they refuse, you may want to hire an agent yourself. Search Google for relocation agents in Dubai.

• Make a list of places you would like to visit. There are some impressive landmarks, e.g. Burj Dubai, Dubai Mall, The Palm Jumeirah.

• Check out the placement of your hotel. Don’t stay too far from Dubai’s interesting places. You will either be bored or have to spend some money on taxi.

• Spend some time over the map. Find the area where you will be supposed to work and where you would like to live. Dubai is located on a shore and it is a quite long shore. If you don’t like spending too much time driving to work and back you might want to decide where you would like to live before you go to see apartments. Check out Google maps.

• Go on a working day. This will make sure you will see the traffic. It can be terrible depending on where you live and where you work.

• Pretend to be a Dubai resident when you catch a taxi . Dubai taxi is extremely good; most of the cars are new Toyota Camry or Nissan Altima. In any mall or hotel you go down to the taxi pick-up area, there are a queue and a person who manages the passenger and cab traffic. Every taxi has got a meter and it is not expensive (45 km ride costs 75 AED (14 EUR, 21 USD), you pay a fixed fee of 3 AED (0.6 EUR, 0.8 USD) when you catch a cab, 4 AED (0.7 EUR, 1.1 USD) in night time.
   

  Of course, if a taxi driver sees you as a tourist he will fool you driving non-optimal routes but at least you won’t have to negotiate the price paying by meter.

My story of visiting Dubai for the first time, Mid December 2008

In the company I work for it is called an orientation trip. It is a global practice to provide such kind of trip to each employee and the spouse accepting a job overseas.

The hotel we stayed at was Hyatt Regency, a 5-star hotel located in Deira next to the vegetable and fish market. The hotel was great, well it should have been as one night stay was something around 1 thousand AED (~ 180 EUR or 270 USD).

Hyatt Regency Dubai

The trip was 2 days over a weekend of which one day we spent with a relocation agent touring around the city and seeing apartments, and the second one we were just hanging around on our own.

Tour to Dubai, Day 1

The company hired a relocation company called Crown Relocations which managed the whole relocation process. An agent met us right at the airport upon arrival. She was a very friendly Iranian lady, very polite, very knowledgeable about Dubai, dedicated to help. We really liked the attitude.

Dubai road

From the airport we went directly to see apartments for rent in Al Warqaa and International city areas of Dubai. Although the apartments there were quite cheap (comparing to prices in fancier areas), the surroundings were construction and desert.

My wife didn’t like the areas as she knew that she wouldn’t work in Dubai, and she did not want to be bored sitting at home alone there. However, those areas are extremely good options for single men spending all time building career and do not bother about construction outdoors. And save money of course because flats for rent there are fairly cheaper than in many other areas.

After that we had a tour around the city, took a look at Bur Dubai area, Downtown Burj Dubai and Burj Al Arab hotel, finishing the tour with lunch in Mall of the Emirates and a quick look at Ski Dubai.

DIFC Area

Burj Al Arab

Then, we had a look at apartments for lease in The Greens and Downtown Burj Dubai. These are mostly known as ‘expat’ areas with fancy shopping malls and restaurants close by. The Greens is a nice area. The only issue with it right now is terrible traffic out of the area because of construction nearby. The apartment we saw at Downtown Burj Dubai was a tiny studio with a construction view. The price was overwhelming 115,000 AED / year (~ 20,800 EUR or 31,300 USD).

The Greens

Apartment at Downtown Burj Dubai: Kitchen

Apartment at Downtown Burj Dubai: Inside

Apartment at Downtown Burj Dubai: View

I don’t know why we didn’t go to see Dubai Marina and Jumeirah Beach Residence. Perhaps, our housing budget was not enough for Dubai Marina those days. Prices have dropped a lot since then.

She dropped us in the hotel in dinner time, presented a useful book about living in Dubai called Explorer and a box of candies, and after having a shower we went to see surroundings.

Surroundings were Deira’s small shops and cafeterias. The area was a bit dirty and overcrowded. After a short walk we returned back to the hotel to have dinner and sleep.

Hanging around Dubai, Day 2

I encourage you to read something about the city before you go. I didn’t. In the morning we found ourselves studying the book we were presented just before we left the hotel.

Road next to the Hotel

We didn’t go out of Deira as the agent told us that it would be expensive (we shouldn’t have listened to her though). So we went to see the fruit market which as very very good and the fish market which was… well you really have to like fresh fish to like the fish market . We walked through Deira small shopping streets and Dubai Creek shore down to Deira City Centre Mall. We started to like the city that day. The sky was blue with rare white clouds, the temperature was around 25 degrees and the sea was amazingly blue. Uhh and it was mid December.

Dubai Municipality Building

We caught a cab from the Deira City Centre mall to go back to the hotel.

For dinner we wanted to try local food, so we went to Kan Zaman restaurant at Heritage Village on the other side of Dubai Creek. The restaurant was quite nice with amazing view to Dubai Creek and its dows (small wooden ships). I didn’t take my jacket on. That was a mistake, as temperature goes down to 15 degrees in winter time.

Dubai Creek Dow

We left Dubai next day feeling happy about coming relocation.