The Three UAE Residency Tiers, Compared
Three UAE packages are named on First Class Citizen's own material. The two published in any detail buy the same thing, residency through a free zone company you own, and what separates them is speed and how much of the work is carried for you.
Only one of the three is published in full. The Elite package sets out what it includes, how long it takes and what it costs. Premium publishes a timeline and five inclusions and no figure. Standard is named in their copy and carries a service URL of its own, with no card in the plan chooser, no timeline and no price on it.
So this comparison does something slightly unusual. It sets out exactly what each tier puts on the record, and where the record is empty it leaves the space empty rather than filling it in from somewhere else.
Those blanks are not a detail. Two of the three tiers carry no published figure at all, and that is the first thing worth settling before choosing between them.
What is published, and under which name
Start with the naming, because it does not line up as neatly as three tier names suggest.
The plan chooser on their Dubai page carries three cards. The first is a company on its own: a free zone company, formed entirely online, published at three days. It buys a company and nothing else. No residency, no medical, no Emirates ID.
The second is the Premium residency package, published at twenty five days. The third is the Elite package, and it is the only one of the three with a figure attached to it.
Standard sits outside all of that. The word appears twice in their published copy, both times in passing prose, and never as a card in the chooser. A service URL bearing the name does exist, rendering an empty portal template with no timeline, no inclusion list and no price on it. So Standard has a URL and no card, while the free zone company card has a card and no URL.
Which leaves one question this page cannot answer from published material: whether the company-only card and the Standard package are the same product under two names, or two different things. Nothing published says. It matters, because everything else about Standard follows from the answer, and it is a two minute question on a call rather than something to guess at here.
Two of the three tiers publish no figure at all. The call is where that gets settled, along with which one you actually need.
Book Your Assessment CallThe chain every route runs through
Whatever the tier, the steps are the same steps, and each link waits on the one before it.
It opens with payment and a six minute form to create the free zone company. Three days later the company is incorporated and you are made its manager.
About five days in, you fly. The following day, in under ninety minutes, the medical test and the fingerprints. Three to five business days after that, the Emirates ID.
Then the bank, and it is attended: they go to the appointment with you. Three to five business days later the account is live and the debit card reaches you, with the corporate account and its own card opened alongside it.
One precision note for anyone adding the days up. Their step block carries short day labels above each step and fuller ranges in the text underneath, and the two do not reconcile exactly. The ranges in the text are the ones to plan around.
Sixteen days end to end is the published figure for the fastest route, and the fastest route is Elite. The sequence in full, including the tax side, sits on the foundation guide.
What the Elite package publishes
Elite carries the longest published list, and it is the only tier that states how long the residency itself runs.
On the record: a UAE temporary residency of two years, the Emirates ID inside sixteen days from the start, bank account assistance covering both the personal and the corporate account, and the medical test and fingerprints.
Then the access half of it. A private chauffeur throughout, described as premium rides to save time, with excellent English. A connected team available for questions about Dubai and the UAE across topics. Chat support around the clock on WhatsApp and Telegram. A complimentary one to one consultation with Miquel Gironès of sixty minutes, and access to his direct line. An invitation to their millionaire meetups, which is how they describe access to their network of high net worth individuals.
Two more things are marked Elite only elsewhere on the page rather than sitting in the list itself: a premium car that collects you at the airport and takes you to your stay, and skipping the standard lines at the appointments.
Read as a whole, what Elite publishes over the others is speed, attendance and access. What the residency itself looks like on the other tiers, and for how long it runs, is not published, which is the next section's problem rather than this one's.
What the Premium package publishes, and the one line that does not match
Premium publishes a card heading of twenty five days, five inclusions, and no figure.
The five: the zero tax free zone company, the medical test with fingerprints and the Emirates ID, personal and company banking assistance together with one year of accounting, access to Miquel Gironès and the team on Telegram and WhatsApp, and introductions from their network in Dubai, tailored to what you are actually looking for.
Set that beside the Elite list and one line stands out. Premium publishes a year of accounting. The Elite list does not mention accounting at all.
That is how it is published, and it is worth asking about directly rather than assuming in either direction. It reads either as an omission on the Elite card or as a real difference in what is carried, and only they can say which. Anyone comparing the two lists closely will land on it within a minute, so it belongs on the call agenda rather than in a footnote.
The other gap is duration. Elite publishes two years of temporary residency. Premium publishes no term at all, and neither does the company-only card, which does not include a residency in the first place.
The packages differ in speed and in how much is carried for you. Which of those matters is a fifteen minute conversation.
Book Your Assessment CallThe one price on the record
Now the number, because it only means anything once both lists above are in view.
The Elite package is published at $25,000, described on the card as a one time set-up fee. That is the only UAE package price published anywhere on their site, and it has been stable there.
The rest are blank, and they stay blank here. Premium: ___________. The company-only free zone product: ___________. Standard: ___________. Three empty spaces, and this page is not going to fill them from anywhere else.
Two things the published figure does not settle, and both come up on every call. What sits inside a one time set-up fee and what sits beside it is not published, so whether government, visa, medical and Emirates ID costs are inside that number or on top of it is an open question rather than a detail. And nothing is published about what recurs after the first year, which matters because the accounting on the Premium card is explicitly one year.
What is published is how payment is taken: crypto in USDT or BTC, bank transfer, or card through Stripe with a four percent fee added. They also publish that further options exist on request.
Three conditions no tier changes
Whichever tier is chosen, three things hold, and they are the parts people most often meet late.
First, ownership. Their published position is flat: the free zone company must be owned by you for the UAE residency to be granted. They form it and make you its manager. Anyone who does not want to own a company does not have a route here, on any tier.
Second, the Emirates ID gate. Asked directly whether a UAE bank account can be opened without an Emirates ID, their published answer is no, and that once the ID exists the opening is straightforward with them attending. Accounts run in dollars, euros, sterling, Canadian dollars and dirhams.
Third, presence. The medical test and the fingerprints happen in Dubai, and so does the bank appointment. Separately from the process itself, the tax side has two published limbs: becoming a non-tax-resident in your country of origin, then spending more than ninety days a year in the UAE. Whether those ninety days are counted continuously or across the year is not published.
That first limb is not a UAE question at all. It belongs to the country you are leaving, its rules are that country's rules, and no package on this page speaks to them. It is the single most useful thing to raise on the call, and it is why a visa on its own settles less than people expect.
On the corporate side, First Class Citizen's position is that the free zone companies they incorporate remain at zero. Whether that holds for what your company actually does is a question for the call rather than for a page. They also publish that all processes are legal and properly registered in the official government system.
What none of the tiers publish
A comparison is only as useful as the questions it leaves open, so here they are in one place. They make a good agenda for the call.
The document set. What a UAE client has to provide, and when, is not published for any tier. It is the most asked question before anyone pays, and there is no published answer to hand you here.
Renewal. Nothing is published about what happens after the first year or the second, on the licence, on the residency or on the accounting.
Family. A spouse and children are not mentioned once across the UAE material, so anyone moving with a family cannot yet see what that involves.
Per person or per household. Not stated on any tier.
The bank, and any opening deposit. The institutions are described only as the same banks that billionaires keep their money in. No bank is named and no minimum deposit is published.
Days on the ground. The sequence shows arrival, a next-day medical, an Emirates ID a few days later and then a bank appointment, but the total number of days you actually need to be in the country is never stated. That is the number people need before booking flights.
None of those get filled in from general knowledge, here or anywhere else we publish. They all have real answers. They are simply answers that come from the team rather than from a page, and they take about fifteen minutes to get.
Two of the three tiers publish no figure at all. The call is where that gets settled, along with which one you actually need.
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FAQ
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Find out which UAE tier you actually need
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