-
Services
BUSINESS SERVICES
VISA & RESIDENCY
DOCUMENT SERVICES
LEGAL SERVICES
EMIRATES ID
ACCOUNTING SERVICES
- Who We Are
- Resources
- Request Services
The friendly, industry name is the family contract work permit. The exact service, as listed by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, is "Issuance of a New Work Permit — Dependents Sponsored by Family Members." Same thing. When you hear staff or agents say "family permit" or "dependent work permit," this is what they mean.
Mechanically, it is a MOHRE work permit issued to a registered employer so they can legally put you on payroll — while your residency stays under your family sponsor. The permit attaches to the residency you already hold. It does not replace it.
One quick distinction so you do not pick the wrong door. The family contract work permit is for a full role under your existing family sponsorship. It is not the part-time work permit, which is a separate MOHRE permit designed for a second job or working for more than one employer on top of an existing role. If you simply want to take a job and stay on your spouse's visa, the family contract permit is the one.
This is one of several visa situations where residency alone does not grant the right to work — if you want the bigger picture, our guide to which UAE visas need a separate MOHRE work permit lays out the full map.
The eligibility test is refreshingly short.
Note what is not on this list. You do not have to re-prove your sponsor's income. The salary threshold you may have read about — roughly AED 4,000 a month, or AED 3,000 plus accommodation — is the condition for sponsoring a family member in the first place. It was satisfied when your family visa was issued. It is not a fresh hurdle for the work permit, and you should ignore any advice that says you must clear it again.
Don’t want to figure this out alone? Sarmat is a KHDA-certified training provider and registered typing centre in Deira, Dubai. Message us on WhatsApp — we answer questions like this every day.
This is the part every competitor leaves vague. Here is the actual sequence we collect and file at the counter.
You will need:
A word of honesty on two of these. The NOC and the attested marriage certificate are not always spelled out on the MOHRE service page itself — that page leans on the offer form, passport, photo, and academic certificates. In practice, though, the sponsor's consent and proof of the marriage sit underneath this whole arrangement, and they are what we collect to keep your file clean and avoid a bounce-back. If you have not yet sorted them, here is how to get a no-objection certificate (NOC) from your sponsor and an attested marriage certificate.
The procedure itself:
That last line is the one to hold on to. Nothing about your residency is cancelled, re-issued, or transferred.
Here is why the family contract route almost always wins — and the table the rest of the niche skips.
| Family contract work permit | Cancel & re-sponsor (full employment visa) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sponsors you | Your spouse stays your sponsor | Your employer becomes your sponsor |
| Do you cancel your residency? | No — residency stays as is | Yes — family visa cancelled, new visa issued |
| Cost (ballpark) | Modest MOHRE permit fee only (roughly AED 300, see below) | Full employment-visa package — entry permit, status change, medical, EID, stamping |
| Time | MOHRE target ~2 working days for the permit | Weeks — a full new-visa cycle |
| Medical & Emirates ID redo? | No — you keep your existing residency and EID | Yes — fresh medical and new Emirates ID |
| When it makes sense | You want to work and keep your family residency | Employer insists on sponsoring you, or the role/zone requires it |
For most spouses taking a mainland role, the left column is the cheaper, faster, lower-friction path — and it leaves your residency exactly where it is.
Money first, because this is where the bad advice does real damage. The MOHRE permit fee itself is modest — roughly AED 300 for the two-year permit (issuance plus application). Fees tier by skill category and are confirmed at the point of filing, so treat AED 300 as the ballpark, not a quote.
What it is not is the AED 3,000–6,000 you may have seen quoted for spouse and family visas. That is a different line item entirely — the cost of sponsoring a family member, which you already paid. The work permit does not repeat it. Anyone bundling the two figures together is muddling two separate processes.
The permit is valid for two years, in line with your residency cycle. On timing, MOHRE's own processing target for this service is around two working days. Allow longer end-to-end, though — paperwork gathering, employer steps, and any document you still need to attest realistically push the real-world timeline to a few weeks. Plan for a few weeks; be pleasantly surprised if it is faster.
We would be doing you a disservice if we pretended the family contract permit is right for everyone. Sometimes the cancel-and-re-sponsor route genuinely is the better move.
If your employer is a free-zone company that insists on sponsoring you directly, or the role is a senior, higher-tier position where full company sponsorship comes with the package, then switching to a standard employment visa makes sense. The same is true if you would rather have your residency tied to your job for your own reasons. In those cases the extra cost and time buy you something you actually want. The point is to choose deliberately — not to cancel your family visa because someone told you that was the only way. For the overwhelming majority of spouses, it is not.
For a spouse who has been at home or job-hunting, this permit is the difference between a sentence and a paragraph in your CV. It lets you take the offer, draw a UAE salary, build local experience, and keep your family's residency stable while you do it — no gap, no risk to your status.
It also quietly makes you a more attractive hire. An employer who can put you on a family contract permit avoids the cost and weeks of sponsoring your residency from scratch — which, for SMEs and corporate-services firms watching their visa budgets, is a real point in your favour. You are cheaper and faster to onboard, and you can say so.
You can spend two weeks reading conflicting forum threads and risk a rejected application — or you can bring it to a team that files these every week. Sarmat has spent 12+ years on UAE government services and served 5,000+ clients across Dubai from our centre in Deira, and we know exactly what a clean dependent-permit file looks like before it ever reaches MOHRE.
Bring us your offer letter and your sponsor's NOC, and we will draft the paperwork and file your family contract work permit for you — residency untouched. Message us on WhatsApp at wa.me/971506395245 or walk into the Deira centre. (And if you handle this kind of filing professionally yourself, we also run a KHDA-certified practical UAE visa course — but for your own permit, just let us do it.)
Yes, both. A wife can work while staying on her husband's family visa, and since the 2019 rule change a husband can do the same on his wife's visa. In each case you need a MOHRE work permit; you do not need to switch to your own employment visa.
No. This is the single most common fear and the answer is no. The family contract work permit is layered on top of your existing family residency — your sponsor stays your sponsor and your residence does not change.
It is the permit officially titled "Issuance of a New Work Permit — Dependents Sponsored by Family Members," issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation to your registered employer so they can legally employ you while you remain on your family visa.
Your signed MOHRE job offer, a no-objection certificate from your sponsoring spouse, your attested marriage certificate (usually already on file), a passport copy with six months' validity, a copy of your Emirates ID, a photo, and academic certificates where the skill level requires them.
In practice, yes — a no-objection certificate from your sponsoring spouse is part of a clean file and is what we collect at the counter. Your spouse is consenting to you taking up employment while remaining under their sponsorship.
The MOHRE permit fee is modest — roughly AED 300 for the two-year permit (issuance plus application), with fees tiering by skill category and confirmed at filing. That is separate from, and far below, family-visa sponsorship costs.
MOHRE's processing target for the permit is around two working days. Allow longer end-to-end — gathering documents and employer steps realistically make it a few weeks in total.
Yes. You pay only the modest MOHRE permit fee and skip the full employment-visa package — no new entry permit, no fresh medical, no new Emirates ID — because your residency stays under your family sponsor.
Helping individuals and businesses navigate UAE government procedures with precision and ease.Based in Dubai. Local experts. Government-compliant.
Proudly based in Dubai