With Pen and Paper: The Cost of Visiting the UAE If You’re Going There to Look for a Job

You’ve decided to leave the country and go abroad to look for a job, and you’ve heard that the UAE is currently one of the Arab countries that offers good salaries?! No problem—but before you take this step, you need to calculate it carefully, with pen and paper, and know exactly how much your visit will cost!!

Let’s see what the visit costs will consist of:

Visa:
This will be around 1,000–1,300 dirhams, depending on the office.

Flight Ticket:
The cheapest flight ticket you can book will be around 1,000 dirhams.

Accommodation:
If you stay in shared housing (sharing a room with others), the lowest price you might find is 400 dirhams, but that would be in somewhat distant areas. If you want a decent place close to a bus station, it will be around 600 dirhams.

Food:
If you know how to cook, the accommodation has a kitchen, and you decide to rely on yourself and not eat out, let’s say 600 dirhams per month.
If you decide to eat outside, the cost will be around 1,000 dirhams, assuming each meal costs about 15–17 dirhams and you eat two meals a day.

Transportation:
When looking for accommodation, try to choose a place close to a metro station if you’ll be in Dubai, or close to a bus station if you’ll be in another emirate. The cost here will vary depending on whether you go out every day looking for work or only two or three days a week. At the very least, if you go out around three days a week, the cost will be approximately 450 dirhams.

Mobile Recharge:
Minimal use for calls only, without internet (since most residential complexes have Wi-Fi), will be around 100 dirhams per month.

So if you decide to stay for the full visa period, which is three months, let’s multiply each cost above by three:

Visa: 1,000 dirhams
Flight ticket: 1,000 dirhams
Accommodation: 600 × 3 = 1,800 dirhams
Food: 600 × 3 = 1,800 dirhams
Transportation: 450 × 3 = 1,350 dirhams
Mobile recharge: 100 × 3 = 300 dirhams

Total: 7,250 dirhams

Exactly—that’s the amount you need to have in your pocket when you travel to the UAE. In general, traveling is easier now than it used to be, but finding a job requires effort and a lot of searching. May God grant you success and guide you to what’s best.