Market Intelligence

Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2022 on Civil Personal Status and Cabinet Decision No. 122 of 2023 (its Implementing Regulations) gave non-Muslim UAE residents a federal civil framework for wills and inheritance. Two principal registration routes operate in 2026: the DIFC Wills Service (common-law-style English-language wills covering UAE assets and, since the 2017 amendment, worldwide assets) and the Abu Dhabi Civil Family Court under Abu Dhabi Law No. 14 of 2021 plus the federal civil regime. The choice of route is not interchangeable. For UK-connected HNWIs operating under the post-non-dom UK framework, the will is the instrument that sequences UAE-side succession with UK Long-Term Resident IHT exposure under section 6A IHTA 1984 and with the 2025-vintage settlements regime.

A Golden Visa is the right to live in the UAE. It is not the right to be a UAE tax resident. Federal Decree-Law No. 29 of 2021 and Cabinet Resolution No. 65 of 2022 govern an immigration permit; UAE tax residence is a separate question under Cabinet Decision No. 85 of 2022 and Ministerial Decision No. 27 of 2023. After the abolition of the UK remittance basis on 6 April 2025, that distinction matters more than at any time since the Golden Visa was launched. The property route at AED 2 million remains the practical 2026 path; the employment route has been administratively paused since October 2025; the lifetime nomination route circulating on social media since July 2025 was officially denied by the UAE Government and remains denied through January and February 2026 ICP advisories.

Qualifying Free Zone Person status is a five-condition categorisation, not a tax exemption attached to a freezone licence. Article 18 of Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022, Cabinet Decision No. 100 of 2023, and Ministerial Decision No. 229 of 2025 (which replaced Ministerial Decision No. 265 of 2023 retroactively from 1 June 2023) define what counts as Qualifying Income, what counts as an Excluded Activity, and where a single non-qualifying transaction collapses the regime for the current period and the next four. The 9% rate on the entire Taxable Income, not on the marginal slice, is the consequence of getting any one condition wrong.

A Family Investment Company is not a trust replacement. It is a different architecture for a different problem. After Finance Act 2025 dismantled protected settlements and Finance Act 2026 capped business and agricultural property relief, the question is no longer whether to use a FIC instead of a trust; it is which functions each instrument serves once both are taxed at full rates. The wrong choice locks in a 25% Corporation Tax base on retained returns, 17% SDLT on enveloped residential property, and a settlements-legislation exposure that quietly attributes income back to the founder.

UAE individual tax residency is governed by Cabinet Decision No. 85 of 2022 and Ministerial Decision No. 27 of 2023, which set out three distinct domestic tests: a centre-of-interests test, a 183-day physical-presence test, and a 90-day route conditional on residence permit, employment or business, and a permanent place of residence. The 90-day route is the most useful for internationally mobile HNWIs and the most commonly misunderstood. Domestic residency does not automatically deliver a Tax Residency Certificate for treaty purposes; the FTA requires 183 days of physical presence for treaty TRCs even where domestic residency is established at 90 days.

The Statutory Residence Test, set out in Schedule 45 of the Finance Act 2013, governs whether a person is UK tax resident. It is mechanical, not interpretive. For HNWIs whose worldwide income and gains depend on the answer, the test is unforgiving in three places: the day-count is by midnight only and exceptional circumstances are narrowly construed; the ties test recalibrates each year as residence history accrues; and the automatic overseas test for full-time work abroad fails on subtle work patterns that the client did not realise mattered.

The Finance Act 2025 extended the 2017 rebasing election from a narrow deemed-domicile cohort to the broader population of former remittance-basis users. It is the second transitional provision alongside the TRF, and the less understood of the two. Rebasing elects a 5 April 2017 market value as the base cost on disposal of eligible foreign assets. The election is per-asset, is made on disposal, and is irrevocable. It saves significant CGT in some cases and destroys value in others.

The Finance Act 2025 repealed sections 628A to 628C and 630A of ITTOIA 2005, dismantling the protected-settlement regime for non-domiciled and deemed-domiciled settlors. The section-86 TCGA blocking provision fell with them. What survived is more consequential than what was removed: a stockpiled pool of protected foreign-source income, a revived section 731 charge on transferor-settlors, and an arising-basis attribution stack that catches UK-resident settlors at marginal rates. Trustees now face four architectural decisions, and every existing offshore settlor-interested trust carries one of them.