Home / How we make money
Disclosure
How We Make Money
If you're reading a site that tells you what a Golden Visa really costs, you're entitled to ask who's paying for the site. Here's the whole answer.
The short answer
Home Guide Dubai is free to read and carries no advertising. If you ask us to introduce you to a property agency, we may earn a referral fee from that agency. That's it. That's the entire business model, and it only ever applies when you've asked us to make an introduction.
What we don't do
- We take no money from developers. Not for coverage, not for a mention, not for a link.
- Nobody can pay to appear, rank higher, or be removed. There's no paid placement on this site and there never will be. If that changes, this page changes first and we'll date the change.
- No commercial partner sees our work before you do. Not the fee tables, not the Rule Tracker, and not the Property Residency Index. Nobody gets a preview and nobody gets a veto.
- We don't sell your details. If you use the eligibility checker, it answers you in your browser. Nothing is submitted, and there's nothing for us to sell.
Why the referral is disclosed rather than hidden
Referral fees are normal in property. What isn't normal is saying so. The reason we do is simple self-interest: this site's only asset is that you believe the numbers. A verified fee table is worth nothing if you suspect someone paid for it, so the arrangement is worth less to us than your trust in the figures. That's also why the introduction is something you have to ask for. We'd rather be the page you check the agent against than the page that sold you one.
Who writes this
Every page is researched and written by the Home Guide Dubai research desk, and every factual claim is sourced to a named primary document, usually a Dubai Land Department page, a federal instrument, or a published circular. Where a rule is only press-reported and no numbered instrument exists, we label it that way instead of rounding it up into a fact. The Rule Tracker exists specifically to keep that distinction visible.
The gap we haven't closed yet
We're appointing a UAE-licensed professional to review these pages quarterly and on every rule change. That is not signed yet, so no page on this site claims to have been reviewed. We'd rather say nothing than imply a check that has not happened. Once the appointment is made, the reviewer's name, credential and licence number will appear on the pages they have actually checked, and nowhere else.
If we get something wrong
Tell us and we'll correct it and date the correction. We'd rather carry a visible correction than a quiet edit, because a reference that silently rewrites itself isn't a reference.
Common questions
Do I pay anything to use this site?
No. Every page is free and there's no subscription, paywall or account.
Do you get paid if I buy a property?
Only if you asked us to introduce you to an agency and that introduction led to a purchase. In that case the agency pays us a referral fee. You don't pay us anything, and the price you pay is not increased by it.
Do developers pay to be mentioned?
No. We take no developer money in any form, so no project appears here because someone paid for it.
Does the Property Residency Index rank programmes that pay you?
No. No government, programme or agency pays to be in the Index or to move within it. The scoring method and its weights are published, so anyone can re-derive the result.
Why is no reviewer named on the pages?
Because we have not appointed one yet, and we would rather name nobody than imply a check that has not happened. The appointment is in progress, and when it completes the reviewer will be named on the pages they have checked.