Dubai Alternatives compares long-stay and residency-by-investment routes across Southeast Asia against the Gulf benchmark. The comparisons are built by a desk and signed by it.
What this desk compares, and on what basis
A residency route is only comparable on four axes: what it costs to enter, what it obliges you to keep in place, what it lets you do commercially, and how it treats you for tax. Headline price alone tells you almost nothing, which is why our tables always carry the maintenance obligation and the tax-residence trigger next to the entry figure. Where a jurisdiction publishes an attractive number that only holds under conditions most applicants will not meet, we put the condition in the same row rather than in a footnote.
How the comparisons are checked
Indonesian figures trace to Ditjen Imigrasi and the OSS licensing system; UAE, Malaysian and Thai figures trace to the issuing authority in each country. Tax-residence triggers are taken from each jurisdiction’s own statutory test. We date every figure, and where two official sources conflict we show both instead of averaging them into a number nobody published.
What we do not claim
This desk is not a licensed immigration adviser, tax adviser or investment adviser in any of the jurisdictions it writes about, and it publishes no personal credentials suggesting otherwise. Use these pages to narrow a shortlist, then take the shortlist to a regulated adviser in the country you actually choose.
Narrowing a shortlist
Tell us the two or three jurisdictions you are weighing and why, through the contact page. We will send the comparison, not a sales call.