Hi,
My wife has been away from Dubai for nearly 7 months; she is visiting me in Dubai in the coming weeks. When I check online, her visa status is "issued"; I can still see her name listed in my my health insurance members. I was told,however, that the visa is cancelled if its holder stays outside the UAE for more than 6 months. Any thought, please?

She holds a British citizenship. I wonder if I have to extend her visa before her arrival or will a tourist visa issued at the airport be enough?

Thank you

How long is your wife planning on being in the UAE? UK citizens get a visa on arrival so there wouldn't be an issue with her getting into the UAE. Once in the Country, you may need to renew her visa, but I would speak with your company's PRO.

Thank you for your response. She intends to spend 3 weeks in here.

As far as I’m aware, once a visa holder is out of country for more than 6 months the residence visa is invalidated - not cancelled. (This was the case when we lived in Dubai pre 2012 and in Oman until mid 2019.) I would ask your company’s PRO exactly what the situation is now. She may have an issue when she arrives at the Immigration counter on arrival because her passport number will show as having a (possibly) invalidated visa

The official term is "nullified" according to this info:

https://u.ae/en/information-and-serv...velling-abroad

OP, if your other half has no intention to live as a resident any more I would ask your company rep to officially get her residence visa cancelled, if not already done so. That way she won't face any potential issues when entering the country in future.

I can help here. We had this exact same issue.

I am British and so is my daughter so no issue on arrival.

my wife has a dubai resident visa and actually has Pakistani passport so no on arrival visa so reliance was on the resident visa. At the counter, because we had significantly exceeded the six month validity - we were guided from the larger immigration queues to a new immigration counter where within thirty mins my wife visa was reactivated and we passed through with no problems.

we were very worried at the counter give we were nearly double the length of time away from the country but we explained why and they were very helpful.

in hindsight, wish we did or sorted this out in advance but online checking showed her visa status as fine