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Program profile · Edition 1 research

Qatar - Property Residency

The Gulf's quiet outlier: a USD 200,000 entry point, a 0.25% transfer fee where Dubai charges 4%, a five-year permit that renews automatically for as long as you own, and family scope that includes parents. Verified against the statute and the Ministry of Justice's own manual; every claim below carries its source, access date and status.

The threshold

Two tiers, set in 2020 and unchanged since. Property value above QAR 730,000 qualifies for the residency permit; above QAR 3,650,000 the owner additionally receives the privileges prescribed for permanent-residency card holders - health care, education, and investment in some economic activities. Multiple properties can be aggregated toward either line. Below QAR 730,000, purchase is permitted but carries no residency. Confirmed - Ministry of Justice instruction manual for Decision 28/2020, read in full; corroborated on Aqarat, the real estate regulator (both accessed 15 July 2026).

An important precision the press regularly gets wrong: the higher tier grants PR privileges under Article 7(2) of Decision 28/2020 - not the actual permanent residency card, which is a separate product under Law 10/2018 with a 100-approvals-per-year cap and an Arabic-language requirement. Whether property investment feeds that card's pipeline at all is unresolved in the primary record.

What it costs

The registration fee on sale is 0.25% of the property value - QAR 1,825 (USD 501) at the lower threshold, QAR 9,125 (USD 2,507) at the higher. Confirmed - MOJ manual FAQ. For comparison within the Index set, Dubai's transfer fee is 4% - sixteen times the rate. The entry visa for the property-owner residence is QR200 Reported (archived official service page), and the Ministry of Justice's residence-approval service is listed as free with a two-day processing time on the official Sharek portal. The consolidated permit fee schedule (medical, biometrics, card) remains unverified - the Hukoomi portal was in a site-wide outage at verification - and broker-published "total cost" ranges are excluded as evidence. Qatar levies no annual property tax, no personal income tax and no capital gains tax on exit Reported.

Term: the statute beats the press

The permit runs five years and renews automatically upon payment of the prescribed fees, for as long as ownership continues - Law 21/2015, Article 32, as amended by Decree-Law 23/2019, read in the official Arabic consolidated text on Al Meezan. Widely circulated "one year, renewable" framings are contradicted by the statute; no primary instrument supporting a one-year term exists. The permit is tied to the property: sell, and the basis lapses. Confirmed (accessed 17 July 2026).

Family

Residence may be granted, without a work requirement, to the spouse, children and parents of the property owner - Article 33 of Law 21/2015, sponsor-free. Parents' inclusion puts Qatar in the widest family tier of the Index set. Grandparents are not in the statutory list. Broker-circulated dependant income tests appear in no official source and are treated as unresolved. Confirmed (statute, accessed 17 July 2026).

Presence

At least 90 days per year in Qatar, continuous or intermittent - and the condition binds both tiers, per the Ministry of Justice department page on non-Qatari ownership of real estate. This is the strictest presence requirement among the open Gulf programs in the Index set (most require none), and the most common point of confusion: the oft-quoted "six months abroad" allowance belongs to holders of the Law 10/2018 permanent residency card, a different instrument. Caveat named openly: the MOJ page was read via a 2023 archive snapshot (the live page is geo-filtered from our research network); its wording is still quoted as current by 2025-2026 legal guides, and re-verification against the live page is scheduled for Edition 2. Archived official

Where you can buy

Foreign ownership is zoned: 9 freehold areas (including The Pearl, Lusail, Al Dafna, Onaiza and Legtaifiya) and 16 usufruct areas on 99-year renewable terms (including Msheireb, Al Sadd, Najma and the airport district). Outside the zones, non-Qataris may own shops in commercial complexes anywhere and one residential unit within a residential complex in any area - with residency available on that basis. Vacant land must be built within four years. Confirmed - MOJ manual, full area list with zone numbers.

Rule stability: six years, no tightening

Five material events since 2020, every one expansionary or administrative: the 2020 framework itself, the institutional move to the Aqarat regulator, a 2025 GCC-ownership decision that expressly leaves Decision 28/2020 in force, the October 2025 fast-track push ("title deeds and residency within days" - a government promise with no actual-vs-advertised evidence yet), and January 2026 fee cuts. The thresholds have not moved in six years. In an Index set where three European programs closed outright in three consecutive years, that record is Qatar's strongest card. Confirmed - see the Closed Routes Record for the contrast.

Nationality access

No published nationality restrictions: the framework applies to "non-Qataris" generally, and neither the law, the MOJ manual nor the regulator's pages restrict purchase or residency by nationality. One contextual note, not entered as a restriction: Qatar has no diplomatic relations with Israel, and practical access for Israeli passport holders is doubtful, but no official text bars them from the program. Confirmed by absence (primary texts read in full).