Key Highlights: 

• Graduates from the world’s top 100 universities can now secure a 10-year UAE Golden Visa with no local sponsor required.
• The Golden Visa program allows holders to sponsor family members and offers multiple-entry privileges during the application process.
• Eligibility is determined by QS World University Rankings, focusing on academic excellence, research, and employability.
• The UAE’s Golden Visa reforms mark a shift to a self-sponsored residency model, supporting global talent and innovation.

On April 18, 2022, the UAE Cabinet unveiled a significant reform: a redesigned Golden Visa program designed to attract and retain outstanding international talent. 

One of the changes is that graduates of the top 100 colleges in the world can now apply for a golden visa, a long-term resident visa that lets them live and work in the United Arab Emirates for up to ten years without a sponsor.

The UAE’s Centennial 2071 vision, which strongly emphasizes science, technology, and entrepreneurship, defines the reforms as part of broader attempts to move toward a diversified knowledge economy.

Who is Eligible?

According to the Emirates News Agency, the new visa policy intends to “attract and retain global talents and skilled workers” and increase the UAE’s competitiveness in the global labor market.

The Golden Visa is open to:

• Graduates from the world’s top 100 universities
• Outstanding graduates from universities in the United Arab Emirates
• Students who succeed in UAE schools

The following criteria will be used to evaluate graduate applications:

• Academic performance
• Year of graduation
• University classification

These requirements are in line with the QS World University Rankings, which take employability, research output, and teaching quality into account.

Leigh Kamolins, Director of Analytics and Evaluation at QS, said, “The UAE’s visa program demonstrates that university rankings are an important tool for comparing university performance in a global context.”

“It emphasizes the value that employers and governments place on respectable, high-quality education in promoting knowledge economies and facilitating career mobility.”

As an additional measure to promote longer-term residency and career advancement in the UAE, a new rule permits Golden Visa holders to sponsor family members.

Abeer Husseini, a partner at the immigration law firm Fragomen, stated, “The recent changes… mark a shift from immigration based on a sponsorship model to a self-sponsored model.”

Top 100 Universities Eligible for the UAE Golden Visa

The complete list of the top 100 universities in the world whose graduates are qualified to apply for the UAE Golden Visa is provided below:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2. University of Oxford
3. Stanford University
4. University of Cambridge
5. Harvard University
6. California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
7. Imperial College London
8. University of London
9. Zurich Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich)
10. University of Chicago
11. National University of Singapore (NUS)
12. Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
13. University of Pennsylvania
14. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
15. Yale University
16. University of Edinburgh
17. Tsinghua University
18. Peking University
19. Columbia University
20. Princeton University
21. Cornell University
22. University of Hong Kong
23. University of Michigan
24. University of Tokyo
25. Johns Hopkins University
26. University of Toronto
27. Australian National University
28. McGill University
29. University of Manchester
30. Northwestern University
31. Fudan University
32. University of California, Berkeley
33. Kyoto University
34. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
35. King’s College London
36. Seoul National University
37. University of Melbourne
38. University of Sydney
39. Chinese University of Hong Kong
40. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
41. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
42. New York University
43. University of New South Wales
44. PSL Research University (Paris Sciences et Lettres)
45. Zhejiang University
46. University of British Columbia
47. University of Queensland
48. University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
49. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
50. Shanghai Jiao Tong University
51. Technische Universität München (TUM)
52. Duke University
53. Carnegie Mellon University
54. City University of Hong Kong
55. University of Amsterdam
56. Tokyo Institute of Technology
57. Delft University of Technology
58. Monash University
59. Institut Polytechnique de Paris
60. Brown University
61. University of Warwick
62. University of Bristol
63. Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg
64. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
65. Universiti Malaya
66. Hong Kong Polytechnic University
67. University of Texas at Austin
68. National Taiwan University
69. Universidad de Buenos Aires
70. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)
71. University of Zurich
72. Sorbonne University (formerly Paris IV and UPMC)
73. University of Glasgow
74. Korea University
75. University of Wisconsin-Madison
76. Osaka University
77. University of Southampton
78. Lomonosov Moscow State University
79. University of Copenhagen
80. Yonsei University
81. Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)
82. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
83. Tohoku University
84. Durham University
85. University of Washington
86. University of Auckland
87. Lund University
88. Georgia Institute of Technology
89. Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
90. University of Birmingham
91. University of St Andrews
92. University of Leeds
93. University of Western Australia
94. Rice University
95. University of Sheffield
96. Pennsylvania State University
97. Sungkyunkwan University
98. University of Science and Technology of China
99. Technical University of Denmark
100. University of North Carolina

Benefits of the UAE Golden Visa for Graduates

Graduates who receive the Golden Visa enjoy several benefits:

• 10-year renewable residency
• No local sponsor is required
• Multiple-entry visa during the application process
• Ability to sponsor family members
• Eligibility for long-term career and research opportunities
• Access to government incentives and funding for research or startups

Final Thoughts

The UAE Golden Visa is more than just a residency permit. It’s a gateway to long-term stability and opportunity in one of the world’s most dynamic regions. For top-performing students and graduates from eligible UAE universities, it offers a powerful incentive to build a future in the Emirates.

Graduates from one of the reputable universities above could be the key to ten years of expansion, innovation, and international exposure in the United Arab Emirates, regardless of their professional goals—tech, healthcare, business, or the arts.