Dubai has been ranked second globally for foreign-employed remote working, scoring well for income tax, availability of accommodation and appropriate visas.

The city was also one of five in the top 10 to issue a visa suited to foreign-employed remote work - the emirate introduced its remote work visa in October 2020, while a similar UAE-wide programme was announced in March 2021.

“The last year has really proved to many companies that remote-working is not only a possibility, but actually something that can be beneficial to everyone involved,” said Omer Kucukdere, founder and CEO of Nestpick, an online furnished rental property platform.  

“The technology has been available for a while now, but it’s taken seeing it in practice for the idea to really take hold.”

Dubai was number one for income tax and social contribution and in the top 10 for availability of accommodation, appropriate visas and healthcare.

Cities were rated on set up costs, availability of accommodation and workspaces, visas, income tax, internet speed and capacity, gender and minority equality and then culture and entertainment, healthcare, and speed of COVID-19 vaccination rollout.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, had the most affordable rental accommodation, Marrakesh, Morocco was the best for internet speed and capacity and Istanbul, Turkey, the best for remote worker infrastructure.

Dubai was the only MENA region city to make the overall top 10, with Melbourne taking the number one spot and Sydney, Australia, Tallin, Estonia and London, UK taking the third, fourth and fifth spots respectively.  

Of the 75 cities surveyed, Medellin, Colombia, scored the lowest.

(Writing by Imogen Lillywhite; editing by Seban Scaria)

Imogen.lillywhite@refinitiv.com

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