My brokerage will not give me my visa

What is actually being withheld

Start by separating the things, because they have different remedies and people in this position routinely describe all of them as "my visa".

The residence visa itself, sponsored by the employer. The Emirates ID process that runs alongside it. The employment contract and its registration. And, separately from all three, the Brokers Registration Number that lets you work as a broker at all, which is issued through RERA at the Dubai Land Department and attached to one brokerage at a time.

A firm can be slow on one and fine on another, and the route you take depends on which. It is worth writing down precisely what has and has not happened, with dates, before doing anything else. That is not preparation for a fight. It is what turns a feeling that you are being messed about into a specific thing that can be raised, and a surprising number of these turn out to be an administrative failure nobody has been told about rather than a decision.

1. 01

   Residence visa and Emirates ID

   Sponsored by the employer as part of the employment relationship. An employment matter.

2. 02

   The employment contract

   Its terms, its registration, and whether what you signed matches what is filed. An employment matter.

3. 03

   The Brokers Registration Number

   Your professional licence, attached to one brokerage. Its release is a regulatory and administrative matter, not an employment one.

Which body handles which problem

This is the part worth reading twice, because going to the wrong one costs time and the time limits are real.

MOHRE, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, is the first route for private sector employment disputes. That covers the employment relationship: the contract, wages, and the processes attached to being employed. Filing is free and can be started through the ministry's own channels.

The Dubai Land Department handles conduct by real estate companies. Its complaint service is called Complaint Against a Real Estate Company, it operates under Law No. 16 of 2007, and it explicitly lists brokers among the parties who may file. The service page states a five working day response time and that complaints older than six months are not accepted.

The crucial limitation, in the department's own words, is that this service does not cover financial claims, disagreement over the terms of a contract, or compensation. So if what you actually want is money, this is not the route to it, however badly the firm has behaved. That is a legal matter and it needs proper advice.

What to do before you escalate anything

Two things, and both of them help whichever route you end up on.

Put the request in writing. Not a message in a group chat and not a conversation by the desk. An email that states plainly what you are asking for and when you asked, sent to whoever is actually responsible, creates a record and quite often produces the thing itself. A firm that has simply not got round to something behaves very differently once there is a dated request sitting in an inbox.

Then collect what you already have. The signed contract, the offer, any correspondence about the visa or the registration, and a dated note of what you were told and by whom. Every formal route asks for documentation, and assembling it after you have escalated is harder than assembling it before.

Neither of these is confrontational and both are reversible. That matters, because the majority of these situations are resolved without a complaint, and the ones that are not are the ones where you will be glad you kept a record from the beginning.

What this page will not tell you

What you are entitled to, how long you have, or what you should demand. We are a licensed brokerage, not an employment or immigration adviser, and a page written by a competitor of your employer is a bad place to learn your rights.

Time limits in particular are strict and they differ by route, so the only sensible course is to confirm them with the body that applies rather than with any article. The Dubai Land Department states a six month window on its own service. Employment matters have their own limits set in law. Both are the sort of thing worth establishing on the day rather than assuming from something you read.

If the sum involved is material, or if anything about your residency is at stake, get proper advice. That is not a disclaimer added to the bottom of the page for form. It is the actual recommendation, and it is what we would say to somebody sitting in our own office.

How to make this less likely next time

Almost everything above is easier to prevent than to resolve, and the prevention is four questions asked before signing rather than after.

Who sponsors the visa, who bears the cost, and is any of it recoverable from you. What the notice period is, in both directions. What the process is for releasing your Brokers Registration Number when you leave, and how long it took the last person who used it. And whether all of that is in the contract rather than in the conversation.

That last one does most of the work. A written term is one both sides can consult later without either having to remember the room correctly, and at the moment it matters you will not be the party with more leverage.