Buying property in Oman as a foreigner: the process, and what it actually costs

Oman's property rules for foreigners changed materially in 2025 and 2026 — two new laws, an amended fee schedule, and a new register. Most of the guidance online has not caught up. This guide separates what we could trace to a primary legal text from what is simply repeated across property portals, and says which is which.

Transfer fee at registration

VAT on a developer's first sale

Annual property tax

Capital gains tax

Where a foreigner can actually buy

There are three legal routes, and they are not interchangeable.

Route	Legal basis	What you get	Who qualifies
Integrated Tourism Complex (ITC)	Royal Decree 12/2006	Freehold, indefinite, sellable and inheritable	Any nationality, no residency required
Usufruct in a Muscat multi-storey building	Ministerial Decision 357/2020	Usufruct up to 50 years, extendable to 99	Expatriate residents only, strict conditions
Ordinary ownership outside ITCs	Royal Decree 21/2004	Broadly the same rights as Omanis	GCC nationals only

For most readers the ITC route is the only realistic one. The named complexes include Al Mouj Muscat, Muscat Hills, Muscat Bay, Jebel Sifah, Saraya Bandar Jissah and AIDA at Yiti in Muscat Governorate, and Hawana Salalah in Dhofar. Two further ITCs — Al Qurm and Al Bustan — were announced in March 2026. We could not find a single official published register of licensed ITCs, which is an odd gap; confirm a project's ITC status with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning rather than with the sales office.

Large parts of Oman are closed to foreign ownership

Royal Decree 29/2018 prohibits non-Omani ownership of land and real estate in certain places. The schedule of those places is not something we could read directly — the decree delegates it to the Minister of Housing.

Secondary sources report the prohibition covers Musandam, Al Buraimi, Al Dhahirah, Al Wusta and most of Dhofar outside Salalah, plus islands, mountain ranges, agricultural land and security-sensitive areas. That list rests on a single source and we flag it as such — but the direction is clear enough that you should verify the location before anything else.

Note in particular that Musandam appears on the prohibited side, not the opportunity side, despite occasional claims to the contrary.

The transaction, step by step

Pre-screening. Confirm the project is a licensed ITC and that the specific unit is in the schedule eligible for foreign ownership. Not every unit in every complex is.
Reservation. A booking form and a deposit, typically 5–10% of the price. This is set by the developer, not by law. Expect KYC and source-of-funds checks at this point.
Sale and Purchase Agreement. This is the commitment. It fixes price, payment schedule, specification and handover obligations.
Due diligence. Title and encumbrance checks at the Ministry of Housing. Allow one to two weeks. A buyer who cannot attend can act through a notarised power of attorney held by an Omani lawyer.
Payment. Through regulated banking channels. For off-plan, into the project's escrow account, released against approved construction milestones.
Registration and handover. The Ministry issues the title deed. For a ready unit, sources put this at two to four weeks after final payment.

End to end, a ready or resale purchase is commonly described as four to twelve weeks. Off-plan is two to four years, driven by construction.

What to actually check before you sign

The title deed. Under the new Real Estate Registry Law, Article 35, the deed issued by the register is the sole proof of ownership. A sale agreement is not title.
Litigation annotations. The same law lets a claimant register a note of a court claim, and their rights are treated as registered from the date of the note — not the date of judgment. A missed annotation can defeat a later buyer.
The developer's licence. Developers and brokers must be licensed under RD 79/2025. Ask to see it.
The escrow account. Confirm your payments go into a segregated project escrow, not a developer operating account.
Service charge arrears. Unpaid community dues and utility bills can follow the property. Get a clearance letter.
Sitting tenants. An existing lease survives the sale. You may not get vacant possession.
What is contractual and what is a rendering. In master-planned communities, confirm which amenities the developer is contractually obliged to deliver and which are merely planned. Phasing can run five to fifteen years.

The costs — and the one everybody gets wrong

Transfer fee: 3%

The current fee regulation is Ministerial Decision 570/2025, published in the Official Gazette on 26 January 2025, as amended by Ministerial Decision 36/2026 (Gazette, 26 April 2026). Annex 7, row 1 prices the registration of sale and gift contracts from third parties and from relatives other than the first degree at 3% of property value. MD 36/2026 did not touch that row.

Three fee stories circulate. Here is what we found.

"3% for foreigners, 1% for Omanis." Almost every portal says this. But the primary text we read sets 3% as the general arm's-length rate with no citizenship split in the fee tables — nationality appears only in the exemptions annex. The "1% for Omanis" line appears to be a mis-summary of a different row: individuals transferring property into a company they own. The Arabic press quoted that row correctly in January 2025; the English press compressed it. And MD 36/2026 has since changed that row to a flat OMR 40 anyway.

"November 2025 cut 5% to 3%." The cut is real, but the evidence points to November 2020, not 2025. MD 570/2025 already contained 3% in January 2025, so a cut to 3% later that year would have been a no-op.

Either way, 3% is what a foreign buyer pays at registration. That much is consistent across the primary text and every secondary source.

VAT: 5% on a new build, nothing on a resale

This is the expensive one. The Oman Tax Authority's own real estate guide is unambiguous: the first supply of a residential property — the developer's first sale of a new unit — is standard-rated at 5%. The resale of a residential property is exempt. Residential leases of more than three months are exempt. Commercial property, both sale and lease, is standard-rated.

A large number of property portals, and some professional summaries, say flatly that "residential property is VAT-exempt." For a buyer of a new or off-plan unit that is wrong, and it is a 5% error on the largest number in the transaction. On a OMR 250,000 new build it is OMR 12,500.

There is no bespoke off-plan tax point. VAT accrues as instalments fall due, on the general time-of-supply rules.

Everything else

Item	Typical range	Note
Agent commission	2–3%	Who pays varies by deal; VAT applies on the commission
Conveyancing lawyer	OMR 500–1,500	Some quote 1–2% instead — a tenfold spread, so get a fixed quote
Valuation	OMR 100–300	Required if financing
Mortgage registration	0.5% of the loan	Official — MD 570/2025, capped at OMR 100,000
Bank arrangement fee	0.5–1% of the loan	Bank-set
Service charges	OMR 3–8 per sqm per year	Estimates vary widely; get the community budget

Our own build-up for a non-Omani buying a new OMR 250,000 ITC unit with a mortgage comes to roughly 9–12% all-in. The same unit bought as a resale for cash is closer to 4–5%. The single biggest swing factor is whether VAT applies.

Ongoing taxes: less than you expect

No annual property tax in Oman.
No capital gains tax, and no inheritance or gift tax.
Municipal tax on rent is 3% of gross rent if you let the property out.
Personal income tax arrives on 1 January 2028 at 5% on income above OMR 42,000 a year. Whether it will capture rental income and property gains is not something we could establish. For a long-hold buy-to-let investor this is the most important open question in Omani property tax, and nobody can currently answer it.

Mortgages

Bank Muscat, the National Bank of Oman and Bank Dhofar are the lenders most consistently named as lending to expatriates. Reported terms: 80–90% loan-to-value for resident expatriates meeting income criteria, 60–70% for non-residents; maximum tenor 20–25 years; rates for foreign borrowers in the 5–7.5% range. Eligibility typically requires a valid residence permit, a minimum salary around OMR 1,500 a month, and twelve months of local salary transfers. Overseas income is rarely accepted.

Usufruct property cannot be mortgaged

Banks require clear title to register a charge. That means the Ministerial Decision 357/2020 usufruct route — the one that lets long-term residents buy a flat in an ordinary Muscat building — is effectively cash only.

Combined with its four-year owner-occupation lock-in before you may rent or sell, this is a materially less liquid product than an ITC freehold, and almost no guide says so.

Residency by property: what we can and cannot confirm

Oman's official investor residency portal lists owning property in tourism zones as a qualifying route and advertises ten-year residency. It publishes no threshold figure, no fee, and no governing decree on its public pages. We could not locate the legal instrument establishing the programme.

What circulates instead is at least four different stories: OMR 250,000 for five years and OMR 500,000 for ten; a unified OMR 200,000 for ten years from August 2025; OMR 200,000 for ten years or OMR 100,000 for a two-year owner visa; and a vaguer "OMR 200,000 to 500,000 depending on tier." The two-tier 250,000/500,000 version is the most repeated. None of it is officially confirmed.

Two things are firm. Buying does not automatically grant residency — it is a separate application. And the usufruct route grants none at all.

Selling, and getting your money out

ITC freehold has no lock-in we could find; resale is free. Selling costs run 2–5%, dominated by agent commission. There is no capital gains tax. On a residential resale the sale itself is VAT-exempt, but you cannot recover the VAT charged on the agent's commission, so that 5% is a real cost.

The rial is pegged to the US dollar and Oman is very widely understood to have no exchange controls and free repatriation of sale proceeds. We could not land a primary or Big Four confirmation of that in writing, so we state it as the settled understanding rather than as a sourced fact. Practically, funds move through regulated banking channels with source-of-funds documentation, and brokers now carry anti-money-laundering obligations, so expect to document where the purchase money came from and to be asked again on exit.

The pitfalls worth naming

Budgeting 3% and being hit with 8% because the unit is a first supply.
Inheriting the previous owner's service charge and utility arrears.
Paying a deposit into a personal account rather than a company or escrow account.
Buying in a governorate where foreign ownership is prohibited, where the remedy can be forced transfer to an Omani national.
Treating a signed sale agreement as ownership. Under the new law an unregistered disposition binds only the parties to it.
Relying on portal guidance for numbers. In researching this piece we found multiple 2026 sites dating the January 2025 fee decision to January 2026, and none at all had noticed MD 36/2026.

Can a foreigner buy property in Oman?

Yes, by one of three routes. Freehold inside a licensed Integrated Tourism Complex under Royal Decree 12/2006 is open to any nationality with no residency requirement, and for most buyers it is the only realistic option. A usufruct of up to 50 years, extendable to 99, in a Muscat multi-storey building under Ministerial Decision 357/2020 is open to expatriate residents on strict conditions, and ordinary ownership outside complexes under Royal Decree 21/2004 is limited to GCC nationals. Royal Decree 29/2018 closes certain places to non-Omani ownership entirely, so check the location first.

How much does it cost to buy property in Oman as a foreigner?

Our own build-up for a non-Omani buying a new OMR 250,000 unit in a tourism complex with a mortgage comes to roughly 9 to 12% all-in; the same unit bought as a resale for cash is closer to 4 to 5%. The components are a 3% transfer fee at registration, 5% VAT if the unit is a developer's first sale, agent commission of 2 to 3%, a conveyancing lawyer at OMR 500 to 1,500, valuation of OMR 100 to 300 and mortgage registration at 0.5% of the loan. The single biggest swing factor is whether VAT applies.

Do I pay VAT when buying a property in Oman?

Only on a new build. The Oman Tax Authority's real estate guide is unambiguous: the first supply of a residential property, meaning the developer's first sale of a new unit, is standard-rated at 5%, while the resale of a residential property is exempt. Many property portals say flatly that residential property is VAT-exempt, and for a buyer of a new or off-plan unit that is wrong — on a OMR 250,000 new build it is a OMR 12,500 error.

Is there an annual property tax or capital gains tax in Oman?

No. Oman has no annual property tax, no capital gains tax and no inheritance or gift tax. If you let the property out, municipal tax on rent is 3% of gross rent. Personal income tax arrives on 1 January 2028 at 5% on income above OMR 42,000 a year, and whether it will capture rental income and property gains is not something we could establish.

Can I get a mortgage in Oman as an expatriate?

Bank Muscat, the National Bank of Oman and Bank Dhofar are the lenders most consistently named as lending to expatriates. Reported terms are 80 to 90% loan-to-value for resident expatriates meeting income criteria and 60 to 70% for non-residents, a maximum tenor of 20 to 25 years, and rates for foreign borrowers in the 5 to 7.5% range, with eligibility typically requiring a valid residence permit, a minimum salary around OMR 1,500 a month and twelve months of local salary transfers. A usufruct under Ministerial Decision 357/2020 cannot be mortgaged, because banks require clear title to register a charge, so that route is effectively cash only.

How much property do I need to buy to get residency in Oman?

No official source publishes a figure. Oman's investor residency portal lists property in tourism zones as a qualifying route and advertises ten-year residency but publishes no threshold, no fee and no governing decree on its public pages, and we could not locate the legal instrument establishing the programme. At least four different figures circulate, of which OMR 250,000 for five years and OMR 500,000 for ten is the most repeated, and none of it is officially confirmed. Buying does not automatically grant residency in any case — it is a separate application, and the usufruct route grants none at all.

Before you transfer anything

Confirm the project's ITC licence with the Ministry, not the sales office.

Confirm whether your unit is a first supply (VAT) or a resale (no VAT), in writing, before you agree a price.

Get a title and encumbrance search, including litigation annotations.

Get a service-charge clearance letter.

If you are financing, confirm the bank will lend on that specific tenure before you pay a deposit.

This guide is for information only and is not legal or tax advice. Fees and rules in Oman change; always confirm with the relevant government authority before acting. The verification date is shown at the top of this page.

Buying property in Oman as a foreigner — process, fees and the VAT nobody budgets for