Buying property in Oman for residency — read the June 2026 change carefully

Buying property in Oman can give you a residence permit, but not any property and not automatically. The rule changed on 22 June 2026 in a way that looks much bigger than it is, and the safest starting point is still that the property needs to sit inside a licensed Integrated Tourism Complex.

What changed on 22 June 2026

Royal Oman Police Decision 87/2026 was issued on 21 June 2026, published in Official Gazette 1653 and took effect the following day. It amends five provisions of the Executive Regulation of the Foreigners' Residence Law. Nothing in it mentions a sum of money, a minimum property value, or an Integrated Tourism Complex.

• Article 10, item 5(c) — a foreigner buying a buildable plot, or a real-estate unit whose registration is not yet complete, gets a visa without a sponsor on a certificate from the competent authority, valid for not less than six months and not more than one year, extendable for a like period. It extends to the spouse and first-degree relatives, and to the legal representatives of a company that owns the plot or unit.
• Article 10, item 15 — the owner visa. Granted without a sponsor to a foreigner who owns a real-estate unit, on a certificate from the competent authority, and to the legal representatives of a corporate owner. Entry to Oman is required within three months of the visa being issued.
• Article 14, item 1 — a foreign owner of a real-estate unit is added to the list of people who may act as a sponsor, alongside Omanis, GCC nationals, licensed foreign investors and foreign government employees.
• Article 19, item 6 — owner residency, granted without a sponsor to a foreigner owning a registered unit or a unit whose registration is not yet complete.
• Article 26, final paragraph — the residency of a foreign property owner, and of the legal representative of a corporate owner, ends when ownership of the unit passes by any legal act transferring title.

But that does not mean you can now buy anywhere

This is the part that matters, and it is where the excitable coverage will go wrong. The residency regulation and the ownership law are two different statutes. Redrafting the residency rule in general terms does not create a right to own property that the ownership law denies you.

The ownership restriction lives in Royal Decree 29/2018, published in Official Gazette 1268 on 18 November 2018, and it is still in force. It prohibits non-Omani ownership of land and property in:

• The governorates of Dhofar excluding Salalah, Musandam, Al Buraimi, Al Dakhiliyah and Al Wusta
• The wilayats of Liwa, Shinas and Masirah
• Jebel Akhdar, Jebel Shams and other mountains treated as important
• Islands, areas near palaces and security or military installations, and historic and old quarters
• Agricultural land anywhere in the country, under Article 2

Article 9 voids any transaction that breaches the law and Article 10 provides imprisonment of three months to one year and a fine of OMR 1,000 to OMR 3,000. Royal Decree 29/2018 expressly preserves the Integrated Tourism Complex regime under Royal Decree 12/2006 as the exception to all of that. So the safe reading of the June 2026 change is procedural: the police no longer restate the ITC condition in their own regulation, because the condition is imposed by a different law.

Owner residency is not investor residency

These are two separate instruments and conflating them is the most common error in Omani property content. If someone quotes you an investor threshold and then talks about a two-year permit, they have mixed two schemes together.

There is a third thing that confuses people further. Buying inside an Integrated Tourism Complex is also one of the seven qualifying routes into the investor residency programme, where MoCIIP's stated minimum is OMR 200,000 and Invest Oman describes the qualifying asset as a completed real-estate unit inside an ITC. Same purchase, two possible permits, entirely different rules. Decide which one you are applying for before you sign anything.

The framework: Royal Decree 12/2006 and Ministerial Decision 191/2007

Royal Decree 12/2006, as amended by Royal Decrees 65/2007 and 76/2010, is the System of Ownership of Real Estate in Integrated Tourism Complexes. Article 1 permits Omanis and non-Omanis, individuals and companies, to own land or built units in licensed complexes, while reserving the State's right to restrict non-Omani ownership in specific complexes. Article 8 is the residency provision: non-Omani owners may be granted residency for themselves and their first-degree relatives, on conditions set in the implementing regulation. The national portal confirms this decree and its regulation as the governing pair.

Ministerial Decision 191/2007, published in Official Gazette 848 on 1 October 2007, is that implementing regulation:

• Article 24 — a non-Omani who has acquired a built unit in an integrated tourism complex may be granted residence for himself and his first-degree relatives. Applications go to the Royal Oman Police with documents and fees, and are decided within seven working days.
• Article 25 — residence for the owner of a built unit and his first-degree relatives runs for two years and is automatically renewed, in two-year increments up to six years, without reapplying. Owners of land plots holding an investment permit instead receive repeated two-year investor visas until construction is complete.
• Article 26 — up to two natural persons legally representing a company may be granted residence on the same terms, without any family relationship.
• Article 27 — on the owner's death, the first-degree relatives' residence continues and is renewed for the heirs for as long as the ownership subsists.

Read Article 24 again: "may be granted". It is permissive, not an entitlement. And note what is absent — no minimum purchase value in Omani rials appears anywhere in Royal Decree 12/2006 or in Ministerial Decision 191/2007, nor in ROP Decision 129/2018, 137/2014 or 87/2026. Every rial figure you have been quoted for a property residency belongs to the investor programme, or to nothing at all.

Five reasons "buy any property, get residency" is false

1. Until 22 June 2026 the owner visa was restricted in terms to a built unit inside an Integrated Tourism Complex. Anything published before mid-2026 that says otherwise was simply wrong, and most of it is still online.
2. Since 22 June 2026 the residency wording is general, but the ownership law is not. Royal Decree 29/2018 still criminalises non-Omani ownership across a long list of places, with a nationwide ban on agricultural land.
3. The grant is discretionary. Royal Decree 12/2006 Article 8 and Ministerial Decision 191/2007 Article 24 both say residency *may* be granted. Nothing obliges the authorities to give it to you.
4. It is issued on a certificate from the competent authority, not on the strength of a sale contract. No published source tells you which body issues that certificate or what it requires.
5. It ends the moment you sell. ROP Decision 87/2026 terminates the owner's residency — and the family's — on any legal act transferring title.

The honest summary is that Oman does have a property route to residence, that it is real and cheap and old, and that it is narrower and more conditional than the marketing suggests.

Off-plan purchases, land plots and unregistered units

Before June 2026 an off-plan buyer had no clear entitlement, because the owner visa required a built unit. ROP Decision 87/2026 fixed that, but with a lesser instrument. Under the new Article 10, item 5(c) a buyer of a buildable plot or a unit whose registration is incomplete gets a sponsor-free visa of six months to one year, extendable for a like period, on a certificate from the competent authority. Under Article 19, item 6, owner residency now also covers units whose registration is not yet complete.

A bare land plot is a different case again. Under Ministerial Decision 191/2007 Article 25, a plot owner holding an investment permit receives repeated two-year investor visas until construction is complete — not owner residency. In other words, the land does not house you; the finished building does.

If you sell, the residency ends

This is new and it is unambiguous. The final paragraph of Article 26, as amended by ROP Decision 87/2026, ends the residency of the foreign owner and of a corporate owner's legal representative on transfer of the unit by any legal act that passes title. The Omani press coverage of the decision reports the same, and it extends to accompanying family members.

Practically, that means you should not sell one unit intending to buy another and assume the permit bridges the gap. There is no published grace period. If you are moving between properties, sequence the purchase and the sale with that in mind, and expect to re-apply rather than to carry the permit across.

The "own property outside ITCs" benefit, and why we cannot verify it

One of the headline benefits announced with the golden residency relaunch is the right to own property outside Integrated Tourism Complexes. The sources disagree on its scope. MoCIIP's own release of 13 September 2025 describes full property ownership rights outside integrated tourism complexes. Gulf News, reporting the launch on 1 September 2025, describes the right to own one property outside integrated tourism complexes in designated areas. Invest Oman's January 2026 review speaks of owning an additional property outside tourism zones.

We could not find any decree, ministerial decision or Gazette text implementing this benefit. Neither the number of properties nor the designated areas are defined anywhere we could trace, and Royal Decree 29/2018 remains on the books unamended. Treat it as an announced administrative concession, ask MoCIIP for its position on the specific plot or unit you have in mind, and do not sign on the strength of a press release.

Which complexes qualify, and why we will not give you a list

A complex qualifies if it has been licensed by the government committee formed under Royal Decree 12/2006 Article 9, a process run by the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism. The national portal describes that licensing service, applies the conditions in Royal Decree 12/2006 and Ministerial Decision 191/2007, sets an application fee of OMR 500 and gives an indicative timeline of about six months. Individual complexes also get their own property rules; the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism issued Ministerial Decision 1152/1/2/484/2025 for Jebel Sifah Resort, which is a useful example of how granular this gets.

What does not exist, as far as we can establish, is an official published register of licensed Integrated Tourism Complexes. We looked for one and did not find it.

Freehold, usufruct and the Musandam question

Inside a licensed complex, a non-Omani takes freehold title to a built unit or a buildable plot under Royal Decree 12/2006 Articles 1 and 3. Where the developer holds the underlying land on usufruct, Article 2 requires the developer to pay the Ministry of Housing for the units' or plots' share of the value of the usufruct parcel before transferring ownership on. Article 2 bis, added by Royal Decree 76/2010, lets the tourism ministry waive usufruct fees for up to five years and requires development to start within two years.

Whether a usufruct or long lease in your own name, as opposed to registered freehold, qualifies for owner residency is not answered anywhere in the published material. ROP Decision 87/2026 says the applicant "owns a real-estate unit", which on its face means ownership. We would not rely on a leasehold interest for residency without written confirmation.

On Musandam, one secondary source — a partner at an Omani law firm writing in Times of Oman on 25 July 2026 — states that a non-Omani there is limited to usufruct not exceeding 99 years over a completed unit. We could not locate that provision in the consolidated text of Royal Decree 12/2006, and Royal Decree 29/2018 lists Musandam among the governorates where non-Omani ownership is prohibited. The two are in tension. Report it as a single secondary claim, unverified, and get advice specific to Musandam if that is where you are looking.

Renewal, inheritance and the absence rule

Ministerial Decision 191/2007 Article 25 gives two years, automatically renewed in two-year increments up to six years without reapplying. Beyond six years the regulation stops describing the automatic mechanism, and Article 27 speaks instead of renewal for as long as the ownership subsists. The general position in the Foreigners' Residence Law, Royal Decree 16/95, is that renewal must be requested 15 days before expiry under Article 14, and may be refused without reasons being given.

So "renewable indefinitely" overstates it. The accurate statement is that the permit is renewable while you still own the property, that the first six years are close to automatic, and that discretion sits behind the whole arrangement. Note also that ROP Decision 87/2026 gives no duration at all for owner residency, so the two-year term in the 2007 regulation and the OMR 50 fee in ROP Decision 137/2014 remain the only published figures we have.

One more rule cuts across everything. Article 18 of the Foreigners' Residence Law voids the right of residence on absence from Oman exceeding six consecutive months without an accepted excuse, or eight non-consecutive months in one year, or eighteen months in three years. We found no published exemption for property owners. A holiday home you visit twice a year is exactly the use case that rule catches, and no marketing page mentions it. Dependants of owners are, separately, exempt from the normal age restrictions under Article 26 of the Executive Regulation as amended by ROP Decision 234/2021.

Where this leaves you

If you are buying in a licensed Integrated Tourism Complex, the residency route is genuine, cheap and well documented, and it has worked the same way since 2007. If you are buying anywhere else on the strength of the June 2026 wording change or the announced outside-ITC benefit, you are relying on a general residency rule and a press release, with Royal Decree 29/2018 and its criminal penalties still sitting behind them.

We are a Sanad office in Al Ghubra and we handle the owner visa and owner residency applications, dependants and renewals, and the documents that go with a property file. Where we would send you elsewhere first is the ownership question — whether a non-Omani can hold title to the specific plot or unit you are looking at. Settle that before you settle anything else.