However long you live there on a work visa, permanent status never arises, and citizenship requires twenty years.
Oman makes no commitments to newcomers. There is no processing deadline for work or family visas, the state publishes no refusal statistics, and the law explicitly allows residence to be refused or not renewed without reasons. There is no permanent status for length of residence, citizenship takes 20 years at the authorities' full discretion, and dual citizenship is banned. A foreigner here is a worker for the length of a contract, not a future resident.
The main pressure on those already living here is Omanisation. More than 200 occupations are being closed to foreigners in stages, in January 2026 including programmers and electronics engineers, and the ban also blocks renewals for people already hired. Rules adopted in late 2025 double permit fees for employers who miss their quota of Omani hires, and an unfilled Omani position costs OMR 500 a month in fines. Employers have almost no incentive to hire a foreigner.
Status is tied to the employer. The requirement for the previous employer's consent and the two-year re-entry ban were abolished in 2021, but you can move only when your contract, usually two years, ends. The US State Department describes a risk of deportation for changing jobs mid-contract, passports kept by employers despite a 2023 ban, and contracts ended for workers who fell ill. After a resident card is cancelled you have 30 days to leave or transfer to a new employer, then a fine of OMR 10 a day. Card renewals are filed online before expiry, and you keep living and working meanwhile.
Families can come, but a spouse may not work: it is forbidden on a family visa, so a full employment visa cycle is needed. The sponsor needs a senior position, housing in their or their employer's name and, according to the police website, a salary of at least 600 rials a month. Foreign children are admitted to state schools for OMR 50 a year, but teaching is in Arabic and places go to citizens first. Bank accounts open once the resident card is issued, usually with an employer letter; there is no separate address registration and no integration exam.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa for up to 14 days, non-extendable, with a return ticket, hotel booking, insurance and enough money for the trip. To live here, the same employer route.
Citizens of Gulf Cooperation Council states work without a work permit, their children attend state school free, and property ownership is easier for them.
Adults from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Syria and Nepal need a medical certificate in the approved format for work and family visas. Israeli passports are not accepted.
No visa for up to 14 days on the same terms. To live here, the same employer route as everyone else.
No visa for up to 14 days, non-extendable, on the same terms. When we checked we found no specific restrictions or privileges for these nationalities: the employer route is the same.
The place interval 70-85 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Settling in: 80 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 69.5. The weakest is Path to citizenship: 7 against 57.1. Above the world average: 3 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
There is no official deadline: neither the Labour Law, nor the regulations, nor the police set one. The employer runs the process through e-services, so timing depends on the employer and the agencies.
Hardly. There is no digital nomad or self-employment visa; what remains is investor residency from OMR 250,000 (≈$650,000) for 5 years.
A work permit costs about OMR 263 for two years, and by law the employer pays it. A family visa is OMR 30 per person for two years; over five years a family of three costs about OMR 1,200 including school fees.
Yes. Residence can be refused or not renewed without reasons, and when an occupation is closed to foreigners, renewal is blocked. After a card is cancelled you have 30 days to leave or move to a new employer.
Years of residence never lead to permanent residence. Citizenship after 20 years of continuous residence (15 for foreign wives of Omani citizens), with Arabic and renunciation of your previous citizenship, entirely at the authorities' discretion.
As workers for the length of a contract: no income tax and digital procedures, but status hinges on the employer, occupations are closing to foreigners one after another, and there is no path to permanent status.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.