General info and cost of living in Abu Dhabi

Hi Olivier

I can point you in the right direction on a few things, but won't be able to answer all of your questions. Hopefully some of our other expats will be able to help you out.

As far as getting work for your wife goes, this may be challenging but may be possible. Once you have your employment residence visa, you will be able to apply for a non-employment residence visa which will allow your wife to legally stay in the country. This will be valid for as long as your permit is valid. 

On the non-employment visa, your wife is legally not allowed to work. What many expats do, is that they enter the country on a non-employment visa, find work, leave the country and apply for the relevant work visa. It is slightly complicated and costly, but entirely possible. See our pages for Visas in Abu Dhabi and Work Permits in Abu Dhabi.

As for your income, 20,000AED plus housing and medical will allow you to have a very comfortable lifestyle. Both Montreal and Toronto have a higher general cost of living. The only thing more expensive in Abu Dhabi tends to be rent, but you have that handled already. For some more specific info, see our Cost of Living in Abu Dhabi page.

Cars tend to be cheap in the UAE, but the drivers are notoriously bad there so many people hire a driver or try to avoid driving as far as possible. See Transport and Driving in Abu Dhabi for some general info.

About 80 percent of the population in Abu Dhabi is foreign, and many of those are from the West, so yes, there are many Western expats and it won't be difficult to find expat websites and facebook support groups.

If you respect and follow local customs and laws, you will get along fine. There are rude people everywhere but moving to Abu Dhabi with an open mind and not expecting it to be like a Western country is a good step towards having local people accept you. To find out a bit more about this, see our Culture Shock in Abu Dhabi page.

Hope this helps

Good luck,

Xavier