Can foreigners buy property abroad?

The single most common question we are asked is also the easiest to answer. Across the five markets Omnia covers, a foreign individual can legally own residential property. That holds in the UAE, in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia since January 2026, in Oman through its tourism complexes, and in Montenegro on the same terms as a citizen. The headline is settled.

What is not settled, and what actually decides a purchase, is how you own, where, and under which exceptions. One market gives you perpetual freehold anywhere you can buy a flat; another confines you to a named island; a third has just opened and is still drawing its map. The rest of this guide compares the five on those three axes, then sends you to the dedicated guide for whichever market fits.

One framing matters before the detail. Citizens of the six Gulf states are largely treated as locals across the Gulf under the 2002 GCC agreement, so the restrictions below bind mainly non-GCC buyers. If you hold a Gulf passport, much of the zoning falls away.

Tenure is the first thing to get right, because it governs what you actually hold. Freehold is outright, perpetual ownership of the property and its land, inheritable and transferable. It is the headline tenure foreigners can secure in all five markets, though the area where you may exercise it differs.

Usufruct is a long fixed-term right to use and draw income from a property, commonly up to 99 years, without owning the land beneath it in perpetuity. Qatar and Oman both offer usufruct in zones beyond their freehold areas, and parts of the UAE offer it as an alternative tenure. It is real, registered and often inheritable, but it is not freehold, and the distinction belongs in writing before you commit.

The third route is ownership through a company. In Montenegro, the land categories closed to foreign individuals, agricultural land, forest, islands and border zones, can be acquired through a domestic Montenegrin company, which as a local entity buys without restriction. The structure is legitimate and routine, but it is a structure, with its own costs and obligations.

The table below sets the five out on the axes that decide a purchase. Read the Where column first: it is the real differentiator. The UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia confine foreign ownership to designated zones, Oman to its tourism complexes, while Montenegro lets a foreigner buy built property and urban land anywhere, as a citizen would.

Two notes on the numbers. The Gulf transfer costs are stable because the currencies are dollar-pegged; the Montenegrin figure is a progressive band, 3% up to EUR 150,000, 5% on the portion to EUR 500,000 and 6% above, and applies to resale, while a developer's first sale of a new build carries 21% VAT instead. Saudi Arabia's headline pairs the 5% transaction tax with a non-Saudi disposal fee of up to 5%, so the foreign transfer load there can reach as much as 10%.

The exceptions are as important as the permissions, and they are specific. In Saudi Arabia, the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah are restricted to Muslim owners, and the wider zone map for non-residents was still being finalised by the regulator REGA in mid-2026, so the precise areas open to a non-resident are not yet fixed. Lists of named neighbourhoods circulating online are not official.

In the UAE, freehold for all nationalities is firmly established in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah, and now in named developments in Sharjah, but it is not a blanket rule across every emirate: several of the northern emirates remain predominantly leasehold or usufruct outside specific master-plans. In Qatar, ownership is confined to the designated freehold and usufruct zones rather than the open market.

In Oman, foreign freehold runs through Integrated Tourism Complexes, not the general market, and one practical caveat is worth carrying: Musandam holds licensed ITCs but had no sales-ready foreigner-facing freehold scheme as of mid-2026, so a buyer drawn to that peninsula should confirm what is genuinely available. In Montenegro, agricultural land, forest, islands and border zones are closed to foreign individuals and require a domestic company to acquire.

For many buyers the real prize is not the title but what the title carries. Four of the five markets link property to residency, and the thresholds vary widely. Qatar is two-tier: a renewable residence permit from around QAR 730,000 of property, and permanent residency, capped at roughly 100 grants a year, from around QAR 3.65m. The UAE offers a renewable 10-year Golden Visa from AED 2m in property value.

Oman ties residency to qualifying property purchases under its relaunched investor-residency programme, and Saudi Arabia lets a developed, mortgage-free home valued at SAR 4m or more support its Premium Residency. Montenegro grants a one-year renewable residence permit from a property valued at around EUR 150,000, with EU, EEA and Swiss citizens exempt; note that its citizenship-by-investment programme closed at the end of 2022 and only the residency route remains.

One discipline applies across all of them: ownership and residency are separate decisions that are easiest to get right together. Sequenced well, a single purchase can secure both the asset and the right to use it. Sequenced poorly, a buyer can hold the property and miss the visa, or finance an asset that the residency rule requires to be unencumbered.

Because the answer to can foreigners buy abroad is yes in every market we cover, the answer is rarely where the value of advice lies. The value lies in the next question: which market, which tenure, which zone, and structured how. A dollar-pegged Gulf market behaves differently from a euro-facing Adriatic one; a settled freehold regime behaves differently from one drawing its first map; a resort complex behaves differently from an open-market apartment in a European capital.

Saudi Arabia is the live one to watch. The law is in force, but the zone document for non-residents was still being finalised in mid-2026, so a buyer there should treat the map as the gating question and confirm it before reserving. Everywhere else the framework is settled enough to plan against with confidence, provided the per-market exception is respected.

Our role is to compress that complexity into one clear recommendation for your circumstances, then run the title, tenure, zone and residency checks before any money moves. Read the dedicated guide for the market that fits, and bring us the address before you commit to it.