Rent apartment, need UAE utility bill

As my name suggests, I am living a nomadic lifestyle, never staying anywhere for a long time. I have been doing this for years and I still haven't grown tired of it. But since this is a concept that banks and tax authorities don't really understand yet, I decided to get proper tax residency somewhere, just in case. I love Dubai, so that is where I settled. I am going to spend time there anyway, especially during the winter, so it's not just a fake thing on paper. But I will keep my nomadic lifestyle. So it doesn't really make a lot of sense for me to keep an apartment year round.

Anyway, I would need a utility bill to show to banks. I don't want to photoshop it, I want to do everything 100% legal. Some service provider offered to rent some shitty apartment for me (probably in the middle of the desert) and they would get me the electricity bill after two weeks and then cancel the lease. This would work, but obviously, there would be two downsides with it:
1. I can only use it now - if I am asked for a utility bill again at a later point, I would have to do it all over as the utility bill would be too old.
2. If there ever was some doubt about my tax residency status, for example if my home country should decide to tax me after all, many tax treaties have a clause that says you are considered tax resident where you have an apartment. So having an apartment year round might offer some extra protection. It probably won't be needed, but it would be nice to have. I'm also not sure how convincing it would be to claim that I lived in some really shitty apartment in the desert.

I have looked into renting an apartment and renting it out while I'm not there - but landlords generally don't allow subleasing and I don't want to break the law, especially not in Dubai. I could buy an apartment, but prices have been falling for years and all my friends in Dubai have warned me against it because the quality is so bad. And if I rent the place out, I wouldn't even be able to leave my stuff there. And with short term rentals there is more wear and tear.

Any other suggestions?

Because that's document forgery obviously.
Did you miss the part where I said I want this to be legal? 🙄
In my opinion it's stupid to break the law when it's easy to just comply with it. Risk going to jail for saving $1000? I'm not like you guys who are breaking the law anyway, so you don't care how many laws you break on top of it. ;)

Nice. I didn't know it's that cheap. Maybe I need to have a closer look. Where did you find that one for 17k?
To be honest, I find even 17k a bit expensive, considering I will only need it a couple times for banks. I'm properly nomadic, so it's highly unlikely I'd ever have to prove substance to anyone.

Ok, I have found some camel sheds for AED 8-9k per year. Say I'd be willing to spend that money, would it be of any use, except for the utility bill?
Say some other country asks me to prove I properly live in the UAE and I show my utility bill. Would they ask for the rental contract? If they do, wouldn't they look at the location and rent and say they don't believe in actually live there?

Martin Everson said:

If 4-6k euros a year for rent in Dubai is expensive then I don't know what to say really. Thats cheaper than Malta and a lot of European cities.

It's not expensive if you actually want to live there. But I'd prefer to stay in the Marina. And if I spend perhaps 4-8 weeks there in total per year, it just makes more sense to stay at a hotel.
Or I could rent a place in the Marina all year and rent it out through AirBnB when I'm not there. But the problem is that landlords don't allow that. So I'd have to buy. Which I consider high risk in Dubai.

Martin Everson said:

So yes a real greater than 12 month rental contract.....not short term is needed. No one cares if you live in a Camel shed but clear evidence you are present there helps. So internet bill, rental contract, DEWA and local health insurance i.e Essential Health Care (AED 562 a year) will do. Then your good to go.

The service provider would have given me a rental agreement without an end date. They simply would have canceled it after 2 weeks, as soon as the DEWA bill has been issued.

Ajman. It's the cheapest and they don't demand much documentation. Some free zones want to see proof that you are qualified for the work that you do. In Ajman, you even get 2 visas for the price of one.
But it's not a good option if you want to get a business account in the UAE.

Yes, exactly. I don't even plan to use the UAE license directly. I'll just use it to get residency, then use a foreign company to bill clients. Fujairah is probably better if you want to get a business account. I believe it is slightly more expensive than Ajman, but not much. Certainly a good choice.

Yes, I guess that should be fine. Maybe talk to a UK accountant.

Martin Everson said:

How much do you spend there for 4-8 weeks in a hotel btw? So I can see the difference.

Comparing that doesn't make sense. Obviously booking hotel room/suite in a nice location for 2-3 months can be more expensive than a small apartment in a crap location. But I don't want to live in some crap boring place.
And obviously the hotel would still be cheaper than renting a nice apartment in the same location all year (which is easily $25k per year for an unfurnished apartment).

So I'm back to the drawing board.
I was thinking about renting a nice place and then subleasing it when I'm not there to recoup some of the cost. But that's illegal, unless you get written approval from the landlord. And chances are some guest will disbehave, someone will call the cops, and then you're screwed.
Maybe I'm overthinking this. Maybe I should just get the utility bill from the service provider and send it to my banks and be done with it. I am not trying to hide from anyone, I have a nomadic lifestyle and I don't have ties to any other country. It's really just a practical problem.

I want to be in the Marina or maybe downtown. There's no way you can rent something furnished and of a decent standard there for less than at least AED 70-80k, probably closer to AED 100k per year. I don't see the point in living in some boring residential area.

But will there really be an advantage to renting a “camel shed“ for the whole year vs. just getting a utility bill? I mean if (very big if) some tax office were to ever question my tax residency, wouldn't they also be skeptical of me living in some shitty area? So in that regard some middle class apartment might make more sense. But it is so extremely unlikely that anyone would ever question my tax residency that I'm not sure I'm willing to pay for a nicer place I wouldn't even spend time at.

Martin Everson said:

Foreign tax office don't come and inspect where you are living abroad, they want rent agreements and to see utility bills in worse case to see rel existence at that location.

That's what my question was about, thanks.
But if they see an agreement with a $3000 annual rent - wouldn't they be just as skeptical as of a $3000 nominee director for a $1M business? I guess that's what I'm wondering about. The downside with moving around so much is that you can't really show substance by presence in number of days.