Oman allows non-Omanis to hold property in only a limited set of places, and integrated tourism complexes (ITCs) are one of the named categories. For a foreign buyer, an ITC purchase is largely a compliance exercise: the legal status of the complex, the form of title, the paperwork and the stated residency conditions all need to be checked against official texts. This article sets out a due-diligence framework built from Omani government and legislative sources, with the date of each source noted. It describes what those sources say and is not legal or investment advice.
The legal basis: what an ITC is
The ITC regime rests on Royal Decree 12/2006, the System of Ownership of Real Estate in Integrated Tourism Complexes, and on its executive regulation, Ministerial Decision 191/2007. The regulation has since been amended, including by Ministerial Decision 109/2022, which the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning issued and which decree.om lists as amending parts of the regulation. Article 2 of the 2007 regulation provides that non-Omani natural and juridical persons may own built property or plots of land inside such complexes.
The regime sits alongside other, separate routes. Royal Decree 38/2025, which issued the Law of Special Economic Zones and Free Zones, says in Article 42 that a developer may sell project units to non-Omanis, individuals or companies, as freehold in the manner the regulation specifies. That law was published in Official Gazette 1591 on 13 April 2025. A distinct statute, Royal Decree 79/2025 on regulating real estate, was issued on 10 September 2025 and, under its Article IV, takes effect 180 days after publication; it also repeals the earlier escrow-account system for development projects. A buyer should therefore confirm which instrument governs the particular project, because the rights, fees and approvals are not interchangeable.
In late June 2026 the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning stated, as reported by Gulf News, that recent changes to residency rules do not widen foreign property ownership, which stays limited to designated areas such as ITCs, named future cities and certain integrated residential neighbourhoods. Readers who want a project-by-project view can consult a comparison of Oman’s integrated tourism complexes that lists the complexes together with the sources behind each entry.
Who licenses and who registers
Two separate questions are easy to blur. The first is who grants ITC status; the second is who records title. A legal commentary published in Times of Oman on 25 July 2026 says that ITC status is granted by the Governmental Licensing Committee, and that the Ministerial Committee for Tourism can ask that committee to withhold the status from sites where ownership should stay restricted to Omanis. That is an interpretation by a commentator, not the text of a licence, so a buyer should ask the developer for the licence document itself and check its date, its scope and the plot numbers it covers.
Title registration is a function of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, which operates the title-deed service listed on the government’s gov.om portal. One practical point from the commentary is that, until construction is finished, a plot owner cannot sell or dispose of the plot other than by mortgaging it to finance building, and that any extension of the four-year build deadline needs ministerial approval. Anyone buying a plot rather than a finished unit should read those conditions closely.
What foreign freehold means in practice
The word freehold is used loosely in marketing, so the form of title should be read from the deed rather than from a brochure. In an ITC on the mainland, Article 2 of the 2007 regulation gives non-Omanis ownership of a built unit or plot. In Musandam the position differs: reports of Ministerial Decision 109/2022 state that non-Omanis may buy built units there only under usufruct, a time-limited right of use of up to 99 years. In special economic zones, Article 42 of Royal Decree 38/2025 refers to freehold sales by developers, with the detail left to the regulation. The ownership rules for each category are summarised in how freehold ownership works in Oman, which also records the questions the sources leave unanswered, such as inheritance treatment of ITC property.
| Instrument | What it governs | Date or reference |
| Royal Decree 12/2006 | Ownership of real estate in ITCs | As amended |
| Ministerial Decision 191/2007 | Executive regulation; Article 2 allows non-Omani ownership of built units or plots | Issued 2007; amended by Ministerial Decision 109/2022 |
| Royal Decree 38/2025, Article 42 | Freehold sales to non-Omanis by developers in special economic and free zones | Gazette 1591, 13 April 2025 |
| Royal Decree 79/2025 | Law regulating real estate; repeals the escrow-account system | Issued 10 September 2025; in force 180 days after publication |
Documents to verify before signing
A due-diligence file for an ITC unit normally begins with the evidence that the project and the seller are entitled to sell. The following items follow from the legal framework above and from the title-deed service requirements published on gov.om:
- The ITC licence or status document and the plot or unit references it covers.
- The seller’s current title deed and the cadastral plan, which the title-deed service lists among its required documents.
- Identity documents for buyer and seller, and a power of attorney where an agent signs.
- Any ministerial or developer approval required before a sale, which the seller should be asked to document.
- The sale contract and, for off-plan units, the payment schedule, handover dates and the arrangement that protects instalments paid, given that the earlier escrow system has been repealed and its replacement should be checked against the executive regulations of the 2025 law.
- Community documents such as the service-charge rate and the owners’ association rules.
Cost and registration steps
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning publishes the steps and fixed fees for obtaining a title deed on the basis of a sale contract in its title-deed service entry on gov.om. The listed process is: submit the request, review, initial approval, attendance of the parties and signing, payment of fees, and receipt of the title deed. The portal gives a processing time of 2 days. The same entry also states that GCC and other foreign nationals cannot own real estate in restricted areas, which is a reminder that the service is open only where the law already allows the purchase.
| Fee item (gov.om) | OMR |
| Application fee | 5 |
| Sale form for non-Omanis | 25 |
| New title deed issuance | 10 |
| Contract fee | 2 |
| Service fee for registering the sale contract | 3 |
These five items add up to OMR 45. They are the fixed administrative charges only; they do not include any percentage-based registration fee, tax, developer charge or legal fee, and a buyer should obtain written confirmation of each from the relevant authority and the developer.
How official sources describe the OMR 200,000 residency condition
Residency is a separate application from the purchase, and the wording matters. The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion (tejarah.gov.om), in a news item dated 13 September 2025, described the Golden Residency programme as carrying a minimum investment requirement of OMR 200,000 and a renewable 10-year residency, and said that real estate investors can acquire ready-made units within integrated tourism complexes. Invest Oman, in an article dated 1 September 2025, gave the same OMR 200,000 figure, around USD 520,000, and described the real estate route as covering residential, commercial or hospitality property in ITCs. Neither item, as read for this article, presents the threshold as specific to the real estate route, and neither mentions a title deed. The exact eligibility test, including the documents the authorities accept, therefore has to be taken from the current application rules, not from press summaries.
Older ITC rules contain their own owner provisions. Under Articles 24 and 25 of Ministerial Decision 191/2007, the owner of a built unit may apply to the Royal Oman Police for a residence permit for themselves and immediate family, valid for two years and renewed automatically every two years for six years. Owners of plots prepared for construction receive a two-year multiple investor visa until construction is complete. These are conditions of ownership, and the programme-level Golden Residency terms should be read independently of them. The Ministry of Housing’s June 2026 position, as reported, also makes clear that no residency instrument changes where a foreigner may own.
A short checklist for the evaluation
A reasonable order of work is to establish the status of the complex, identify the instrument that governs the unit, confirm the form of title, assemble the documents above, price the fixed registration charges, and only then review the residency conditions against the current official text. Gaps in public information remain: there is no single official list of licensed ITCs in the sources reviewed, and the executive regulations for the newer real estate laws were still pending at the time of writing.
Sources: decree.om (Royal Decree 38/2025; Royal Decree 79/2025; Ministerial Decision 109/2022 listing); gov.om (Get title deed based on sale contract, Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning); tejarah.gov.om (Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion, 13 September 2025); investoman.om (1 September 2025); gulfmigration.grc.net (text of Ministerial Decision 191/2007); Times of Oman (legal commentary, 25 July 2026); Gulf News (report of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning statement, June 2026).