Oman · Tax regime
Oman Personal Income Tax (Royal Decree 56/2025)
Enacted law, not a proposal — Royal Decree No. 56/2025 was issued by HM Sultan Haitham bin Tarik on 22 June 2025 and published in the Official Gazette on 30 June 2025. Marked 'proposed' only because it does not take effect until 1 January 2028 and the Executive Regulations, due by roughly 30 June 2026, appear overdue. 76 articles across 16 chapters.
This is the most consequential development in the region — not because 5% matters to a UHNW family's arithmetic, but because it breaks the Gulf's zero-income-tax taboo. Oman went first. The precedent now exists for every other GCC state under fiscal pressure, and Bahrain is already levying 15% DMTT. Any structure whose entire thesis rests on permanent zero personal tax is now carrying unpriced risk.
Qualifying routes
5% applies only to the excess above OMR 42,000 (roughly USD 109,000) of annual gross income. The Tax Authority projects 99% of the population will be unaffected.
The facts
- Qualifying figure
- 42k OMR
- Total landed cost
- 5% of income above OMR 42,000 from 2028 — immaterial arithmetically for a UHNW family, material as a precedent
- Timeline
- 18–18 months — Effective 1 January 2028; Executive Regulations pending and apparently past their due date
- Physical presence
- Residence definition to be set out in the Executive Regulations — not yet published
- Family
- not applicable — individual tax regime
- Permanent residency
- Not applicable
- Citizenship
- Not applicable
- Language test
- Not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Not permitted — you would have to renounce
- Requirements
- tax residence in Oman as defined by the pending Executive Regulations
- The scope is unresolved. Whether Oman will tax worldwide income or only Omani-source income for tax residents is not yet known, and that single question determines whether Omani residency remains viable for a UHNW family at all.
- Executive Regulations were due within one year of publication (roughly 30 June 2026) and appear overdue. Planning in the absence of them is planning blind.
- The strategic read matters more than the rate: advise clients to underwrite Gulf residency on the assumption that 'no income tax forever' is a policy choice, not a constitutional guarantee.
- Deductions and exemptions are provided for education, healthcare, inheritance, zakat, donations and primary housing — but the detail sits in the pending regulations.