Relocating to the Middle East often provides greater earning potential and a stronger ability to accumulate wealth compared to many home jurisdictions. The key is to take advantage of these opportunities in a structured and intentional way, ensuring your finances are optimised to support both your short-term priorities and long-term goals.
The first step is establishing a robust emergency fund. This should typically cover 3–6 months of essential expenditure and be held in an account that is easily accessible, secure, and offers strong consumer protection. This creates a financial safety net so that, even if your circumstances changed suddenly, your lifestyle and short-term plans remain protected.
With this foundation in place, we can focus on aligning and optimising your assets around your financial objectives. That begins with clarity on what you are building wealth for and when will you need access to the funds? Once those timelines and priorities are defined, we can design an investment strategy that reflects your risk profile, utilises the appropriate asset classes and provides the flexibility to adapt as your life evolves.
Finally, as an expatriate, it’s essential to plan with future mobility in mind. Where possible, I factor in your next location, so that your investments remain structured tax-efficiently for your future country of residence, provided you have some indication of where and when that move may occur. This ensures your wealth continues to work effectively, wherever life takes you.
Remember that successful saving and investing isn’t about guessing markets or choosing the trendiest fund; It’s about understanding key principles and ultimately making the right choice for your situation.
Savings & Investments FAQs
Generally speaking, all unsecured debt such as Loans and Credit Cards should be paid off before you start to invest.
Three to six months of essential expenditure should be held as a readily accessible emergency fund to cover any short-term loss of income.
It is considered best practice to hold your emergency fund in a readily accessible account offshore, which is well regulated and has strong levels of consumer protection.
No, you can no longer contribute to a Cash or Stocks & Shares ISA whilst abroad, although you can keep existing ISAs open.
Pay off unsecured debt, build a sufficient emergency fund and make sure you have the adequate protection in place to protect you in the event of disaster. Once all of this has been established, be clear in your objectives, time horizon and investment amounts before selecting the appropriate assets to invest.
Inexperienced investors should stick to assets with a long track record of performance and avoid high-risk, volatile investments such as direct stock or cryptocurrency.
Very few active funds managers or stock pickers outperform the major indices over the the longer-term.
Focus more on behaviour and doing the right things consistently, despite what the outside world and financial media is trying to tell you.
This is completely dependent on your situation, the most important thing is that you start and that you are consistent. All contributions should be automated and boosted in line with future pay rises.
Yes, there are a diverse range of tax wrappers that can be used whilst you are in the Middle East to ensure your wealth can continue to grow and be taken tax efficiently when you relocate.
The wrapper ultimately depends on where you intend to relocate and as such all investment structures should remain fully flexible and portable until you know where and when this is likely to be.