Residency for sale: what we know about Rasmalé, Ayla and the Pearl visa
Who is buying, who is selling and who is checking the money.
Artwork: Dosain
21 minutes ago
After dominating headlines for six weeks, the fight over Rasmalé is heading for a showdown. Campaigners rally in Malé on Friday to demand a referendum. The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party says it will take to the streets if one is not called by 15 November. President Dr Mohamed Muizzu wants the deal with Eagle Hills signed before 17 November.
Behind the furore is a larger shift. The Maldives is about to start selling homes, and the right to live in them, to wealthy foreigners.
The constitution prohibits foreign ownership of land (for now). What is on offer is a lease on a villa or apartment up to 99 years along with a residency visa. In tandem with the Maldives Waterfront and Marina in Rasmalé, two other projects are in development: Project Ayla in Noonu Atoll and the Pearl Residence visa programme designed with Henley & Partners.
This explainer draws on our two-part series, the second reported in collaboration with OCCRP, along with developments since and interview material that did not make it into print.
What is the Rasmalé deal?
Rasmalé is an artificial island being created on the Fushidhiggaru lagoon south of Malé. The “eco-city” is President Muizzu's flagship project as the solution to the capital's housing crisis.
On 21 September, the infrastructure ministry and Abu Dhabi developer Eagle Hills signed a commercial terms agreement to develop 8,800 properties along with hotels, a marina, shops, offices, and education and healthcare facilities on 500 hectares of Rasmalé, nearly half of the reclaimed land. The company has since been inviting buyers to "Make Maldives your new home".
Muizzu insists the deal will not cost Maldivians homes. He has promised housing to every eligible applicant in the Malé region, where 58,505 applications were made, for 35,930 flats and 22,575 plots. He says Eagle Hills will drive development of the rest of Rasmalé, which he put at 650 hectares last week.
According to Infrastructure Minister Dr Abdulla Muththalib, who signed the terms sheet with Eagle Hills chairman Mohamed Alabbar in Dubai, the developer will not pay an acquisition fee or land rent. Instead, the state will take:
10 per cent of Eagle Hills' revenue from first sales and leases, which Muththalib projects at US$3.1 billion over 10 years
a fee of 4 per cent of a property's value every time it changes hands
tourism GST on the businesses that operate there
Eagle Hills will also build 5,000 three-bedroom flats in Hulhumalé at a cost of about US$500 million. The government calls this an "advance payment" to be deducted from its 10 per cent share. Sale proceeds are to be held in escrow in Maldivian banks.
The agreement has not been published. The attorney general calls what was signed a letter of intent. Muizzu has told ruling party MPs and ministers that the definitive agreement will be signed before 17 November, Adhadhu reported. Appearing on PSM’s Nation Chat podcast last week, Muizzu said a full copy of the agreement would be shared with a parliamentary committee and that a special bill on real estate tourism would be open for public comment for about two weeks before becoming law.
According to Alabbar, Eagle Hills may “go for 50:50 sharing” on the development with Emaar, the Dubai developer he founded. Construction could start in the first quarter of 2027, he told Reuters.
The value of the investment and projected revenue for the state has varied. Finance Minister Hassan Zareer says the state will earn more than US$11 billion in a decade. Alabbar says nearly US$20 billion in taxes over the project’s lifetime. Muizzu puts total investment at US$30 billion and permanent jobs at 14,000.
Eagle Hills' announcement, carried by Gulf News and others, said the investment was "expected to be worth about $12 billion over its various phases". The joint release with the ministry the same day said "around US$20 billion” with more than US$30 billion in foreign investment and more than 54,000 direct and indirect jobs. More recently, Muththalib cited US$22 billion in net foreign investment and more than 60,000 jobs, based on an economic impact assessment by the analytics firm Evalueserve.
A report by the Ilmuveringe Gulhun, a network of local religious scholars, added up the revenue streams the government has listed and calculated US$5.7–7.3 billion over 10 years, most of it one-off income from first sales. According to the report, obtained by the Maldives Independent, some of its inputs are figures Muththalib gave the scholars at a closed meeting.
What is the land worth?
Estimates range from US$7 billion by the analyst Midhuam Saud and US$10–17 billion by MDP MP Dr Ahmed Shamheed to US$24 billion by Dhauru, which applied Hulhumalé’s current average price of MVR7,500 (US$486) per square foot.
Muththalib called Dhauru’s method flawed. Newly reclaimed land with no bridge or services cannot fetch a finished city's price, he argued. The minister used the MVR1,750 a square foot paid for industrial plots on Thilafushi and counted only the 48 per cent of land that a planned city sells as housing, commercial and industrial plots. The best case value is US$2.9 billion or about US$1.5 billion after the US$1 billion the state would need for roads and utilities, he wrote on Friday.
In contrast, the partnership would bring in about US$4.3 billion from the revenue share and the transfer fee, he said. Muththalib cited less than MVR250 million as the cost of reclaiming 500 hectares. The opposition MDP says dredging and reclaiming all of Rasmalé would cost US$1.4 billion.
Writing on LinkedIn on Sunday, former economic minister Ahmed Mohamed cautioned that neither Hulhumalé's nor Thilafushi’s prices might fit. The former is for developed land while the latter's industrial rates may not reflect the commercial potential of a waterfront development, he said, questioning how the agreement accounts for the debts taken on by the state-owned enterprises that paid for Rasmalé’s reclamation. "A project can make economic sense without the agreement governing it necessarily representing fair value for the country," he wrote.
What is Project Ayla?
A cluster of artificial islands in Dhigufaru lagoon, Noonu atoll, 188 kilometres north of Malé. On 31 December 2025, Muizzu designated it the country's first "sustainable township": a new kind of special economic zone where foreigners can buy long leases on luxury homes.
The first phase is valued at US$790 million. More than six million cubic metres of sand have been dredged to build what the latest environmental filing calls 25 islands and islets. Its Dubai-based backer, BluRock, now markets it as The Laurel: 96 properties on 13 islands with a golf course and a marina.
And the Pearl Residence?
A residency-by-investment visa scheme, designed with the global firm Henley & Partners under an agreement signed in Singapore on 1 July 2025. Economic Minister Mohamed Saeed says it "connects large-scale investment and development with long-term residency". Henley said it would build "an investor visa framework specifically linked to real estate acquisition".
The government's Pearl website invites investors to "secure permanent residence". But the minimum investment, the length of the visa and how it is renewed have not been announced. The bill to create it was still at the policy stage in July. The programme’s launch has been delayed from April to the second half of 2026.
How do the three fit together?
The Pearl visa is built around property purchases like those at Ayla, where Saeed promoted it at the groundbreaking. Rasmalé buyers would be eligible for the existing corporate resident visa, Muththalib says, though owning a home there gives no automatic right to stay.
Eagle Hills' sales website says: "The Maldives Corporate Resident Visa grants five years of residency, renewable, for investments from $250,000. The process is simple and easy, with a one-time fee paid only once your visa is approved."
Can foreigners own land in the Maldives?
No. Article 251 of the constitution bars foreign ownership of any part of Maldivian territory and caps leases to foreigners at 99 years.
There was a brief exception. In July 2015, President Abdulla Yameen's government amended the constitution to let foreigners own land in projects worth more than US$1 billion, if at least 70 per cent of the land was reclaimed from the sea. Parliament voted unanimously to repeal it in April 2019.
The current government has reportedly considered bringing it back. In September 2025, the cabinet decided to amend the constitution to let foreigners own property in "real estate development zones" declared by the president, away from inhabited islands, Adhadhu reported last week, citing a copy of the decision and a draft amendment. As in 2015, a developer would have to invest at least US$1 billion, and 70 per cent of any project on reclaimed land would have to be newly reclaimed. Foreign owners would get no citizenship or political rights.
The proposal came from Muththalib, as part of a seven-point package that also included investor residence visas, a real estate development law and a new property regulator. It stalled after the ruling party's poor showing in April's council elections, according to Adhadhu.
So how have foreigners been buying property here until now?
Through resort villas. Since 2010, villas and rooms in resorts have been leased to anyone, foreigners included. Those buyers remain tourists. Their lease cannot outlast the resort's lease from the state. The resort rents the villa out when they are away and the purchase comes with no visa. A 2023 regulation described the arrangement as "selling" the right to use a villa without owning the land or the building.
How many villas have been sold this way is not public. The tourism ministry told us it does not publish the list of villa leases, refusing our request under a provision of the right to information law that covers deals between private parties.
Ayla and Rasmalé are different. They are built for people who come to live, not to visit.
Hasn't the Maldives offered residency to investors before?
Yes. In April 2015, Yameen launched "Corporate Resident Maldives", welcoming foreign investors into what he called "a privileged, elitist club" and inviting them to feel like "Maldivians among Maldivians". One route was to put US$1 million into approved real estate. The visa lasts as long as the lease.
In 2020, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih's government cut the threshold to US$250,000, kept in a five-year fixed deposit or invested in businesses the government lists. The new rules make no mention of property.
In August, Majority Leader Ibrahim Falah told parliament that the MDP government had granted corporate residency visas to 168 people, 153 of whom still live in the Maldives.
However, in response to a request under the right to information law, Immigration said 122 corporate resident visas have been issued since the new rules took effect on 25 November 2020, under both governments: 79 before November 2025, and 43 since then through a new e-visa – four in the rest of 2025 and 39 so far this year.
Immigration did not say how many visas were granted for investments in property, to which nationalities, or how many were renewed, refused or cancelled, and it did not cite an exemption for withholding the rest. It forwarded those questions to the economic ministry.
In response to a separate RTI request, the economic ministry said on Tuesday that corporate resident visas have been issued to 174 recipients, 154 of whom still hold active visas, without saying over what period. Those numbers are close to the ones Falah gave parliament for the MDP government alone.
The ministry said it has no record of any visa issued specifically for an investment in a real estate project. Asked for the list of businesses approved for visa investments, it said the rules do not require it to keep one. Quarterly figures have never been made public, it said.
What is the row about leases that "reset"?
Eagle Hills' first announcement said that with each sale or inheritance, "a new leasehold term of up to 99 years will commence". The ministry's version of the same statement left that out. Eagle Hills later rewrote the line without saying it had changed it. A ministry infographic then described each sale as the "cancellation of the existing lease, and issue of a new lease for a fee of 4% of the property value".
Muththalib explained the thinking to religious scholars at a closed meeting on 30 September, according to a written record quoted in the Ilmuveringe Gulhun report. Each approved sale would bring a new 99-year lease, he said: "Otherwise nobody will buy property." An inheritance would be handled like a sale, at market value, for a fee. The state could take the area back only by paying its full value: "if the area is worth USD 2 billion, the government can take it by paying $2 billion".
Critics say leases that restart with every sale are ownership in all but name. Former High Court chief judge Hathif Hilmy wrote that an automatic reset "will defeat the purpose" of Article 251, while stressing that nobody yet knows whether such a clause exists.
The government's public account has shifted. Muththalib had assured the public that no one would be able to renew a lease or hold property in perpetuity. On 20 October, Muizzu said Rasmalé leases would run for 99 years with no automatic renewal and that buyers would have to sell their properties back to the state when the lease ends.
A week later, Muizzu told ruling party MPs and ministers that a new 99-year lease would begin each time a property changes hands, Adhadhu reported, citing a source at the meeting. Muththalib confirmed the mechanism on 30 October: when a property is sold, the government approves the buyer, then "cancels the old lease and issues a new one, for 4 percent of the value". He calls that the opposite of a sale: "The land's value returns to the State not once, a century from now, but every time a property changes hands."
The detail will be in the definitive agreement and the new law, neither of which has been published.
Former MP Ali Hussain asked the Supreme Court to void the deal under Articles 250 and 251. The court's registrar refused to accept the case as a first-instance matter. He has asked the Judicial Service Commission to review that decision.
How did we get here?
Who are Henley & Partners?
The best-known name in what the industry calls investment migration. Henley designs residence and citizenship-by-investment schemes for governments, markets them, and helps wealthy clients collect what it calls "sovereign portfolios" of "residence rights, citizenship options, business interests, and assets across multiple jurisdictions". Its chairman, Christian Kälin, has been dubbed the "Passport King".
Why is the firm controversial?
Because several of the schemes it has worked on have ended in scandal, as OCCRP has reported over the years:
In St Kitts and Nevis, OCCRP found Henley had facilitated passport applications for nearly a dozen figures, including high-profile politicians and alleged criminals and fugitives.
Malta's citizenship-by-investment programme, which Henley helped set up, was struck down as unlawful by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2025.
OCCRP reported that Henley was involved, through a Cypriot intermediary, in a citizenship application for the fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low. Henley says Low "was never a client" and "was specifically rejected as such".
OCCRP reported allegations that Kälin secretly funded election campaigns in St Kitts and elsewhere in return for rights to market passport schemes. Henley "categorically rejects" them.
Henley told the Maldives Independent that there was "no factual basis for treating a collection of historic and disputed allegations concerning different jurisdictions and periods as evidence, or as a way to wrongly infer that due diligence under the new Maldives Pearl Residence program will be inadequate."
What did the Maldives sign?
The agreement was signed on 1 July 2025 at a business forum in Singapore. According to the Attorney General's Office, the Maldives' counterparty is Henley & Partners Immigration Services DMCC, a company based in the United Arab Emirates.
The economic ministry told us the firm pitched it and that it was formalised as a "private sector initiated proposal". The ministry refused our request for the agreement, citing an exemption in the right to information law for commercially confidential information whose release could cause "irrevocable damage" to a third party's business.
In April, Saeed said a Pearl Residence bill had been drafted and would "soon be submitted to parliament". In July, the AG's office told us the bill was still at the policy stage.
How will Henley be paid?
Not from public funds, Henley says. The government pays it nothing "for the design, marketing, implementation, management or operation of the programme", though the firm "may separately charge clients" who hire it to help with their applications.
The economic ministry said fees paid by applicants "may be used to fund the administration and operation of the Program Office, including remuneration of service providers engaged in implementation and management."
MDP MP Dr Shamheed told us he had heard that applicants would pay Henley about US$45,000 each. Henley called the suggestion that the government would pay it that sum "false" and said any fees it charges clients are "separate from programme fees payable by applicants to the Government".
The European Parliament warned in 2022 that when the same intermediaries design and promote these schemes and also prepare individual applications, it "represents a conflict of interest prone to abuse".
What the Maldives stands to earn is equally unclear. Saeed cited estimates of "more than US$1 billion in direct and indirect inflows". The ministry told us the figure was based on "preliminary program modelling and anticipated investor participation".
Who decides who gets a visa?
Henley says its role is to "support application processing, administration, due diligence coordination and the preparation of recommendations" for the government.
The ministry and Henley described the vetting in almost identical words: "a multi-layered due diligence framework incorporating international screening, financial and reputational assessment" and screening by Maldivian security and regulatory agencies.
What is former President Nasheed's link to Henley?
Nasheed sits on the advisory committee of the Andan Foundation, set up by Kälin, and received its Global Citizen Award in 2024. Asked about the relationship, he told us: "This is not at all accurate and I don't understand why you are going on about it. Residency programme is a good programme. I suggest that you remove all the articles on Henley."
Henley said Nasheed "played no role" in its engagement with the Maldives, which had been "conducted exclusively with the current administration". Its relationship with him concerns his climate advocacy, it said.
Did Henley's chairman pitch Maldivian homes to Israelis?
In a December 2025 interview during a visit to Israel, republished on his personal website, Kälin said: "We expect wealthy people from around the world to buy additional homes there, and we hope many Israelis will do so." Israeli passport holders have been barred from the Maldives since April 2025.
Henley said the comments were about the programme's "potential international appeal" and "obviously not a statement regarding the eligibility of any particular nationality". The programme "does not create exemptions" from entry restrictions, it said. It also told us Kälin "does not personally promote any programme"; promoting the Pearl Residence internationally is the firm's job.
How did a resort lease become a township?
In late 2022, Solih's government leased Dhigufaru lagoon, a reef system of about 745 hectares, and the nearby island of Dhekenanfaru, for resort development. The plan was 11 reclaimed islands to be called Ayla Maldives.
It was an unsolicited proposal. The investor picked the site and paid what then-economic minister Fayyaz Ismail called a "hugely higher" acquisition fee than a normal tender would have fetched. Under the MDP's policy at the time, the fee was earmarked for reclaiming the Giraavaru lagoon near Malé. The main party was Swiss, with a Scandinavian partner, as Fayyaz recalled.
Asked whether the lease protected the state if control of the company changed hands, Fayyaz said no: "that was just a normal lease that we signed... It can be transferred like a normal tourism transfer lease." The MDP government never expected it to become a special economic zone, he said.
Then, under the current government:
April 2024: BluRock Ocean Investments Holding Ltd becomes a shareholder in the leaseholder, Crystal Holdings
March 2025: The SEZ Board of Investments gives Crystal Holdings an initial permit for a "sustainable township"
November 2025: Parliament amends the SEZ Act to create townships with their own tax breaks
December 2025: Full SEZ permit; Muizzu designates Ayla the first township on 31 December
January 2026: Groundbreaking
At the groundbreaking ceremony on 29 January, Saeed said the president's guidance was that "the vision BluRock presented at the outset was to be realised in its entirety".
What is actually being built?
That keeps changing. In May, the seventh addendum to the project's environmental impact assessment described 21 islands and 364 rooms, including 73 villas on VIP, private and royal islands designed as "high-end residential-style villas". In August, an eighth addendum raised the count to 25 islands and islets and added a "Golf Island", a "Residence Island" and a bridge. The royal island would grow from 9.45 to 14.45 hectares "due to the changing product type" and the villas "will operate as a residence style development".
About 152 hectares are being reclaimed with more than six million cubic metres of sand. The filings put the end of reclamation at December 2026 and construction at December 2028. BluRock advertises an opening in 2027; Ayla's chief executive, Petar Krstic, promised "the summer of 2028". He called the project "the single largest private sector investment in the history of the Maldives, nearly US$800 million".
When we visited in July, work was well under way on about half the new islands. The rest stood empty. Each was ringed with rock to stop the sand washing away. Several had been planted with coconut palms. The largest plot served as the project base, with cranes, workers' blocks and stacks of steel and shipping containers.
Who owns it?
We don't know. The leaseholder and permit holder is Crystal Holdings Private Limited. Its shareholder BluRock is based in Dubai, and its investors, equity partners and ultimate beneficial owners are not public. The latest environmental filing was signed by Crystal Holdings' Managing Director Abdul Rahim Vattiyapuri Haja Mohideen. Neither company responded to our questions.
"No one yet knows who the true ownership is. Not even the ownership of the company, or who invests in it," Shamheed told us.
What does a township have to include?
Under the amended SEZ law, a township needs at least US$500 million of investment, luxury homes, a hospital or hospitality school, farms or fish farms, housing and amenities for residents, and at least 60 per cent renewable energy.
"These are not add-ons; they are conditions," Saeed said at the groundbreaking. Krstic promised a hospitality academy, a "state-of-the-art medical facility" and at least 60 per cent renewable energy.
None of the environmental filings mention a hospital, school or farms. Asked when they would be built, the economic ministry said they were under development and that "the operational license for the sustainable township will only be granted upon fulfilment of all the components as required".
What do people nearby make of it?
In Fodhdhoo, one of the nearest inhabited islands, nobody is quite sure. "What we've heard is that some of the wealthiest people in the world are investing in this place," said Abdulla Abbas, a guesthouse manager. "It's going to be developed Monaco-style." A speedboat captain had heard of casinos and clubs. Another man was less impressed: "So far, we haven't gotten anything out of it, no jobs for any locals, nothing."
Velidhoo MP Mohamed Abbas told parliament in August that Ayla now accounts for "80 per cent of the money that enters the island's economy" in Holhudhoo, Noonu's second most populous island.
Ali Shameem, a former president of the Noonu Kudafari island council, remembered snorkelling there with his family. "That lagoon has the most healthy reefs in the atoll," he said. "Even if you think about tourism, it's scary... We can't even fathom what 11 resorts in one lagoon will even become."
What has it done to the reef?
The project's environmental assessment expected "significant impacts" from dredging and reclamation. Between July and September 2024, about 74 per cent of sediment readings at monitoring sites exceeded the regulator's limit, levels a monitoring report said "may threaten surrounding marine ecosystems". By October 2025, the reef was "poor to fair, reflecting previous large-scale reclamation activity".
Fodhdhoo residents said the sediment plumes reached nearby resorts and complained that sand was taken from inside the atoll, which is cheaper for contractors but worsens the silt.
"We cannot call this reclamation, because it doesn't mean anything. This is sand dredging," said Humaida Abdul Ghafoor of the Save Maldives campaign. "It destroys the ecosystem where the sand is sourced and it destroys the ecosystem where it is dumped." Then the new islands must be planted: "The whole thing has gone out of control and has become an extractive industry unto itself." A Fodhdhoo resident had heard that more than 4,000 palm trees were bought from other islands for Ayla.
Are more townships on the way?
Shamheed thinks so: "This is just one city. Apparently many such cities are to come."
Muththalib told the scholars that if Rasmalé succeeds, similar projects could follow "in the north and south", according to the meeting record.
A US$175 million "sustainable township" in Thaa atoll was announced in July through a press release placed in Indian media. The economic ministry said the developer has not applied for an SEZ permit. The figure also falls well short of the US$500 million investment threshold.
Meanwhile, residences are on sale or planned at several new resorts: Zamani Islands in South Malé atoll advertises suites from US$999,000 with a "7% return for 10 years", and branded residences are planned by Baccarat, Aman, Corinthia, Nobu and Mondrian, according to Forbes. Trump International Hotel Maldives, billed as the world's first "tokenised" hotel development, is due to open in 2028.
International brokers are moving in too. Christie’s International Real Estate launched a Maldives affiliate on 22 October to sell branded resort residences for developers and private owners. It is led by the hospitality entrepreneur Laith Pharaon. Its first listings include two developments by his own Six & Six Private Islands, with two-bedroom overwater villas at Rah Gili in South Malé atoll from about US$2 million. “For years, the Maldives was known as a place to visit, not necessarily a place to own real estate. That’s changing,” said Marco Bonini, its managing director of sales.
What is a special economic zone?
An area with relaxed regulations and tax incentives to attract investment. Yameen's government passed the Special Economic Zones Act in 2014. Zones are approved by a Board of Investments and declared by the president. In November 2025, parliament added "sustainable townships", aimed at "attracting high-net-worth individuals and families to reside in the Maldives". Ayla is the first.
What tax breaks do townships get?
Income tax of 5 per cent for 10 years, then 10 per cent for the next 10
No income tax on profits from villa sales
No import duty on construction materials and other capital goods
A transfer tax on villa leases of 1 per cent on the first sale, 2 per cent on the second and 4 per cent on every sale after that
Saeed insists the incentives are "targeted, conditional and time-bound" and "not about giving away public revenue". Core taxes, "including goods and services tax, land lease rent and applicable sectoral levies, remain fully in place," he said.
So what does the state earn when a villa is sold?
Shamheed calculated that if a foreigner buys a US$250,000 home in Ayla, the state would only collect US$2,500. "No money comes into the Maldivian state from that property. It doesn't come into the banking system," he said. Under the MDP's corporate visa rules, by contrast, the same US$250,000 had to sit in a Maldivian bank for five years.
A resolution he submitted to parliament in July called for residency-linked sales to pay at least the standard four per cent plus a "residence programme levy" and for a 10-year bar on reselling. The ruling party's supermajority in parliament rejected it in August.
At Rasmalé, which is not a zone, buyers will pay four per cent on every transfer, and there will be no import duty exemptions, according to the infrastructure ministry.
Why does the four per cent keep coming up?
Because it has been proposed, dropped and revived. Until recently, the tax authority charged the tourism goods and services tax (T-GST) of 16 or 17 per cent on villa sales, which Fayyaz said "was a killer" for the market. In June 2023, Solih's government proposed a flat four per cent tourism real estate tax instead. After the change of government that November, Muizzu's attorney general withdrew it.
A year later, the Supreme Court ruled in Bunny Holdings v MIRA that long-term villa leases fell outside the GST Act. "It's not four percent," Fayyaz said. "In fact it's zero percent tax now."
The four per cent came back in the SEZ amendment, but only inside zones. "My understanding is they didn't want to give this to everyone," Fayyaz said. "So it's a hugely corrupt decision, I would say. Or a very negligent decision." If the MDP returns to power, he said, it would honour binding contracts but tax real estate tourism "across the board".
Is a zone really 'a state within a state'?
That is Shamheed's charge. Under section 79, the SEZ Act prevails over 15 other laws, including the tourism, land, banking and tax laws, "in respect of all matters relating to zones".
"A geographic location of the Maldives has been carved up and handed over to a particular developer," he said, with "all of the elements of a state": banks, schools and hospitals. "It is not clear to us from the law whether the Maldivian state has any role in operating it or supervising what happens within it... If our police station and our normal law doesn't apply, I don't see how we can look into it."
The Act itself says the constitution and Maldivian law "shall fully apply" to everything outside a zone's incentives. But it makes the developer primarily responsible for seeing that the law is followed inside. The economic ministry told us in August that township status does not in itself exempt residents from the laws on alcohol.
Zones "create economic and social spaces that are partially insulated from the institutions and accountability mechanisms that govern the rest of the country," said Salma Fikry, a governance specialist who has tracked the control of Maldivian land for years.
The same fear has attached itself to Rasmalé. Religious scholar 'Zamzam' Farish claimed ministers had told scholars that Maldivian police would not be stationed in the Eagle Hills area, which would have its own security. He said Home Minister Ali Ihusaan then warned him against "spreading lies" on national security.
Muththalib's account to scholars, in the record of the 30 September meeting, was different. The development would be gated with private unarmed guards and AI cameras, but police would have jurisdiction there, access to every camera and a station if needed. Alcohol had not been discussed with Eagle Hills, he said; hotels there could serve it only under a Tourism Act licence, in a "controlled setup". Muizzu has since said that the city would have no alcohol, pork or casinos.
Why do anti-money laundering watchdogs worry about golden visas?
Because they sell two things criminals value: a place to park money and a second home to run to. The Financial Action Task Force, the global anti-money laundering standard-setter, and the OECD studied these schemes together in 2023. They found them open to misuse by people seeking to launder illicit proceeds, hide assets, evade law enforcement or commit further crimes.
"Criminal exploitation of citizenship and residency programmes is a multi-billion-dollar business to launder the proceeds of fraud and corruption, evade justice, or access third countries," OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said when the report came out.
The OECD has also warned that residence schemes can help people dodge international tax reporting, by claiming to live somewhere their bank accounts are not reported to their home country.
That does not make every scheme a laundering machine. "The balance ultimately depends on the programme's design and oversight, as well as the strength of the jurisdiction's wider legal, regulatory and institutional framework," a FATF spokesperson told OCCRP.
How could a villa and a visa be used to launder money?
Real estate has long been one of the commonest routes. A single purchase can move a large sum at once. The buyer can hide behind a company or a trust. A property can be bought for more or less than it is worth, held for a while, then sold, so the money comes back looking clean. A residence visa adds a base, local bank accounts and the respectability of a government's approval.
None of this means Ayla or Rasmalé buyers will be criminals. It is why the checks are crucial.
Isn't residency less risky than selling passports?
Yes, say researchers. "You're not getting a new citizenship, so the risk is much lower," said Kristin Surak, author of The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires. "Visas can be revoked, they're not passed down in the family, and they bring a more limited range of possibilities." Most people who take up such schemes are "normal people", not politically exposed figures or alleged criminals, she said.
But "you still have to do background checks", she added. Her advice to small states selling residency: "strong due diligence so that the right people come through and that their money is clean", and "make sure that the benefits stay in the country rather than being paid out in commissions to foreign service providers".
What makes the Maldives' set-up a particular worry?
Several things together:
Bank secrecy in the zones. A regulation lets licensed offshore banks operate in the special economic zones and offer trust services, vehicles often used to hold assets out of sight. It bars the authorities, the banks, their auditors and anyone else with access to their records from disclosing information on the banks' major shareholders, beneficial owners or customers without a court order or the person's consent.
Hidden owners. Companies must file the names of anyone owning 25 per cent or more with the registrar, but there is no public register. Foreign companies will be allowed to buy homes at Ayla, the economic ministry confirmed. The real owners of Ayla's developers are not public either.
Risks not assessed. The Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, the regional watchdog, found in its 2025 evaluation that the Maldives had not assessed the risks posed by companies that could operate in the zones. It cited the government's finding that real estate is "highly vulnerable" to money laundering and flagged the lack of clear rules for trusts.
Few resources to check. "We have very few resources in the Maldives. We're talking about billionaires, and we wouldn't know if the world's big mafia gangs come and operate there," Shamheed said.
"Relaxed regulations, tax incentives, and discretionary approvals without transparency create tax-haven-style conditions that mirror MMPRC's pattern of corruption, embezzlement, money laundering, and hidden ownership," said Azza Mohamed, governance manager at Transparency Maldives. "Proceeding without proper risk assessments opens blind spots where illicit funds and corruption can enter through legal changes and unchecked approvals."
Has anyone assessed those risks since?
In July, we asked the Maldives Monetary Authority and the Financial Intelligence Unit, under the right to information law, whether the zones' risks had been assessed or an assessment was under way and what safeguards were planned. They refused all six of our questions.
The central bank withheld its proposed safeguards for offshore banking and trust services in the zones, describing them as "unadopted, un-operationalized, or exploratory" and suggested that releasing them could threaten "market stability". The MMA pointed to the APG's observation that no permits or licences had yet been issued in the zones.
Ahmed Ahid Rasheed, whose five-year term as information commissioner ended in September, called the set-up "a significant accountability gap": who owns property inside the zones is visible to the authorities only. "RTI exists so that the public can scrutinise how public resources such as land are being used and by whom. If the SEZ laws does not allow it, it is not a transparent one. It's a confidentiality framework."
Hasn't the Maldives been here before?
In the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) scandal more than a decade ago, nearly US$90 million in tourism lease money was stolen through the state's tourism promotion firm, as Al Jazeera's Stealing Paradise documentary and OCCRP's Paradise Leased investigation detailed.
Azza from Transparency Maldives said protections were "changed and removed" then, so lease money could be siphoned off "using intermediaries and opaque corporate structures", with competitive bidding dropped along the way. "Today, opacity still remains a core concern, especially around beneficial ownership, financial flows, and decision making," she said. Frameworks such as the SEZ and "strategic investments" heighten the risk "by operating with exemptions from standard procurement and disclosure requirements", and asset recovery from MMPRC "has been slow and incomplete".
Neither Ayla nor Rasmalé went to tender. Ayla began as an unsolicited proposal under the previous government. Rasmalé was signed under public finance rules that allow the government to accept privately initiated proposals, Muththalib said in a written reply to an MP.
What do the government and Henley say?
That the checks will be thorough. The economic ministry promises "a robust multi-layered due diligence framework", with international screening, financial and reputational assessment, and screening by national security and regulatory agencies. Henley adds "independent background verification reports" and says the government decides on every application. Investors, including foreign companies, "will be required to disclose information as required under the applicable regulatory regimes," the ministry said.
For Rasmalé, Muththalib says all money must go through banks licensed by the central bank, sale proceeds will be held in escrow and the government will vet everyone a property passes to, by sale, gift or inheritance. Buyers and their beneficial owners would have to declare every nationality they hold or have held, he said, with a false declaration voiding the lease. Muizzu has added a cap: buyers of any one nationality can hold no more than 25 per cent of the properties.
Fayyaz, who backs residency in principle, says the gap is in the law. "There hasn't been a comprehensive legal mechanism brought in for this," he told us. Immigration rules let the government refuse a visa, so "probably there is a crude mechanism where the end result can be achieved", he said, but investors and the public should know clearly when someone can be refused.
What would proper safeguards look like?
The people we spoke to agree on the basics:
Public registers. "The framework ought to require firstly a publicly searchable beneficial ownership register. Secondly, a public land ownership register for property inside SEZs. This should include who owns what, when it was acquired, and for how much," said Ahid. "Us citizens have a right to know who is buying property in our country."
Independent oversight and enforcement. "Full transparency over beneficial ownership, genuinely independent oversight of procurement and approvals, and enforcement systems that can trace, freeze, and recover illicit funds, including across borders," said Azza.
An enabling law. Shamheed and Fayyaz both want a dedicated law setting out the fees, the vetting and the grounds for refusal.
Clean money, local benefits. Surak's test: due diligence strong enough to ensure "their money is clean" and benefits that stay in the country.
Who is for this and who is against?
Every government elected since 2008 has widened what foreigners can hold and every opposition has called the other side's deals a betrayal.
The ruling People's National Congress created the townships, the Pearl visa and the Rasmalé deal. Muizzu calls the claims of foreign land ownership and religious compromise "baseless allegations deliberately engineered by political figures to incite public fear". Majority Leader Falah calls Rasmalé the most transparent project the country has announced and asked whether Maldivians should forever be left with "a loincloth and shorts, casting nets in the sea".
The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party is not against residency in principle. "As a general rule, I am not against the idea, the concept. What I'm concerned about is whether the safeguards are in place or not," said Fayyaz, who is seeking the party's 2028 presidential ticket. Its chairman, former President Nasheed, says "on principle, opening up the Maldives to a residency programme is a good thing".
The MDP's objections are to the terms and the secrecy. On Rasmalé, Fayyaz points out that Eagle Hills' host governments in Georgia, Serbia and Albania hold about a third of their ventures, while the Maldives has taken no stake. He wants the agreement published and the land independently valued: what Maldivians are asking for, he wrote, is "not less investment, but transparency about what is being given away".
On 1 November, the MDP national council resolved to take to the streets alongside other parties and civil society groups if the government goes ahead without a referendum; 57 of the 58 members present backed the resolution. Fayyaz urged members to fill the streets every night until 17 November if no referendum is announced by 15 November.
Nasheed, the party's chairperson, spoke against the resolution, telling the council he "fully" supported the project and admonishing members for what he called unsubstantiated claims of Rasmalé becoming a Zionist settlement. All Maldivians descend from people who came from elsewhere and settled, he said. Earlier that day, he wrote on X that the MDP appeared "increasingly willing to embrace xenophobic and ultra nationalistic rhetoric".
Former Vice President Faisal Naseem, who is also contesting the MDP presidential primary, wants the deal disclosed in full; his campaign called it a threat to the religious unity of a "100 per cent Muslim country".
Outside the MDP, former President Yameen and his People's National Front, religious scholars and the "Maldivian land for Maldivians" campaign want the project halted. The campaign is gearing up for a rally in Malé on 6 November to demand a referendum. Former home minister Sheikh Imran Abdulla has called on all citizens and the security forces to join. On 27 October, protesters gathered outside Muththalib's home until police, some carrying batons, pushed them back.
Is the row straining ties with the UAE?
Nasheed fears so. On 22 October, after MDP MPs denounced Alabbar in parliament as a supporter of Zionism, he warned the party's national council that attacking him would harm the Maldives and could halt existing UAE investments. Shahid, who backed the street protest resolution, said dragging "friendly countries and our old development partners" into domestic politics was not in the national interest and that the opposition's fight was with the government.
Yameen's party has gone further. On 29 October, former Vice President Mohamed Jameel Ahmed of the PNF addressed Alabbar directly on X, tagging the UAE embassy and President Mohamed bin Zayed: "You may believe money can buy influence over the [Muizzu] administration, but do not mistake the government's willingness to accommodate your ambitions for the consent of the Maldivian people." He said he respected the UAE but "that respect must be mutual". The post has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.
Hasn't each side said the opposite before?
When the MDP government cut the investor visa to US$250,000, Fayyaz recalled, Saeed and the then opposition said it was "for bringing Indians to the Maldives". Muizzu has been filmed promising that no foreigner would get Rasmalé land "for even a single day, not for rent and not even for free". Critics have been posting the old video clips. On Independence Day in 2024, Muizzu said the earlier reclamation contract had been cancelled so that land would not be given to any party, "whether for a short or long period".
Yameen, who now promises to halt Rasmalé and put such decisions to a referendum, presided over the 2015 freehold amendment and the extension of resort leases to 99 years. "This is a safe place for investments," he told foreign investors in 2015.
Nasheed's verdict: the MDP's opponents cannot deliver prosperity "without resorting to the exact policies they branded as un-Islamic and un-nationalistic".
Why do Israel and Jews keep coming up?
Mostly because of Eagle Hills' chairman. In 2005, as chairman of Emaar, Mohamed Alabbar met Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv to discuss buying structures in Gaza settlements before Israel's withdrawal. After the UAE normalised relations with Israel in 2020, he called for closer ties between Emiratis and Israelis. In 2021, an Israeli business daily named him among the donors to an Israeli food-aid programme.
Yameen has claimed that "Jews" would be brought to live in Rasmalé, called Eagle Hills "a depraved bunch exploiting a morally bankrupt regime" and said the project would create a "Jewish settlement". Home Minister Ali Ihusaan called that "a blatant distortion of facts and a disgraceful attempt to exploit religious sentiments for political gain".
Other opponents have taken up the theme. Sheikh Imran says any move to settle people of other faiths, "especially Zionist Jews", must first be put to a public vote. At a protest on 29 October former MP Ali Hussain said Maldivians would not stand by while the country was sold to "Zionists and people of other faiths".
Israeli passport holders have been barred since April 2025. But as Muththalib acknowledged, the ban "covers Israeli passports, not Israeli citizens": dual nationals can enter on their other passport, a gap he said "exists today at every resort in the country". For Rasmalé, he promised that Israeli nationals and Israeli-controlled companies would be barred from the whole ownership chain. Muizzu says the agreement will legally bar Israeli citizens from buying, leasing or even entering the development and that interest so far has come mainly from Muslims in Arab countries.
Even the Ilmuveringe Gulhun report, which wants the project paused, found no evidence that Rasmalé is an Israeli project and called claims of planned Israeli settlement "unsupported".
In late October, the government withdrew a penal code bill after critics said its provision against public incitement against a national, ethnic or religious group could be used to silence opposition to Israel and Zionism. Attorney General Ahmed Usham, who drafted it, said the genocide provisions were needed to bring Maldivian law in line with the Genocide Convention.
What do religious scholars say?
Several have spoken out against Rasmalé. Sheikh Fazloon bin Mohamed described the leases as "an endless cycle". The Ilmuveringe Gulhun report, dated 17 October, calls the project "neither impermissible in itself nor harmful in itself" but objects to its terms: leases that do not end, an unpublished contract, no competitive process and resort norms beside the capital. Citing the agreement of Khaybar, it argues that such land must stay under Muslim authority, on a lease with a known term. The greatest religious risk is not churches or festivals but resort norms in a permanent district of 30,000 people next to Malé, it says. The report concluded that the government has a religious duty to pause the project, then renegotiate it or withdraw before signing a definitive agreement. The network has sent the report to the President's Office and parliament, Adhadhu reported.
The religious NGO Jamiyyathu Salaf – whose leadership includes the First Lady's family members – has set out eight principles for Rasmalé and other foreign-invested projects, including protecting the country's Islamic identity and sovereignty and assessing demographic, security and social risks. Such projects should offer no opportunities to Israeli citizens, it said, though that did not mean closing the door on foreign investment. When Adhadhu reported the statement as conditional support for letting followers of other religions settle, Salaf called the story "categorically false". Adhadhu stood by it.
Muizzu says no non-Islamic places of worship or schools will be allowed and that the city will have mosques and the call to prayer.
Muththalib gave the scholars the same assurance, according to the meeting record: "There will be a mosque. The adhan will be called." No other place of worship would be allowed and Christmas and other religious celebrations would be barred in the agreement, he told the scholars.
How have the government and Eagle Hills handled the media?
Ministers, ruling party MPs and political appointees as well as pro-government outlets have flooded social media with material defending Rasmalé. Alabbar hosted local media at a lunch during his visit in October. Economic Minister Saeed called on the opposition to stop spreading misinformation about Ayla and dismissed our report as "fake news". We have invited him to set out what he disputes.
Eagle Hills also took Maldivian journalists on a media tour of the UAE. Those who went have since been branded "traitors", "Zionists" and "Jews" online. The campaign against them has escalated to threats of physical harm and death, according to the Maldives Journalists Association, which asked police to investigate and protect them. The Maldives Media and Broadcasting Commission condemned the threats.
The MJA has also urged newsrooms to label paid advertorials and keep them separate from news, saying unlabelled sponsored content in some outlets' coverage of Rasmalé had blurred the line between journalism and public relations.
Could a future government undo the deal?
For now, only commercial terms have been signed, which the attorney general calls a letter of intent, and nothing has been sold. Whether walking away would carry a penalty is unknown, because the terms are unpublished.
It could be costly. In 2016, after an arbitration tribunal in Singapore ruled against it, the Maldives paid India's GMR US$271 million over its cancelled airport contract. The Maldives and the UAE, where Eagle Hills is based, signed an investment protection agreement in 2017, which the UAE ratified the following year; whether the Maldives has done so is unclear. Such treaties usually let foreign investors take a state to international arbitration.
Since 2019, the Maldives has also been party to the New York Convention, which obliges it to enforce foreign arbitration awards. Where disputes over Rasmalé would be heard is not public.
Eagle Hills has seen a deal unravel before. In January 2025, Hungary's government announced a deal to sell it a former railway yard in Budapest. The government backed out in February, after a city-owned company used its right of first refusal on the site.
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