No Israelis, no free land, no passports: what the Ras Malé deal really says

On a Thursday night in October, former President Abdulla Yameen stood before supporters of the People’s National Front and asked for a promise. The Minister of Housing, he said, “must assure us that no Israeli or Zionist will become a resident there.” He meant Ras Malé, the reclaimed lagoon north of the capital where Abu Dhabi’s Eagle Hills plans to build a city of villas, marinas and hotels. Assurances were not enough, he argued. He wanted the Constitution changed.

Thirteen days later, President Mohamed Muizzu appeared on national television with an answer. Selling or renting a home at Ras Malé to an Israeli citizen will be prohibited, he said. An Israeli citizen will not be allowed to enter the development “even for a single day”.

That exchange captures the debate that has followed the agreement of principal terms in Dubai on 21 September. Three fears run through it. The first is that the project will open a door to Israeli and Zionist interests. The second is that 500 hectares of the country’s most valuable new land are being “given away for free”. The third is that foreign buyers will receive residency with their homes, and perhaps one day citizenship.

Each fear touches something Maldivians hold close: the country’s stand on Palestine, the worth of its land, and the question of who belongs to the nation. Each can be tested against the record. On all three, the record is stronger than the fear. On all three, too, some of the protection still exists only as a promise, and will carry its full weight only when Parliament passes the Real Estate Bill.

A door already closed

The concern about Israeli influence is sincere, and it is not confined to one party. Velidhoo MP Mohamed Abbas wrote that Maldivian soil must not be “turned into a homeland” for Zionists. Critics have cited past business contacts between Eagle Hills’ founder, Mohamed Alabbar, and Israeli officials, as the Maldives Independent has reported.

The first answer is a law that has been in force for more than eighteen months. On 15 April 2025, Parliament passed, and the President ratified on the same day, an amendment to the Immigration Act that bars anyone travelling on an Israeli passport from entering the Maldives. A buyer who cannot land at Velana cannot live in a villa at Ras Malé.

The ban was not free. More than 11,000 Israelis visited the Maldives in 2023, in a year of about 1.88 million tourist arrivals. The President has said the decision met strong objections from parts of the tourism industry and from within his own party, and that he proceeded because the national interest required it. A government that closed the front door at a price is unlikely to open a side door through property.

A government that closed the front door at a price is unlikely to open a side door through property.

The passport ban did leave one gap. An Israeli who holds a second nationality could enter on the other passport. For Ras Malé, the government has moved to close it. The Minister of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, Dr Abdulla Muththalib, has announced measures covering dual nationals. The President has said the rule will be written into the Real Estate Bill in terms of citizenship, not passports. That is the wording that reaches a dual national.

Two further checks apply to every buyer, from every country.

No single nationality may hold more than 25 percent of the properties, the President has confirmed. Ras Malé cannot become the enclave of one foreign community. Most interest so far, he said, has come from buyers in Arab and other Muslim-majority countries.

And no one buys, sells or inherits without the State’s permission. “No properties in Rasmale’ can be bought, sold or exchanged without authorization from the government,” Dr Muththalib said in September. “The government will look into the recipient.” When an owner dies, the heirs are reviewed too. The person approved in 2030 does not decide who holds the home in 2050. The State does.

The government has also described the kind of place it intends Ras Malé to be. The President has said it will have mosques and the call to prayer five times a day, and no pork, alcohol or casinos. “No other religion besides Islam can be practiced there,” he said, with mosques the only public places of worship. The Maldives Police Service will police it, and the Constitution will govern it, as it governs every island.

What is still missing is the law itself. The strongest answers above are commitments to a Bill that Parliament has not yet seen. One detail in that Bill will matter more than most. Wealthy buyers often buy through companies and trusts, and a check on the name on the contract can be avoided by a company registered somewhere else. The Bill can prevent this by requiring every buyer to name its beneficial owner, the real person who ultimately owns or controls the company, and by placing the checks with the Maldives Monetary Authority’s financial intelligence unit and with Maldives Immigration, not with the developer. Mr Yameen asked for an assurance. A rule of that kind would bind every future government, not only this one.

What “free” would mean

The second fear has been stated in the largest numbers. The newspaper Dhauru reported that land worth MVR 408 billion had been handed to Eagle Hills without payment. Opposition MP Ahmed Shamheed has valued the reclaimed land at US$10 billion to US$17 billion, and the analyst Midhuam Saud at about US$7 billion. Former minister Fayyaz Ismail has asked for an independent valuation.

“Free” has a plain meaning. The State would surrender the land, receive nothing at the start and receive nothing afterwards. None of the three is true.

The land stays with the State. Article 251 of the Constitution forbids any foreign party to own Maldivian territory and limits any lease to 99 years. At the end of each lease, the President has said, the property returns to the State, with “no auto renewal”.

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The State is paid before the first tower rises. Under the terms the government has published, Eagle Hills will fund and build 5,000 three-bedroom homes in Hulhumalé, worth about US$500 million, or MVR 7.7 billion, before the Ras Malé development begins. The concept designs for the Hulhumalé Phase 3 neighbourhood show towers and waterfront townhouses, parks, sports grounds, shops and a mosque by the sea. Construction is due to start in early 2027.

The homes are an advance, and that detail deserves to be stated clearly. Eagle Hills recovers their cost from the State’s 10 percent share of revenue as properties sell, Dr Muththalib has explained. What the State gains is timing and safety. Families receive the homes first. The State borrows nothing, guarantees nothing and pays nothing from the budget, while the developer carries the cost until the project earns. For a country short of housing and short of dollars, half a billion dollars of homes at the start is worth more than the same sum at the end.

The State is then paid for as long as the district stands. It takes 10 percent of the master developer’s revenue from first sales and leases. It takes a levy of 4 percent of the value of every property, at the first sale and again at every resale or transfer, each of which needs the government’s approval. It collects Tourism GST on every room, meal and shop, with no special economic zone and no tax concessions. And all sale money passes through escrow accounts in Maldivian banks. An escrow account holds a buyer’s money in trust until agreed conditions are met; here, it also keeps the dollars inside the country’s banking system.

The State borrows nothing, guarantees nothing and pays nothing from the budget, while the developer carries the cost until the project earns.

The fairest test of the “free” claim is to compare the deal with the alternative its critics imply: charging for the land once, at the start. Dr Muththalib has published that calculation himself. Of the 500 hectares, about 239 can be sold; the rest is needed for roads, utilities and public space. Sold at the price of industrial land at Thilafushi, about MVR 1,750 a square foot, the saleable land would raise about US$2.9 billion. Roads, power and water for the whole area would cost about US$1 billion, leaving about US$1.5 billion.

Against that, the Minister of Finance, Hassan Zareer, has projected more than US$11 billion for the State over ten years. That is about US$1.1 billion a year, which he said is more than the State now earns each year from 179 resorts, 16 hotels, 920 guesthouses and 165 safari vessels combined. Dr Muththalib has separately estimated that Tourism GST from Ras Malé will be eight times what a resort lagoon usually yields.

On the government’s own figures, then, the agreed model is worth about 3.8 times an outright sale before infrastructure costs and about 7.3 times after them (calculations by Good Morning Maldives (GMM)). The State would also still own the land when the leases end.

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The critics’ higher valuations are a reasonable starting point for debate, but they describe a finished city. Land worth US$7 billion or more is land with roads, power, buildings and buyers. Someone has to pay for all of that, and carry the risk that the buyers do not come. Under the agreed model that someone is Eagle Hills. The State takes its share of the value as it appears, sale by sale and transfer by transfer, and surrenders none of the ground.

The projection still has to be shown. The model behind the US$11 billion has not been published, and the base of the 10 percent share has not been confirmed. The President has said the agreement will go to Parliament. Publishing the financial model with it would let independent analysts test the figures, and would answer the “free land” charge with the government’s own arithmetic.

A home, not a passport

The third fear is the most personal. If foreigners can buy homes, critics ask, will they in time claim the rights of citizens?

The answer starts with a separation. A home is one decision, a visa another, citizenship a third, and none opens the next.

“Purchasing a property does not grant any right to enter or reside in the Maldives,” Dr Muththalib said. A visa is “a separate decision determined independently by the government”. Maldives Immigration applies the Immigration Act in full, may refuse or cancel a visa at any time, and takes no direction from the developer: “The developer cannot have any say in deciding who receives a visa.” An owner whose visa is cancelled must leave, whatever the property is worth.

Only long-stay visas will be allowed. A buyer will not receive permanent residency, Dr Muththalib has said. The most an owner can hold is a long-stay visa: a permit for a fixed term, granted one application at a time, renewed only if Immigration agrees, and open to cancellation at any point. It is permission to stay, never a right to remain.

Purchasing a property does not grant any right to enter or reside in the Maldives.

Citizenship is closed by the Constitution. Article 9(d) states that “a non-Muslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives”. No lease, investment or visa can change that. Only a constitutional amendment could, and Ras Malé proposes none.

The long-stay visa a buyer would most likely use is not new either. In November 2020, Parliament lowered the investment needed for a Corporate Resident Visa from more than US$50 million to US$250,000, or the same sum kept for five years as a fixed deposit in a Maldivian bank. The visa must be renewed every five years. It has existed for six years. Ras Malé adds no new route to residency; its buyers will be judged, one application at a time, under rules that already apply to every foreign investor. The planned Pearl Residence visa, developed with the advisory firm Henley & Partners, remains in preparation, and it too is a permission that can be withdrawn.

Behind this fear sits an older one: that the country does not know who lives in it. For many years, the State did not have a complete record. That is changing quickly. In May 2024, the government began registering foreign workers biometrically, taking ten fingerprints and a facial photograph from each. By 1 May 2025, 150,000 people had been registered. In May 2026, the Minister of Homeland Security and Technology, Ali Ihusan, reported that the share of migrant workers with complete biometric records had risen from 13 percent in November 2023 to 98 percent. Over the same period, the share of irregular migrants, workers whose visa or permit is not in order, fell from about 72 percent to 38 percent. Under Operation Kurangi, police and immigration teams have carried the registration from island to island, and Parliament has set fines of up to MVR 50,000 for employers who neglect foreign workers.

The same system will cover Ras Malé. A few thousand wealthy owners, each vetted at purchase, approved again at every transfer and holding a visa that can be cancelled, are a far smaller task than a large and partly undocumented workforce, and the State has already reduced the size of that task.

Only long-stay visas will be allowed. It is permission to stay, never a right to remain.

Here, too, the law should say what the minister has said. The Real Estate Bill should state that a lease gives no right of residence, and that visa decisions belong to Maldives Immigration alone. Eagle Hills has described each transfer as starting a new lease; the law should confirm the government’s position that no lease renews by itself.

The assurance that lasts

Read together, the record answers each fear.

The most durable assurance is not a minister’s word but a published agreement, a financial model open to scrutiny and a Real Estate Bill that writes each of these commitments into law.

Israeli passport holders have been barred for eighteen months, and the government has committed to a ban on any sale or rental to Israeli citizens, inside a 25 percent cap per nationality, with the State approving every owner. The land stays with the State, 5,000 homes come first, and the projected return is between about four and seven times what selling the land would bring. A home buys no visa, the investor visa is six years old, and the Constitution keeps citizenship closed to non-Muslims, while the State’s record of who lives in the country is more complete than it has ever been.

Mr Yameen asked for an assurance. The most durable one is not a minister’s word but a published agreement, a financial model open to scrutiny and a Real Estate Bill that writes each of these commitments into law. When those three documents reach Parliament, Maldivians will be able to read the protections for themselves, and so will every government that follows.