Several Egyptian workers in the UAE, while on home leave, are reportedly having their residencies cancelled without explanation, leaving them stranded in their country.
There is growing fear among hundreds of thousands of fellow Egyptians working in the Gulf country that they could be next.
Schoolteacher Mahmud Adel returned to Egypt in July for his annual vacation.
Before he packed up to return to work in Sharjah three weeks later, the school administration sent him an email to notify him that his residency was cancelled.
"This was shocking, because the administration didn't mention any reasons for the residency cancelation," Adel, 33, told The New Arab.
Interior decorator Abdel Rahman Ahmed underwent a similar experience.
Having arrived at Cairo Airport to return to Abu Dhabi after spending his home leave last month, he was told by an airport employee that his UAE residency was cancelled too.
"At first, I couldn't believe it, but I tried to contact the company in Abu Dhabi," Ahmed, 36, told TNA.
To his dismay, the company officials did not pick up the phone, pulling the curtains down on an eight-year career outside Egypt.
Uncertainty
Other Egyptian workers are going through identical experiences, especially while they are on home leave, raising questions about whether this is a new UAE policy directed towards Egyptians.
Ahmed, the interior decorator, said he could only expect the worst, given the tough time Egyptians have been given in the UAE for several months now.
Abu Dhabi has not introduced radical change to rules regulating the entry, residency or departure of Egyptian nationals, even as some Egyptians refer to a new Police Clearance Certificate requirement to enter the UAE.
Nonetheless, reports of residency cancellations for Egyptians are increasing. These cancellations are affecting people working in almost all professions, without exception.
They are also affecting Egyptian investors in the UAE, causing fear among compatriots of all types. Thousands of Egyptian companies operate in the UAE market.
Some members of the Egyptian expatriate community have told their relatives back in Egypt that they would not take their home leave this year, lest their residencies should be cancelled once they board the plane.
Around 1.3 million Egyptians worked and lived in the UAE by the end of 2024, according to the Egyptian diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi.
Fear of going home
Egyptian workers have reportedly been facing difficulties in the UAE, including because of residency cancelations, since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran earlier this year.
Despite the lack of verifiable information about the scale of the problem, some people like Adel, the schoolteacher, and Ahmed, the interior decorator, provide some evidence of these difficulties.
Social media forums and groups are, meanwhile, awash with testimonies from people who had their residencies terminated.
Debates in the same groups and forums also reflect growing worries among Egyptians across the UAE.
On 13 August, an Egyptian national asked fellow members in the 'Egyptians in the UAE' Facebook group for advice.
"My flight back to Egypt is scheduled for tomorrow, but I'm afraid from the [residency] cancelation issue," the man wrote.
"How do you advise me, should I go back to Egypt, or not," he asked.
Family members in Egypt also share mounting worries about the professional and financial prospects of their relatives working in the Gulf country.
Youssef Mohamed, whose son works as a schoolteacher in Dubai, said he is extremely concerned about his son's future.
"I called him soon after I heard about the residency cancellations issue," Mohamed, a retired civil servant in his late sixties, told TNA. "He is in for a huge problem, if he loses his job in the UAE."
Remittances under threat
Remittances from Egyptian workers in other countries are Egypt's largest source of national income, only exceeded by non-oil exports.
In the first 11 months of the fiscal year 2025/2026, Egypt received $43.1 billion in remittances from its expatriate community.
This was 31.2% up, from the remittances it received in the corresponding period in the previous fiscal year.
Egyptians working in the UAE sent $3.6 billion in remittances back home in the fiscal year 2024/2025, according to the Egyptian government.
Around 14 million Egyptians work in other countries, the government says.
The bulk of this expatriate community is located in GCC states, with Saudi Arabia topping the list of expatriate workers' host nations.
The problems the members of the Egyptian expatriate community face in the UAE come as Cairo and Abu Dhabi quietly spar over a wide range of regional issues, even as the two capitals share vested economic and business interests, observers said.
The UAE has poured tens of billions of dollars in investments in Egypt in the past ten years, making it the top Arab investor in the populous, economically-struggling country.
Some of these investments were put in the acquisition of state assets, including money-making industrial facilities and plots of land in prime locations.
This makes UAE investments in Egypt a divisive issue, with some Egyptians expressing concern over Abu Dhabi's growing economic leverage in their country.
The two countries diverge on a large number of regional files, including Sudan, Libya, the Horn of Africa and Iran, analysts said.
Some of these analysts even suggested that the Egyptian expatriate community can be stuck in the middle of these political differences, even as its members have committed no mistake of their own.
"Egyptian workers seem to be paying the price of these political differences," Kamal Abu Eita, the former Egyptian minister of labour, said.
Speaking to TNA, he expressed belief that Abu Dhabi is using residency and visa issues as a pressure card against Cairo, knowing the importance of the expatriate workers' file for the Egyptian economy.
"I hope such policies don't affect relations between the peoples of the two countries," Abu Eita said.
"Sorry to say, injustices done ordinary people linger in the memory of the public for long," he added.