Citizenship through investment and investment immigration programs have become a global trend. From Malta to Vanuatu, we have seen the emergence of a world where passports and citizenship are no longer restricted to parentage or historical belonging, but rather are available to those who can afford to pay the asking price. Even traditional immigrant receiving countries, such as Australia and Canada, have crafted deliberate policies in order to attract talented and hardworking immigrants. However, until recently, Persian Gulf states had avoided adopting such programs, or any other reforms that would expand their citizenries. This resistance occurred despite the Persian Gulf states representing the third largest hub of global migration as well as domestic tensions fomented by those denied access to citizenship. These states instead used citizenship as a prized, disciplining status that citizens could lose if they engaged in political activism, including in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Despite this historic resistance to expanding access to citizenship, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently amended its nationality law to offer citizenship to select groups of foreigners. In addition, the changes in the Emirates go beyond typical investment citizenship programs because they do not offer citizenship strictly in return for investment alone. Instead, the changes allow the state to confer citizenship to “artists, scientists, doctors, innovators,” and those seen as bringing their talent and creativity to the country. These changes have gone forward despite opposition from some Emirati citizens, who have even directed rare, public criticism at the state in response to them. This paper asks what prompted UAE officials to adopt these reforms? Using UAE policy documents and referring to public statements the government has issued, this paper examines how these reforms have unfolded over the past five years. In doing so, it evaluates whether the economic logics that have motivated other states to adopt “conditional” investment citizenship programs also motivated the UAE’s decision, or whether UAE officials had broader strategic and political interests that prompted the policy changes. The paper also discusses the ethical and practical principles behind making citizenship contingent on specific attributes and behaviors. Overall, the paper contributes to and extends the growing literature on conditional citizenship by applying and interrogating these scholarly debates in the Arab world.