Muscatculture & etiquette

Tenancy in Muscat is governed by Muscat Municipality's own local ordinance rather than a purely national statute. Under it, rent cannot be increased at all for the first three years of a continuous tenancy, and after that an increase is capped at 7%. The tenancy must be registered with Muscat Municipality — unregistered agreements are referred to the Public Prosecution and carry real penalties for both parties. The practical consequence: a three-year rent freeze is a legal entitlement here, not a negotiation, and it only exists if the contract is registered.

Royal Decree 56/2025, issued in June 2025, promulgates a Personal Income Tax Law taking effect on 1 January 2028 — the first in the GCC. The rate is 5% on annual income above OMR 42,000, and the Oman Tax Authority expects it to affect around 1% of the population. Nothing is payable before 2028 and most salaries fall well below the threshold, but a senior package signed now runs straight into it, and any five-year plan built on 'the Gulf is tax-free' needs revisiting. Watch for the executive regulations, which will define residency and the scope of taxable income.

Muscat is built across wadi beds and several main roads cross them at grade. A short, intense rainfall in the Hajar mountains — often with no rain at all where you are standing — sends water down within minutes. Vehicles get swept away every year, and the Royal Oman Police campaign on this specifically. If water is moving across a road, turn around; depth is impossible to judge and the bed underneath may already have washed out. Cyclones from the Arabian Sea occasionally reach Oman, and when a warning is issued the correct response is to stay off the roads entirely.

The Ministry of Labour sets sector and occupation-level percentages of Omani nationals employers must meet, and periodically closes lists of occupations to expatriates altogether. This is a harder constraint than the equivalent schemes in the UAE or Bahrain, and it means the answer to 'can I get a job in Oman' often has nothing to do with your qualifications. Before you resign anywhere, get the employer to confirm they hold labour clearance for your specific occupation code, not just that they want to hire you.

Muscat's planning rules restrict building heights and require a traditional, predominantly white, Islamic-influenced architectural idiom. The result is a capital that spreads for fifty kilometres along the coast and never rises above a handful of storeys — the opposite of Doha, Dubai or Kuwait City. It is genuinely beautiful and it has a cost: the city has no dense centre, no walkable core beyond Muttrah's corniche, and a car is not optional outside a couple of districts.

Oman ruled Zanzibar until 1964, and a large community returned to Oman afterwards. Swahili is genuinely spoken in Muscat — in shops, in government, in families — alongside Arabic, Baluchi and English. It is the clearest everyday sign that Oman's history is an Indian Ocean history rather than a purely Gulf one, and it is worth understanding if you want to read the country rather than just live in it.