Legal Translation in the UAE

The licence belongs to a person, not to a shop

Arabic is the official language of the United Arab Emirates, and onshore authorities transact in it. That much is uncontroversial. What most buyers get wrong is who is allowed to make an Arabic version count.

A certified translation in the UAE is a personal legal act. Federal Decree-Law No. 22 of 2022 Regulating the Translation Profession, which replaced Federal Law No. 6 of 2012, provides that the profession may not be practised in the country unless the translator is entered on the Ministry of Justice list and holds a licence from the competent local licensing authority. The Ministry keeps a file on each translator and each translation house, and it operates a Translators Affairs Committee and a disciplinary board over them.

So the shopfront is not the credential. The named individual is. A valid certified translation carries that individual's stamp, signature and Ministry number, and the receiving authority checks the number against the list before it accepts the file. Translating without being on the list is a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment of one to two years and a fine of AED 50,000 to AED 100,000, or either.

Ask for the translator's name and number before you commission the work, not after the counter rejects it.

One translator, one language pair

Entry on the list is granted for specific languages, not for translation in the abstract. A translator licensed for English into Arabic cannot lawfully certify a Russian original, and a translation house cannot quietly route the job to someone who is not on the list.

The set of foreign languages the Ministry pairs with Arabic is finite, which matters more than it sounds. For a less common source language there may be no listed translator at all, and the workable route becomes two certified steps — source into English abroad, English into Arabic here — with the cost and the delay of both. Confirm the pair exists before you commit to a date.

Cabinet Resolution No. 147 of 2025, in force from 15 November 2025, prices exactly these failures:

The schedule runs from AED 2,000 where a document goes out without the translator's name or number on it, through AED 5,000 for working before the oath is taken and AED 10,000 for practising after the entry has expired, to AED 15,000 for translating outside the licensed languages, handing the work to someone not on the list or not performing it personally, and AED 20,000 where a translation house works outside its licensed languages or discloses what the work taught it.

Repeat breaches within a year can be doubled. Two of these matter to you as a buyer rather than to the translator: the work must be done by the person who signs it, and a document without a legible name and number on it is not certified, whatever the invoice says.

What sits behind the stamp

The conditions of entry are why a certified translation costs more than a competent one. An applicant needs a university qualification recognised in the UAE, a certificate of experience — reported as not less than five years for expatriates, with UAE nationals exempted — and an oath taken before a judge. Under Ministerial Decision No. 215 of 2024, professional indemnity cover is compulsory: a minimum of AED 1 million for an individual and AED 5 million for a translation house, written by a UAE insurer, for a minimum three-year term and non-revocable while the entry stands. Khaleej Times, reporting the Ministry's service card, puts the fee at AED 3,000 and processing at 65 days; confirm both before relying on them.

Nobody signs that stamp alone: the applicant produces the qualification and the experience certificate, a judge administers the oath, a UAE insurer writes the AED 1 million or AED 5 million policy for its minimum three-year term, and only then does the Ministry of Justice enter the name — alongside a licence from the competent local licensing authority, at a reported AED 3,000 and 65 days.

That insurance is part of what you are buying. If an error in the Arabic costs you a transaction, the recourse runs to a named, insured professional.

None of this is old law. Four instruments built the position a buyer meets at the counter today, and three of the four are dated 2022 or later.

In order: Federal Law No. 6 of 2012 governed the profession until Federal Decree-Law No. 22 of 2022 replaced it and made practising off the list a criminal offence, Ministerial Decision No. 215 of 2024 made indemnity cover compulsory at AED 1 million for an individual and AED 5 million for a translation house, and Cabinet Resolution No. 147 of 2025 has priced the breaches since 15 November 2025.

Which authority wants Arabic, and why

In short: the onshore courts work in Arabic under Article 5 of the Civil Procedure Law and take foreign-language exhibits only with certified Arabic translations, providing an interpreter where a litigant or witness does not speak it; a notary public may write an instrument in nothing else, under Articles 27 and 29 of Dubai Law No. 4 of 2013; a memorandum of association and every amendment to it must be in Arabic and attested, failing which it is void; MOHRE takes employment contracts in Arabic, in practice with an English counterpart; the Dubai Land Department wants Arabic for powers of attorney, corporate constitutional documents and foreign court and probate orders; MOFA will attest a foreign document in Arabic or English, or with a legally certified translation; MOEC needs it for the foreign priority documents and powers of attorney behind a trade mark filing; and DIFC and ADGM run in English throughout — until the matter leaves the zone.

Two of those are worth reading twice.

Abu Dhabi narrowed the rule in 2023. The Abu Dhabi Judicial Council issued Circular No. 8 of 2023 on 12 September 2023, relieving litigants of translating English bank statements and invoices that carry only self-explanatory numerical data. Where numbers sit alongside English text that bears on meaning, the court can still call for a translation. It is an Abu Dhabi measure; do not assume Dubai applies it.

English zones are not an exemption, only a deferral. DIFC and ADGM run in English, and nothing you file inside them needs Arabic. The moment enforcement crosses into the onshore system, that changes: under the Protocol of Enforcement between the Dubai Courts and the DIFC Courts, a DIFC judgment taken to the Dubai Courts' execution judge must be translated into Arabic by a legal translator and ratified by the DIFC Courts. Companies that chose an English-language jurisdiction to avoid translation meet it again at the only moment it is expensive.

Where translation sits in the attestation chain

Order is not a matter of preference. A translation reproduces the document in front of it, including its seals. Which is why the chain does not simply run backwards when the document travels the other way — translation moves from the end of it to the beginning.

For a document issued abroad, translate last — after the issuing-country steps, the UAE mission abroad, and MOFA here. Arabic prepared before those stamps exist will be missing them, and the file goes back. A sworn translation obtained in the country of origin is, as a rule, not accepted onshore, because the translator is not on the UAE list. For a UAE document going out, the sequence inverts: translation first, then certification of the translator's seal through the Ministry of Justice, then MOFA. The full chain, fees and refusal reasons are on our document attestation page.

What it costs

Translation is priced per page, and a "page" is a counting convention rather than a physical sheet — each supplier sets its own word count for one. The same document can therefore be quoted at different page counts by two firms charging the same rate. Ask what the convention is before you compare two quotes.

Personal certificates run AED 50 to 150 a page, powers of attorney AED 150 to 300, a memorandum of association and its annexes AED 150 to 400, and commercial contracts or court documents AED 150 to 500 — with same-day or express handling adding a surcharge of 30% to 100% on whichever band applies.

These are market ranges, not published tariffs. Legal translation is not price-regulated, the figures move, and a specialist pair — Mandarin, Farsi, Turkish — sits at the top of them or beyond. Notarisation, courier and any attestation of the translation are separate line items.

A good translation of a bad original does not fix the original

This is the part that gets skipped, and it is the part that costs money.

Under Article 14 of Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 on Commercial Companies, the memorandum of association must be written in Arabic and attested by the competent authority, failing which it is null and void — and where the MOA also exists in a foreign language, the Arabic text prevails and applies in the State. Read that plainly: the English version your shareholders negotiated is not the constitution of your company. The Arabic is. The same logic runs through employment contracts lodged with MOHRE and through any onshore litigation, where the judge reads Arabic. Which of a company's documents exist in Arabic first, and where English is still allowed, is worked through document by document on its own page.

Which means the translator's fidelity is not the safeguard people assume it is. A translator's duty is to render the source accurately. If your English power of attorney omits the specific power to sell, the Arabic omits it too, and the Dubai Land Department refuses it — correctly, and weeks later. If your shareholders' agreement contains a clause that is unenforceable onshore, translating it produces an unenforceable clause in Arabic. If a name is transliterated one way on the passport and another way on a prior document, the file stalls on a discrepancy the translator was right to reproduce.

Translation renders; it does not repair: an omitted power stays omitted, an unenforceable clause stays unenforceable, a name spelled two ways stays spelled two ways, and under Article 14 of Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 the Arabic memorandum is the text that prevails and applies in the State.

The practical conclusion is uncomfortable for anyone selling translation by the page: on documents that will govern something — constitutional documents, powers of attorney, security documents, settlement agreements — the Arabic should be reviewed by a lawyer as the operative text, not proofread as a courtesy copy. Better still, where the document is UAE-governed, have it drafted in Arabic and translated outward.

Where this is the wrong thing to buy

When nothing onshore will ever see the document. DIFC and ADGM filings, intra-group English contracts, board minutes for an overseas parent, agreements governed by English law with arbitration seated in the DIFC — none of these need certified Arabic. Buying it "to be safe" buys a stamp nobody will read.

When the document itself is defective. Translating a power of attorney that lacks the power you need produces a defective instrument in two languages, at double the cost and with a longer delay. Settle what the receiving authority requires the text to say, then translate. Attestation and translation authenticate and render; neither adds a power the drafter left out.

When the source document should be reissued instead. A misspelled name, an outdated company name, a superseded licence — fix these at the issuing body. Certifying a flawed original propagates the flaw into the file that will be checked.

When what you need is an interpreter. A hearing, a notary appointment, a bank onboarding meeting requires a person present. That is a different engagement, priced by the hour, and a certified document translation does not cover it.

When machine translation is honestly sufficient. To read an Arabic tenancy contract and understand it, use whatever tool you like. Do not present it. An uncertified translation submitted to an authority is not a cheaper version of the same thing; it is a rejected file.

When a bilingual lawyer is the better purchase. For a shareholders' agreement or a bespoke commercial contract that will be tested onshore, drafting counsel who works in Arabic will produce a stronger operative text than a translator working downstream of an English draft. Translation is the wrong budget line for a drafting problem.

When you are buying a brand rather than a translator. The licence that matters sits with the individual whose stamp lands on your document, not with the office. A large firm that assigns a junior and a sole practitioner who has spent years on property files can produce very different work at similar prices.

Seven cases, and they do not all end at the same desk.

Only one of those seven ends in a translation to commission, and even then with a named individual rather than with an office; the rest need no certified Arabic at all, need the original fixed or reissued before anything is translated, or need an interpreter's hour or a bilingual lawyer's drafting instead.

Before you commission anything

• Name the receiving authority, and ask it what it will accept. Requirements differ by emirate and by department.
• Confirm the translator's name, number and language pair, and that the same person will sign.
• Fix the order: foreign documents get their stamps first, then Arabic.
• Ask what counts as a page and what the total will be, including notarisation and any attestation of the translation.
• On anything that governs — constitutional documents, powers of attorney, settlements — budget for legal review of the Arabic.

Send us the document and tell us which authority is going to read it, and we will tell you what has to be translated, in what order, and whether the text you have will survive the counter. Where the honest answer is that no translation is required, we will say so — and where the real problem is the drafting, we will say that too, before you pay per page for it.

Frequently asked questions