Notary public in Dubai: contracts, declarations and fees

In Dubai, the notary public of Dubai Courts certifies the signatures of the parties on documents such as contracts, meeting minutes, declarations (affidavits) and powers of attorney, after checking their identity, capacity and understanding. Licensed private notaries offer the same services and may charge more.

Requests are made on the Dubai Courts website or app (after registration) or at Dubai Courts service centres. The usual journey is: submit the request, the notary approves it, the parties sign at a scheduled review (remotely for holders of a valid Emirates ID; in person for someone with a passport only), and the attested document is issued electronically.

Main conditions: parties must be 21 lunar years old for civil matters or 18 for commercial matters; amounts must be written in UAE dirham; documents not in Arabic need a legal translation certified by the UAE Ministry of Justice; and documents issued abroad must be attested by the issuing country's foreign ministry, the UAE embassy there and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Official fees (Executive Council Resolution No. 4 of 2014, shown on the Dubai Courts pages): a document worth up to AED 100,000 costs AED 300 per party; above AED 100,000 the fee is 0.5% of the value, up to AED 15,000; a document with no stated value costs AED 200 per party; the notary's electronic data entry costs AED 100 per party signature; a power of attorney costs AED 100 per party plus AED 20 knowledge and innovation fees (Dubai Courts power-of-attorney page); attesting a legal translator's signature costs AED 50 per page of the original. The legal translation itself is extra.

Tip: agree the final text and amounts with the other party before the appointment, and tell staff the value in the document so the fee can be estimated correctly.