Visas and residency
Start attestation before you book the flight
Attestation is the one step in a UAE move whose timeline is set entirely outside the UAE, and it is the one most often left until it blocks everything else.
If we could give one piece of advice to somebody planning a move to Dubai, it would be this: attest your documents before you leave. It costs nothing to start, it is the step least within anyone’s control once you have arrived, and it is the single most common reason a setup that should take weeks takes months.
Why it cannot be done from here
The chain starts where the document was issued.
Attestation is a sequence, and each authority will only attest a document that already carries the previous authority’s stamp. It begins with a notary or the issuing body in the country of origin, moves to that country’s foreign ministry, then to the UAE embassy there, and only then to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Which means the first three steps happen in a country you have just left. From Dubai that becomes couriers, a power of attorney, a relative doing you a large favour, or a flight back. All of it is solvable and none of it is fast.
What to attest
Before you go, not when you need it.
- Degree and professional certificates – required for some roles and some visa categories, and the one most often left behind
- Marriage certificate – needed to sponsor a spouse, and needed again for other things you have not thought of yet
- Birth certificates for children, needed to sponsor them
- Police clearance, where an activity or a category calls for it
- Corporate documents – incorporation, memorandum, board resolution, incumbency – if a company will hold shares in your UAE entity
If you are not certain a document will be needed, attest it anyway. The cost of attesting something you turn out not to need is small; the cost of needing something unattested is a delay that stops everything behind it.
Where it goes wrong
Four failures, all avoidable.
- Out of order. A document attested out of sequence starts again from the beginning, in its country of origin.
- Translated too early. Translation generally comes after the chain is complete, because it translates the stamps as well as the text.
- An unauthorised translator. A perfectly good translation by someone without the required authorisation is refused anyway.
- Name inconsistency. A middle name on the certificate and not on the passport, or a transliteration that differs between documents, is treated as a different person.
The realistic sequence
What to do, in what order.
Decide before you move
Which documents plausibly matter: qualifications, marriage, children, and anything corporate.
Start at source
Notarisation or certification by the issuing authority, in that country.
Foreign ministry, then UAE embassy
Both in the country of origin, in that order.
MOFA in the UAE
The step that makes the document usable here, and the one most often missing when people tell us a document is ‘already attested’.
Legal translation
Where required, by an authorised translator, after the chain is complete.
If you already hold documents and are not sure how far along the chain they are, send us a photograph. Telling you what is missing takes a few minutes and is free. More on attestation.