Certificate Attestation for UAE

The United Arab Emirates is not a member of the Hague Convention, so an apostille is worthless there. Documents for the UAE need the full legalisation chain: state verification, MEA attestation, UAE Embassy attestation in New Delhi, and finally MOFA attestation inside the UAE.

The UAE is by some distance the destination we handle most. Most of our clients are heading to Dubai or Abu Dhabi for employment, and their employer or the relevant free zone authority has asked for attested educational certificates before the residence visa can be issued.

The step people miss is the last one. A certificate can arrive in Dubai with a perfect MEA stamp and UAE Embassy attestation and still be refused, because MOFA attestation inside the UAE has not been done. By then you are already there, and posting the document back to India costs weeks.

Typical timeline

12–20 working days end to end, depending on the issuing state. We confirm an exact estimate for your specific document and issuing state before you commit.

What the MEA stage actually involves

Indian government charges are quoted with your job rather than published here, because they depend on the document, the issuing state and the destination. What is worth knowing is the shape of it: state verification, MEA submission, the embassy stage, MOFA and courier are separate stages, each with its own charge, and a quote that does not separate them is worth questioning.

One detail that surprises people: the MEA does not take documents over the counter from the public. Its own guidance states that no document is accepted directly from individuals at the Ministry’s counter, and that submissions are made through its outsourced agencies. Travelling to Delhi to hand your certificate in personally achieves nothing.

The MOFA stage inside the UAE

The final stamp is applied inside the UAE by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which sets and collects its own charge for it. Because those are the UAE government’s charges and they change from time to time, we confirm the current position when we quote for your document rather than publishing a figure that quietly goes out of date.

MOFA sets out the order plainly: a document issued outside the UAE must first be attested by the foreign ministry of the country that issued it, then by the UAE Embassy or Consulate in that country, and only then through MOFA’s channels in the UAE. There is no route that skips a stage in the middle.

A warning about the “new digital process”

Several agency blogs now claim that the UAE Embassy stage has been abolished, that MOFA attestation is done inside India, or that one digital certificate replaces both stamps. We checked that against the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in September 2026: its published guidance still requires embassy or consulate attestation in the issuing country before MOFA.

The UAE does run an electronic attestation system, eDAS, but MOFA describes it as being for documents of goods imported into the UAE, carrying a digital stamp — not as a replacement for the personal-document chain. If anyone offers you UAE attestation that skips the embassy in New Delhi, ask them to show you where the UAE government says that is allowed.

Arabic translation

Many UAE authorities, and most free zones, want the document in Arabic as well as English. Where a translation is needed it is normally legalised alongside the original rather than afterwards — a translation produced once the stamps are already on the original usually has to go through the chain again. Tell us at the outset if your employer or free zone has asked for Arabic and we will build it into the same job.

What affects the cost of UAE attestation

UAE attestation carries more separate charges than most destinations, which is why a single number quoted before anyone has seen your document is rarely the number you end up paying.

There are four: the state stage, the MEA, the UAE Embassy in New Delhi, and MOFA in the UAE itself. The embassy charge is set by the UAE and has been revised more than once in recent years; it is also charged per document, so two certificates cost twice as much at that stage, not a little more.

The largest variable is the document type. A degree needs HRD verification, which means a university has to be written to and sometimes charges its own fee. A birth certificate goes through the Home Department or SDM and skips that entirely, which is why personal documents cost less and finish sooner.

The rest is straightforward: how many documents, whether you want them back by international courier, and whether you need it urgently. Tell us the documents and the emirate they are going to and we will give you a full breakdown, including which part of it is the embassy’s charge rather than ours.

Guides by emirate

• Attestation for Dubai