Attestation Cost UAE 2026: Every Official Fee From Home Country to MOFA, With Worked Totals

The attestation cost UAE residents pay is the sum of the official fees charged at each stage that makes a document legally usable here: the issuing body, the foreign ministry of the issuing country, the UAE embassy or consulate in that country, and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, plus translation where it applies. Only two of those numbers are fixed by UAE law: AED 150 per personal document and AED 2,000 per commercial document at MOFA. Everything before the UAE stage is priced by another government, in its own currency, and everything after it (translation and agents) is priced by the market.

This guide builds the attestation cost one fee line at a time, with the official source beside each figure. It sets out the full MOFA schedule by document type, the Cabinet Resolution that fixes it, the eDAS fee for commercial invoices, what the UAE embassy stage costs and how it is paid, and the published fees of the foreign ministries in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States. It then adds the lines up for five common situations and shows where official pages disagree.

Three things are deliberately left to other guides. The order of the stamps and what each authority checks is in our guide to the attestation chain step by step. Whether an apostille can replace any stage is in apostille or attestation for the UAE. And the country routes in detail are in our guides for Indian degrees, Pakistani degrees and Philippine documents. Here we stay with the money.

Attestation cost UAE at a glance

The table lists every attestation fee line a document can pass through, in the order they are usually paid, with the published figure and where it is published. Lines marked “market” are not set by any government and vary between providers.

Attestation cost UAE: how MIRDXB PRO helps

Most people who contact us about attestation already know it “costs AED 150”. What they need is someone to count the documents properly, find the right route for each one, and tell them which stamps they do not need. That is the work.

What we do

• Check each document against its purpose (work permit, family visa, school, Golden visa, company set-up) and tell you which ones actually need attesting, and which do not.
• Classify every document as personal, commercial or invoice, so you are charged the right line of the MOFA schedule and not the AED 2,000 commercial line by mistake.
• Price the home-country stage from that country’s published fees and the UAE stages from MOFA’s schedule, and send you the total before anything is paid.
• File the MOFA application (and the UAE embassy stage where it is paid through the MOFA website), book the approved courier and track the document until it is returned.
• Arrange legal translation into Arabic where an authority requires it, through a Ministry of Justice licensed translator.
• Coordinate the home-country stage through authorised channels when you cannot be there in person, and flag name mismatches before a stage is paid.

How it works

1. Send us a WhatsApp message with a photo of each document (both sides) and what it is for.
2. We reply with the route for each document and a written quote: government fees at cost, translation where needed, and our fee on its own line.
3. You approve, and we start. Original documents travel only by tracked courier or are handed to us against a signed receipt at our Al Barsha 1 office.
4. We send you the MOFA payment receipt and the attested document, and show you how to verify the digital attestation yourself.

What it costs

Government fees are passed on at cost, with the official receipt: AED 150 per personal document and AED 2,000 per commercial document at MOFA, and the published fee of each stage abroad. Our service charge for the UAE MOFA step is AED 250 per attestation, on top of MOFA’s fee, so one personal document costs AED 400 in total at the UAE end. For the stages abroad it depends on the number of documents and the countries involved, and is quoted in writing before we start. Our standard packages are set out on our fees page.

Why residents use us

• We publish the official source for every fee we quote, and we show you the MOFA receipt.
• We tell you when you do not need us: a UAE-issued digital certificate can often be attested by you in minutes on the MOFA website, and we will say so.
• We handle the visa, labour and family steps that attestation is usually for, so the attested document goes straight into the application it was meant for.
• Our office is in Al Barsha 1, Dubai, open by appointment; whatsApp us any time, 24 hours; office open Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 18:00 (Dubai time).
• For people abroad, we coordinate through authorised channels and, where an authority accepts it, act under a power of attorney.

If you want the whole file handled, see our document attestation service; for UAE-stage work only, our MOFA attestation service page explains what we file for you.

The MOFA attestation fee schedule, line by line

MOFA publishes its attestation fee schedule in an online “Attestations Guide”. The page loads the schedule from MOFA’s own lookup tables, which list each document type twice: once for documents issued in the UAE and once for documents issued abroad. We read those tables directly on 23 September 2026. Every personal line is AED 150, whichever column it sits in.

That is 18 document types and 35 schedule entries, all at the same MOFA attestation fee. MOFA’s FAQ adds several personal documents that do not appear by name in the table but are charged at the personal rate: employment offers, bank statements and personal tax certificates.

Three counting rules that change the attestation cost

The attestation fee per document is simple. The number of documents is where estimates go wrong. MOFA’s FAQ sets three rules that matter.

• Certificate and transcript are two documents. MOFA says educational documents are counted with “certificate & transcripts … treated as two different documents”. A degree with its transcript costs AED 300 at MOFA, and the same doubling happens at the UAE embassy stage.
• A power of attorney with any commercial content is commercial. The UAE embassies in London, New Delhi and Islamabad all state that a power of attorney “containing commercial content is considered a commercial document”. That moves it from AED 150 to AED 2,000 at each UAE stage.
• A contract can count as several documents. MOFA’s FAQ notes that commercial contracts “may be considered as multiple documents depending on their content”, and the mission pages say a memorandum and articles of association must be attested separately.

Commercial document attestation fee: AED 2,000 and the lines around it

Commercial documents are charged AED 2,000 each, again in both columns of the schedule. The fixed rate comes from Article 2 of Cabinet Resolution No. 38 of 2022, and MOFA’s FAQ repeats it (“For commercial documents, the service fee is AED 2000”). The schedule names these commercial types:

The AED 150 “document attested abroad” line

The schedule has one commercial entry at AED 150: “document attested abroad”. It appears only in the column for documents issued in the UAE, while foreign-issued commercial documents, including a “previously attested commercial agency” and a “copy of a previously attested power of attorney”, stay at AED 2,000. Cabinet Resolution No. 38 of 2022 has a matching line: “copies of attested certificates and invoices” at AED 150.

Our reading is that this line covers a copy of a document that has already been attested, not a fresh foreign company document. MOFA does not explain it on any page we could find, so treat it as something to confirm with MOFA on 800 44444 before you rely on it. Do not assume that a foreign trade licence or board resolution will be charged AED 150 because it was stamped abroad first; on the schedule, it is not.

Commercial invoices and certificates of origin: the eDAS fee

Invoices for goods imported into the UAE have their own channel, MOFA’s Electronic Documents Attestation System (eDAS 2.0), and their own attestation fee rule. Article 2 of Cabinet Resolution No. 38 of 2022 says MOFA “shall collect a fixed fee of (150) one hundred and fifty dirhams” for attesting invoices with a value of AED 10,000 or more. Certificates of origin and manifests are also AED 150. MOFA’s FAQ confirms that “the flat rate 150 dirhams + service fees is applied for the attestation of commercial invoices starting February 1st, 2023”, and that electronic attestation is mandatory for imports valued at AED 10,000 and above.

• Grace period: 14 days from the bill of entry date to pay the invoice attestation fee (MOFA FAQ).
• Penalty: AED 500 per invoice on top of the attestation fee if you miss it (MOFA FAQ; Cabinet Resolution No. 38 of 2022, Art. 3). Repeated violations accumulate, and a grievance can be filed within 15 days of notification, with a decision due within 30 days.
• Not uploaded: MOFA’s FAQ says GCC-manufactured goods are exempt (the certificate of origin is uploaded but not attested), goods discharged at a free zone port need no attestation, and invoices for services and installation or construction are not uploaded. Khaleej Times (18 January 2023, secondary) also listed personal imports, transit goods and diplomatic shipments among the exemptions.
• Certificate of origin: MOFA says the certificate-of-origin payment is mandatory before the related invoice can be paid, and each declaration number needs its own.

The older invoice scale still shown on MOFA’s fee guide

MOFA’s online Attestations Guide still loads a value-based invoice scale. It does not match the fixed AED 150 in the Cabinet Resolution or in MOFA’s own FAQ. We show it because anyone who opens the guide will see it, and because it explains older quotes that price an invoice at several hundred dirhams.

Cabinet Resolution No. 38 of 2022 repealed the two earlier fee resolutions (No. 4 of 2005 and No. 1 of 2006) and fixed the invoice attestation fee at AED 150 from 1 February 2023. The law and the FAQ agree with each other; the scale is the outlier. For budgeting, we use AED 150 per invoice, and we check the amount shown at payment on the eDAS screen.

A worked example for a trading company: twelve import invoices of AED 10,000 or more in a month, two of them paid after the 14-day window. The attestation fee is 12 × AED 150 = AED 1,800, plus 2 × AED 500 = AED 1,000 in penalties, a total of AED 2,800. Under the older scale, a single AED 75,000 invoice issued abroad would have shown AED 600; under the Cabinet Resolution it is AED 150.

Cabinet Resolution No. 38 of 2022: the legal basis of the MOFA attestation fee

The fees above are not a MOFA price list that can change without notice. They are set by a federal Cabinet Resolution, issued on 21 April 2022, published in Official Gazette No. 726 on 29 April 2022 and in force from 1 February 2023. The UAE Legislation portal lists it as active.

Three other articles matter for your budget. Article 3 sets the AED 500 penalty for invoices and certificates of origin not attested within 14 days. Article 5 reserves any change to the attestation fee to the Cabinet. And Article 1 defines “representative delegations” as the UAE’s embassies, consulates and offices abroad, which is consistent with the same dirham schedule being used when you pay for the UAE embassy stage on the MOFA website.

Is there an urgent MOFA attestation fee?

No. Neither Cabinet Resolution No. 38 of 2022 nor any MOFA page we read has an urgent or VIP attestation fee. There are only three ways a document moves faster, and one of them costs nothing extra.

1. Digital attestation. An original digital document issued in the UAE with a verification feature (QR code, reference number or barcode) can be attested “within 2 hours during official working hours”, according to MOFA’s service page. The attestation fee is the normal AED 150.
2. Attestation at issuance. Birth and death certificates issued through MOHAP and new school certificates issued by the Emirates Schools Establishment can be attested by MOFA and the UAE embassy of the destination country at the moment they are issued. MOFA says the school certificate is attested within three minutes of issuance.

Anything sold as “urgent MOFA attestation” is therefore one of these, plus a service fee on top of the MOFA attestation fee. That is not wrong, but the service fee should be shown as a separate line.

The UAE embassy attestation fee abroad

For a document issued abroad, the UAE stage usually has two parts: the UAE embassy or consulate in the issuing country, and then MOFA. Several missions now offer a digital service in which both are applied for together on the MOFA website. The UAE Embassy in New Delhi describes it as “One service, two attestations: One application covers both the UAE Embassy in New Delhi and the UAE MoFA in the UAE.” The embassies in Islamabad and London publish the same model.

What the embassy attestation fee is

No mission page we read prints a separate price for its own stamp. The London page tells applicants to check “documents type and fees” in MOFA’s Attestations Guide, which is the same schedule as above. MOFA’s FAQ is the only official page that splits the two UAE stages into separate figures, in its examples for documents issued in the UAE and sent abroad:

• Birth or death certificate attested through MOHAP at issuance: “total attestation service fee is AED 300, including: MoFA attestation fees: AED 150; UAE Embassy in destination country attestation fees: AED 150”.
• New school certificate through the Emirates Schools Establishment: AED 15 certificate attestation and AED 15 delivery (school side), then “150 AED for Ministry of Foreign Affairs attestation” and “150 AED for UAE Embassy attestation in the destination country”.

We therefore price the embassy attestation fee at AED 150 per personal document and AED 2,000 per commercial document, on top of the same amount at MOFA. MOFA does not publish a combined figure for the new digital “two attestations” application, so check the total on the payment screen before you pay; if it differs from AED 300 per personal document, the screen is right and this guide is not.

Charges that sit on top of the embassy attestation fee

• Transaction fee. A transaction fee may apply when you pay online; check the current fee on the UAE Embassy London attestation page.
• Service provider fee. On the digital service, a MOFA-approved provider collects and returns the original documents (VFS Global in London and Islamabad; VFS or BLS in India). The mission pages say that if an application is rejected, “Your attestation fee will be refunded automatically. The service fee (including delivery) is non-refundable.” The amount of that service fee is not printed on the pages we read.
• Currency. Where the mission charges in local currency, it converts from the dirham schedule; the London page says its “fees are updated and revised monthly”.

Embassy attestation fee by country: what is officially published

Where no embassy attestation fee page exists, the applicable figure is still the dirham schedule, because the stage is paid on the MOFA website. What varies from mission to mission is the collection method, the provider fee and the timing.

Home-country attestation fees before the UAE stage

This is the part of the attestation cost that the UAE does not control. Each country’s foreign ministry, and sometimes a state or education authority before it, charges its own fee in its own currency. The figures below are the ones those governments publish. We do not convert them into dirhams, because the rate on the day you pay is the one that counts.

India: the cheapest foreign ministry stage, but not the whole India cost

India’s Ministry of External Affairs lists normal attestation, which it applies to countries that are not members of the Hague Convention, as “Free of Cost”. The UAE is not listed as a contracting party on the Hague Conference status table, so documents for the UAE go through MEA attestation rather than an apostille-only route. The outsourcing agencies MEA appoints charge Rs 84 per document and Rs 3 per scanned page. The state-level verification before MEA is where Indian costs vary, and it is covered with the agencies and timelines in our Indian degree attestation guide.

Pakistan: two federal fees before the UAE stage

A Pakistani degree normally goes to the Higher Education Commission (Rs 3,000 per document) and then to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The attestation fee schedule on Pakistan MOFA’s apostille portal is Rs 3,000 for personal and educational documents, Rs 4,500 for legal documents and Rs 12,000 for commercial documents; the portal does not say whether the same figures apply to attestation for non-apostille countries such as the UAE, so confirm on the challan. Pakistan MOFA’s own attestation page goes further and says no fee is charged for any type of attestation (revenue stamps only), so budget Rs 0 to Rs 3,000 per document for this stage until the challan shows the figure. Pakistan MOFA’s consular page also says that from 27 July 2026 “apostille attestation services shall no longer be entertained without prior online registration”; the same page carries an earlier notice (5 March 2026) that the portal had been suspended temporarily for security reasons, so check that it is open before you plan dates. School certificates and the IBCC stage are in our Pakistan degree attestation guide.

Philippines: DFA apostille, then the UAE stage

The Philippines joined the Apostille Convention in 2019, and its Department of Foreign Affairs now issues apostilles. The DFA charges PHP 100 for regular processing and PHP 200 for expedited processing per document, with e-Apostille at PHP 200 for PSA civil registry documents. Degrees first need CHED authentication. Because the UAE is not an Apostille Convention party, a UAE stage is still needed after the DFA; the sequence for degrees, birth and marriage certificates is in our Philippines attestation guide.

United Kingdom: FCDO legalisation, then the UAE Embassy London

The UK FCDO legalises by apostille: £45 per paper document (up to 25 working days plus postage) or £35 for an e-Apostille. Documents that are not public documents (a degree, a company letter) first need a UK solicitor or notary to certify them, at a market fee. The UAE Embassy London says it attests UK and Icelandic documents only, and that it “will not legalise non UK, Irish or Icelandic academic certificates”.

United States: county, state, federal

US documents pass through a county clerk and the issuing state (New York charges $10 per document), then the US Department of State at $20 per document, before the UAE Embassy stage.

UAE-issued documents: the lowest attestation cost in the UAE

If the document was issued in the UAE, the chain is short and the attestation cost is low. MOFA’s rule is that UAE documents must first be attested by the government entity that issued them, “except for digital documents issued by a government entity or documents attested electronically”. After MOFA, a UAE document used abroad usually also needs the destination country’s embassy in the UAE, which charges its own fee.

MOFA warns that once you have paid for MOFA and UAE embassy attestation at issuance, the request cannot be cancelled or refunded. If you do not yet know the destination country, MOFA suggests skipping the at-issuance option and applying later through its website. Our birth certificate attestation page covers children born in the UAE and those born abroad.

Legal translation: the market line in the attestation cost

MOFA attests documents in Arabic or English, or with “an official translation”. A document in any other language needs a legal translation, and many UAE authorities (courts, notaries and some licensing bodies) want an Arabic translation even of an English document. Legal translators in the UAE are licensed by the Ministry of Justice, but their prices are not set by any published government fee.

• How it is charged: per page, with certificates usually one page each and contracts or articles of association several pages.
• What we saw in September 2026: one Dubai legal translation provider’s published price list started at AED 50 per page for birth and marriage certificates, AED 60 for degrees and contracts and AED 80 for company formation documents. That is one provider’s list, shown as an example of the market, not an official rate.
• Order matters: translate the document that the receiving authority needs in translation, at the point in the chain it expects. Translating before the foreign stages is sometimes wasted if the stamps themselves also need translating.

If you need it done, our legal translation service quotes per page before starting.

Degree equivalency is a separate cost

An attested degree is proof that the document is genuine. It is not proof that the qualification is recognised at a given level in the UAE. Recognition of university degrees is a separate service of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, with its own application and fee, and it is often what a Golden visa, a teaching licence or a skilled work permit actually asks for. It does not change the MOFA attestation fee, but it belongs in the same budget. The authority, the process and the fee are explained in our equivalency certificate guide.

Worked totals: five attestation cost UAE scenarios

Each attestation cost total below adds only published government fee lines, and each was calculated in a script and checked twice. UAE-side fees are in dirhams; home-country fees stay in their own currency. Translation, private certification and service fees are listed separately, because no government publishes them.

1. Attestation cost for a UAE-issued birth certificate used abroad

A child is born in Dubai and the parents need the birth certificate for the passport office of their home country. They choose MOFA digital attestation when applying for the certificate through MOHAP.

No courier, no foreign ministry, and the stamps arrive within minutes of issuance. This is the case where paying an agent adds least; the parents can do it themselves.

2. Attestation cost for an Indian degree and transcript

An engineer’s degree certificate and consolidated transcript, issued in India, are needed by a Dubai employer. Both go through state verification, MEA attestation and the digital UAE Embassy New Delhi plus MOFA service.

If the employer only needs the degree, the UAE side halves to AED 300. Ask the employer in writing before you pay for the transcript.

3. Attestation cost for a Pakistani family file

A sponsor moving to Dubai from Pakistan will sponsor his wife and two children and needs his own degree for his work permit. Four documents: the marriage certificate, two birth certificates and the degree (the employer has not asked for the transcript).

The marriage certificate and the birth certificates are what the family visa depends on; the salary and housing conditions of that visa are covered in our guide to the family visa salary requirement.

4. Attestation cost for a UK degree

A British graduate needs her UK degree certificate attested for a Dubai employer. A UK solicitor certifies the copy, the FCDO legalises it, and she applies to the UAE Embassy London and MOFA through the MOFA website.

The digital service still needs the physical document to be collected, so plan for the courier legs even when the attestation itself is digital. Whether the embassy accepts an FCDO e-Apostille on the digital route is not stated on the London pages; confirm with the embassy before choosing it.

5. Attestation cost for a US company opening a Dubai branch

A New York company needs three corporate documents attested for its Dubai branch: the certificate of incorporation, a board resolution and a commercial power of attorney for the branch manager.

This is the case where classification matters most. Had the power of attorney been drafted with no commercial content, it would have been AED 150 at each UAE stage instead of AED 2,000. It could not have been, because it appoints a branch manager; but a personal power of attorney mistakenly drafted with business clauses will be charged the commercial fee.

Attestation charges by document type

The MOFA attestation fee is flat. What changes by document type is how many stages sit in front of it, how often it is rejected, and what the rejection costs.

Refunds, rejections and the money you lose

A rejected document does not cost you the MOFA attestation fee, but it can cost everything around it. MOFA’s FAQ is clear about which parts come back.

The larger loss is usually abroad. A document rejected at the UAE stage for a missing stamp or a name mismatch goes back to the issuing country, and every foreign fee and courier leg is paid again. That is why the cheapest step in any attestation cost plan is ten minutes checking names and stamps before the first fee is paid.

• Laminated documents are rejected by MOFA and every mission page we read. Removing lamination usually damages the document, which means ordering a replacement from the issuer.
• Bundled apostilles are not accepted by the UAE embassies in London, New Delhi and Islamabad; each document must carry its own.
• Missing prior stamps are rejected: MOFA says “missing attestations will be rejected”.
• Documents left too long at the London embassy are discarded after six months without notice.

How to read an attestation cost quote

Because the government side of the attestation cost is published, any quote can be split into three columns: government fees you can check, market costs you can compare, and the provider’s own fee. A quote that cannot be split that way is the warning sign, not the price itself.

Two short questions price almost any attestation cost quote. “What in this total is not a government attestation fee?” tells you what you are paying for service. “What is not in this total that I will pay later?” tells you whether the quote is complete. A cheap quote that leaves out the home-country stage is not cheaper; it is the same money arriving later, usually at the point where you have a deadline.

What circulates online that is not true

How to verify every figure

The cost of time

Delays come from stages repeated abroad, not queues. Official times are short at the UAE end and long at the foreign end.

A job offer, a family visa and a school place often wait on the same document. If you are still in the issuing country, run the foreign stages before you move: walking a document between authorities there costs less than any courier and correction cycle from Dubai.

Case studies: what the attestation cost turned out to be

These cases are built from the situations we see most often. Names and identifying details are left out, and the figures are the published ones.

The transcript nobody counted

A nurse arriving from India budgeted AED 300 for her degree: AED 150 at the embassy and AED 150 at MOFA. Her licensing body wanted the transcript too, which MOFA counts as a second document, so the UAE side was AED 600. Because both documents went through MEA and the digital embassy service together, the only extra foreign cost was a second Rs 84 agency charge and one more scanned page. Counting correctly at the start avoided a second round of couriers.

The power of attorney that became commercial

A resident abroad needed someone in Dubai to sell his car and close a bank account. The draft he brought from a lawyer also allowed the attorney to “manage my business interests”. On the MOFA schedule, a power of attorney with commercial content is a commercial document, AED 2,000 at each UAE stage. Redrafted for the car and the bank account only, it was a personal power of attorney at AED 150 per stage. The saving on two stages was AED 3,700.

The invoices that were paid late

A small trading company imported goods several times a month and uploaded its invoices to eDAS, but paid them in a batch at month end. Two invoices went past the 14-day window and each carried an AED 500 penalty in addition to the AED 150 fee. Paying each invoice when the bill of entry was issued removed the penalties the following month.

The UAE birth certificate done twice

Parents paid an agent to attest their newborn’s Dubai birth certificate by courier. They had already chosen MOFA and embassy digital attestation when the certificate was issued through MOHAP, for AED 300, so the document was attested before the courier collected it. MOFA’s FAQ says the at-issuance payment cannot be refunded, and the agent’s fee and courier were spent on nothing. Checking the certificate for the digital seals first would have saved both.

The company file that was counted as one

A UK parent company sent its certificate of incorporation, memorandum and articles, and a board resolution to open a Dubai branch, expecting to pay for three documents. The UAE embassy pages say the memorandum and articles must be attested separately, so there were four commercial documents: AED 8,000 at each UAE stage. Knowing that before the FCDO stage meant the solicitor certified all four at once, instead of in two rounds.

What we will and will not do

Related guides

• The attestation chain, stage by stage
• Apostille or attestation: what the UAE accepts
• Degree equivalency: who issues it and when you need it
• Indian degrees: state, MEA and the UAE Embassy New Delhi
• Pakistani degrees: HEC, IBCC, MOFA and the UAE stage
• Philippine documents: CHED, PSA, DFA and the UAE stage
• Every UAE government fee in one list
• What PRO services cost in Dubai
• Golden visa fees, line by line

Counting, classifying and filing documents for MOFA and the UAE missions, and fitting them into the visa or company application they are meant for, is what our PRO services in Dubai team handles every week.