Egypt document attestation for the UAE

An Egypt-issued document passes through four hands before a UAE employer, court or authority will act on it: the Egyptian body that owns the document, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UAE Embassy in Cairo, and MoFA inside the UAE. MoFA’s service page gives up to 15 business days for applications through its missions abroad; no Cairo-specific turnaround is currently published.

What makes the Egyptian route behave differently from the Indian, Pakistani or British ones is language: Egyptian documents are issued in Arabic, which removes a stage that costs applicants from other countries both money and time.

Is Cairo on the combined service?

Nine UAE missions (New Delhi, Mumbai, Islamabad, London, Dhaka, Canberra, Colombo, Kathmandu, Beirut) publish a single application covering the mission and MoFA. Cairo’s mission attestation pages are no longer online, so we cannot confirm that it does. Ask the embassy, and check whether the mofa.gov.ae application offers a combined option when you select Egypt.

Either way, you apply on mofa.gov.ae with a UAE PASS account that a non-resident can create at uaepass.ae. MoFA’s FAQ describes the general route for documents issued outside the UAE: the issuing country’s foreign ministry, then the UAE embassy or consulate there through MoFA’s online channels, then attestation of the original in the UAE through the Ministry’s official website.

There is one more thing the published sources do not settle. MoFA’s own worked examples for UAE-issued documents going abroad show AED 150 at MoFA plus AED 150 at the UAE embassy in the destination country. Whether the mirror image applies inbound — whether the Cairo leg is an extra charge on top of MoFA’s AED 150, or whether AED 150 is the whole UAE-side cost — is not published anywhere. The cost table on this page shows the MoFA fee and flags the embassy leg separately rather than inventing a total.

The Egyptian half of the chain, authority by authority

The Egyptian stage that trips people up is the first one, because Egypt does not have a single pre-authentication body. It has a different one for almost every document type, and the Egyptian MFA will not attest a document endorsed by the wrong one.

A degree from an Egyptian public or government university, at any level, needs faculty endorsement and then the Secretary-General of the university. A certificate from a private university or a higher institute goes to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research instead. An intermediate-institute certificate goes to that ministry’s Matariya office. An academic equivalency certificate — and only an equivalency certificate — goes to the Supreme Council of Universities. Al-Azhar certificates are endorsed by Al-Azhar University and Maritime Academy certificates by the Academy.

Personal documents follow a different map again. Birth, marriage, death, divorce and family-registration certificates go through Civil Status, at Abbasiya, Giza, the City Stars model centre, the Tagamoa registry or an MFA-accredited governorate registry. A paper birth or death certificate issued by a governorate health office instead goes to the Ministry of Health or the governorate Health Affairs Directorate and then to the Secretary-General of the Governorate. A paper criminal record certificate goes to Criminal Evidence HQ; an electronic criminal record certificate needs no prior endorsement and goes straight to the Egyptian MFA. Powers of attorney, declarations, non-government experience certificates and lease or sale contracts go to a sub-branch Real Estate Publicity office and then to its Secretary-General. Court judgments and inheritance declarations go to the Ministry of Justice, bank documents to the Central Bank of Egypt, and an employment contract issued abroad to that country’s embassy and then the Ministry of Manpower.

Only after the right one of those has stamped the document does the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs attest it, at EGP 115 for an ordinary document or EGP 410 for a commercial one. The MFA publishes 25 attestation offices with addresses and opening hours across Cairo, Giza, Alexandria and 16 other governorates, so this is not a Cairo-only errand.

Do Egyptian documents need translating?

Not for the attestation chain. MoFA’s stated requirement is an original document in English or Arabic, or an official translation of it. An Arabic Egyptian certificate meets that as issued, so nothing needs translating for any of the four stages.

This differs from the other origin routes on this site. An Indian, Pakistani or British applicant holds an English document. English passes the attestation chain unchanged too — but at the point of use, a UAE court, notary public, land department or bank works in Arabic, and the standard advice is to have the fully attested document translated in the UAE by a Ministry of Justice-registered legal translator. That is a separate stage and a separate bill. An Egyptian applicant with an Arabic original normally skips it.

If you do use a translation, Egypt handles it differently

The Egyptian MFA attests the original first, then its translation, by the same body, with a shared seal running across original and translation. It charges a fee on both, so a translated document is EGP 115 twice, not once.

Egypt’s MFA expects the translation to come from the body that issued the original; if that body has no accredited translator, it accepts translations from the Ministry of Justice, the Armed Forces Language Institute, Civil Status (civil-status documents) or a government university. Check whether the receiving party in the UAE actually needs one before you pay for it twice.

What changes by document type

The shape of the chain is the same for every Egyptian document. What changes is which Egyptian body endorses it before the MFA, and what MoFA charges at the end. The Egyptian MFA fee is EGP 115 for ordinary documents and EGP 410 for commercial ones at every row below.

Timings the authorities do not publish

The only official figure on the Egypt route is MoFA’s ceiling: up to 15 business days for applications through missions abroad. No Cairo-specific time is currently published. The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs states no processing time, and neither do the universities, Civil Status offices or ministries that endorse documents before it.

So this page will not give you an end-to-end figure for Egypt, because no honest one exists. What it can tell you is where the risk sits. Since the Egyptian stages are the unmeasured ones, they are also the ones you should start first and chase in person if you can — the MFA’s 25 offices are spread across Cairo, Giza, Alexandria and 16 other governorates, so proximity is usually not the constraint. Courier collection and return in Egypt are not published; missions that do publish them (e.g. New Delhi, Dhaka) state pickup within 24 hours and return within 24–48 hours of release.

Before you send anything

• Confirm the exact Egyptian endorsing body for your document type — a common point of failure.
• Check the certificate is not laminated, and that birth, marriage and death certificates are originals rather than copies.
• Check the name spelling against the passport, in both Arabic and Latin script.
• Decide whether the UAE recipient genuinely needs a translation before you pay the Egyptian MFA fee twice.
• Order any criminal record certificate last — it carries a validity window and the rest of the set does not.
• Create the UAE PASS account at uaepass.ae before you start, so the MoFA application is not the thing you are stuck on.

You can do all of this yourself

No stage of the Egyptian chain requires an agent. The Egyptian MFA counters are public and priced at EGP 115. The UAE stage is applied for on mofa.gov.ae with a UAE PASS login that non-residents can create themselves, and MoFA’s FAQ says anyone can submit the application on the document owner’s behalf. MoFA’s attestation FAQ says its Customer Happiness Centres are closed. Apply through the official website or UAE MOFA app and follow the assigned digital or courier route. Call 80044444 for service guidance.

What is genuinely worth paying for is knowing which Egyptian body endorses your document type, and not mis-selecting the document type on the MoFA form, because a rejection cannot be amended and sends you back to a stage with no published turnaround. What nobody can do is compress the Egyptian half, or tell you in advance how long it will take. If a quote does either, ask which published source it comes from.