Documents required for UAE business setup

Setting up a UAE company produces two separate piles of paper. The first is often routine: passport copies, a photograph, a trade name reservation, proof of premises. The second is anything issued outside the UAE that the licensing authority will rely on. Depending on the authority, those records may need to be notarised, certified or legalised before they are accepted. For a foreign corporate shareholder, request the authority’s exact list first; where UAE attestation applies, each commercial document costs AED 2,000 at the MoFA stage.

This page separates documents you can often submit directly from those that may need a home-country check, UAE mission attestation and MoFA attestation.

Which documents you need depends on the jurisdiction

EasyAttestation is an information and referral portal operated by Sandesh Solutions FZE. We do not form companies, issue licences, perform attestation or provide legal or tax advice. A referral does not certify a provider’s credentials or guarantee an application outcome.

Mainland, free zone and offshore registration ask for different things, so confirm where you are registering before you order a single certificate. The table below is a working summary of what each route commonly asks for, and whether a document issued abroad may need the legalisation chain. The receiving authority’s written checklist governs your application.

RAK ICC, for example, asks corporate shareholders for certified copies, certified by the registered agent or a notary, rather than stating a consular legalisation requirement. Other authorities ask for the full chain. That is why the authority’s own list comes first.

One point of vocabulary saves a lot of money here. On the mainland, the Ministry of Economy and Tourism asks for a “duly attested” memorandum of association, and says the MOA and the local service agent agreement are attested before a UAE notary public or court. That means domestic notarisation, not foreign legalisation. DMCC puts the distinction plainly: notarisation confirms that a copy is a true and complete reproduction, while legalisation authenticates a document so a foreign legal system recognises it. Only the second one involves an embassy.

Which documents must be attested, and by whom

Only documents issued outside the UAE go through the legalisation chain, and only where the receiving authority requires it. Everything produced inside the UAE is handled by a UAE notary public or the court, which is a different and far cheaper process.

For a foreign document, MoFA sets out three stages. The original is attested by the ministry of foreign affairs of the issuing country. It is then attested by the UAE embassy or consulate in that country. Finally, it must be attested again inside the UAE through the MoFA website or the MoFA smart application — unless your UAE mission runs MoFA’s combined ‘one service, two attestations’ route, where both attestations are made under one application — see MoFA attestation. In practice a local notary comes before all of this, and in apostille countries the apostille authority sits in the first stage.

An apostille is not the finish line

The UAE is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention. It does not appear on the HCCH status table for the 1961 Convention, checked on 23 August 2026, while Oman, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia do. So an apostille alone is not enough for a document used in the UAE.

That does not make the apostille useless. In apostille countries it is usually the home-country authentication step, after which the UAE embassy attests. DMCC describes exactly this for the UK: an apostille stamp from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, then consular attestation by the UAE Embassy in London. The apostille is the beginning of the chain, not the end of it.

How much does legalisation cost?

MoFA charges AED 150 per individual affairs document and AED 2,000 per commercial document. Confirm the authority’s document list before paying for legalisation.

A degree certificate, a birth certificate and a marriage certificate are individual affairs documents at AED 150; MoFA treats a certificate and its transcript as two documents. Company records such as a commercial registration, a memorandum, a board decision or a shareholder certificate sit in the AED 2,000 band.

Ask the chosen licensing authority for its exact document list. Multiply only the commercial documents it confirms by AED 2,000, then add the UAE mission, home-country, courier and translation charges that apply. Do not add the MoFA component again if your mission’s combined service already includes the MoFA stage. Then budget the document costs before accepting a package.

MoFA’s own courier inside the UAE is cheap by comparison: AED 40 on the 3-working-day service for up to 25 documents per transaction, or AED 150 excluding VAT for 1-working-day express, up to 10 documents. Prepaid corporate packages are available on request.

If you are legalising a corporate set, read commercial document attestation next. It is the companion to this page and covers the corporate chain document by document, including what to do when the parent company sits in a third country. MoFA attestation covers the UAE-side submission itself.

Which documents count as “commercial”?

MoFA’s FAQ lists examples in each band. Individual-affairs documents (AED 150) include a power of attorney of personal nature. Commercial documents (AED 2,000) include commercial registration, board of directors decisions, minutes, memorandums, trade licences, shareholder certificates, a power of attorney of commercial nature and a general power of attorney. The lists are ‘not limited to’, and MoFA says a contract or agreement may count as several documents. Confirm a borderline document with MoFA on 800 44444 before budgeting.

What the UAE embassy charges

We do not publish that number, because there is no single number to publish. UAE embassy and consulate attestation fees are set by each mission and vary by country. Check yours on the relevant mission page in the UAE missions abroad directory before you build a budget. If you are quoted one flat global embassy fee for any country, ask which mission’s published tariff it comes from.

Power of attorney, and how to avoid needing one

You need a power of attorney if you cannot be in the UAE to sign. It is what lets a UAE-based representative sign the MOA at the notary, sign the lease, collect the licence or sign free zone incorporation documents for you.

A POA executed abroad runs the same chain as any foreign document: draft it, notarise it in the home country, obtain the home-country authentication or apostille, get UAE embassy attestation, then MoFA attestation in the UAE, then any translation and UAE notary registration the receiving authority asks for. No single government page sets out that whole sequence for POAs; each link in it is separately sourced, so treat it as a synthesis and confirm the last step with your licensing authority.

Three routes may avoid the attestation chain:

Alternatives to a legalised POA

• If you are in the UAE, execute the POA directly before a UAE notary public. There is no legalisation chain at all, which removes both the embassy fee and the MoFA fee.
• DMCC lets registration documents be signed in front of the assigned DMCC executive at DMCC, which removes the need to legalise the signature.
• DMCC also accepts signing in front of an approved DMCC international service provider in your own country, which is the practical answer for a founder who cannot travel.

One drafting point causes avoidable rejections. A power of attorney should expressly cover the acts the representative will perform. DMCC requires that a POA used for a resolution signing covers MOA amendment authorities specifically. A generic power of attorney may be refused if it does not name the acts. Details are on power of attorney attestation.

We do not publish a POA cost range. Notary fees are set by each emirate’s courts and no primary schedule was located.

Do you need an NOC from your current sponsor?

Ask your licensing authority whether an NOC applies to your status. The one clearly documented case is DMCC’s: its 2016 company setup FAQ, on being a manager of more than one company, answers “Yes, if you provide a No Objection Certificate from your current sponsor”.

Translation: confirm what the receiving authority accepts

MoFA accepts English, Arabic or an official translation. The licensing authority, notary or court that receives the document decides whether it needs Arabic and which translator it accepts. RAK ICC’s checklist asks for ‘duly certified English or Arabic translations’ of foreign-language documents.

Ask for the language requirement in writing before you commission a translation, and see legal translation for how certified translations are prepared.

What you can do yourself, for the government fee alone

If every shareholder in your new company is an individual, and your activity does not need a regulated qualification, there may be no legalisation to do at all. Certified passport copies, a photograph, proof of address and a trade name reservation can often be uploaded directly.

Even where attestation is needed, MoFA submission is a self-service process through its website or smart app at the published fee, and MoFA states that anyone can attest documents on your behalf — so a colleague or relative in the UAE can file for you. A single degree certificate is AED 150 MoFA fee + AED 40 normal courier; the checkout adds a transaction charge (see the cost calculator).

Paid help may be useful for multi-country corporate sets: documents that expire on different clocks, chains running in parallel in two or three countries, and a rejection at the last stage that means paying for every stamp again. Any provider sets its own scope and fee. If your situation is the first kind, you may not need a provider at all.

If your company will also sponsor your residence, see the investor visa documents guide for the personal certificates that file may draw on.