🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates: regulated fees and costs
Every World Cost Ledger figure for United Arab Emirates, gathered from 2 data hubs into one page. Each row below links back to the hub it’s drawn from and the source it’s cited to — this page adds nothing new, it just collects what already exists elsewhere on the site.
Total mandatory fee
Work permit to recruit a worker from outside the UAE, Category 2 establishment (the default MOHRE classification for new and most private-sector employers): AED 50 work-permit application fee + AED 1,200 two-year issuance fee. Category 1 (best-compliance tier) pays AED 250 instead of AED 1,200; Category 3 (non-compliant tier) pays AED 3,450. Set under Cabinet Resolution No. 21 of 2020 on MOHRE service fees, as amended by Cabinet Resolution No. 37 of 2022. Every official UAE domain (mohre.gov.ae, uaelegislation.gov.ae, u.ae) blocked or 404'd every fetch attempt across two research sessions, so unlike every other row on this hub, no part of this figure was read directly by us — it's corroborated by multiple independent news and legal-reference sources quoting the same decree, at the same bar this hub already applies to the US's USCIS fee breakdown. Worth a direct re-check when the official sites are reachable. Excludes labour/establishment card fees and the Emirates ID.
Total mandatory fee
Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, standard service (up to 10 working days); AED 2,500 for next-day urgent service. Dubai Courts' own fee page blocked every attempt, so Abu Dhabi is used instead.
- 1Cabinet Resolution No. 21 of 2020 on Service Fees and Administrative Fines (MOHRE), as amended by Cabinet Resolution No. 37 of 2022
UAE Cabinet / Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE)
Category 2 (default) two-year work-permit issuance fee for recruiting a worker from overseas: AED 1,200, plus AED 50 application fee. Category 1: AED 250; Category 3: AED 3,450. Not independently fetched (mohre.gov.ae, uaelegislation.gov.ae and u.ae all blocked or 404'd every attempt across two research sessions and an independent retry); corroborated by multiple independent news and legal-reference sources quoting the same decree.
- 2Civil Marriage — Fees
Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD)
Standard service (up to 10 working days): AED 300. Urgent service (1 working day): AED 2,500. Fetched and read directly 2 November 2026.