Arabic is the official language of UAE law, courts and government administration. Any document submitted in another language, however clear it is, cannot be acted on directly by an official body until it exists in Arabic in a form that body can rely on without checking it against the original itself.
Why a self-translation or a bilingual friend is not enough
A government department cannot take responsibility for a translation it has no way to verify. A stamp from a translation office licensed by the UAE Ministry of Justice is what closes that gap: it tells the department the translation was produced by an authorised party and can be relied on as accurate. Without it, the department would effectively be trusting an unverified document, which is why unstamped translations are routinely rejected regardless of quality.
Where this comes up most often
- Visa and residency applications, where certificates and financial documents need Arabic versions
- Property transactions through the Land Department
- Company formation and licensing with the Department of Economic Development or a free zone authority
- Court and Notary Public filings of any kind
- Bank account opening and mortgage applications
It works in the other direction too
The same logic applies when a UAE-issued document, a trade licence, a court judgment, a certificate, needs to be used abroad. The receiving country’s authorities cannot verify an Arabic original either, so a certified translation into their language is what lets them act on it, often alongside an attestation chain through the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that country’s embassy.
What we cover
We provide certified translation between Arabic and English as standard, along with French, Russian, Turkish, Portuguese, Georgian and Kyrgyz among others, accepted by immigration, universities, embassies and banks.
Send your document on WhatsApp to +971 54 588 5472 and tell us where it is being submitted, and we will confirm what is required within 15 minutes. Related: Certified translation services · Document attestation