Wills
How to Make a Will in the UAE: What Expats Need to Know
If you live in the UAE and own anything here - a flat, a car, a bank account, shares in a company - the question of who inherits it is decided by whether you left a will and, just as importantly, WHERE you registered it. This is the plain version.
What happens if you do not write one
Without a registered will, your UAE assets are distributed under UAE law, and the shares are set by relationship rather than by what you would have chosen. Accounts can be frozen while that is worked out, which is the part families feel first: the money is not gone, but it is not reachable either, at the moment it is most needed.
For parents the sharper issue is guardianship. A will is where you name who looks after your children, including an interim guardian who can step in immediately rather than after a process.
There is more than one register, and that is the real decision
The UAE does not have one national wills register, it has several, and they cover different assets and different people. Picking the right one is most of the work:
The DIFC Courts Wills Service is the English-language route for assets in Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah. It is open to non-Muslims who have never been Muslim, and it needs no Arabic translation, which is why most expats in Dubai use it.
Dubai Courts keeps its own Register of Wills of non-Muslims. It is the local civil-law route and the will is registered in Arabic, so an official translation is part of the job.
An Abu Dhabi will goes through the Judicial Department's Notary Public, and unlike the DIFC register it is open to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
A Shariah-compliant will is for Muslim residents: Sharia sets fixed shares for certain heirs, so the part a will decides is narrower, and getting that boundary right is the job.
An offshore will covers what you own OUTSIDE the UAE. It sits alongside a UAE will rather than replacing it.
What you need before you start
Less than people expect, and none of it is hard to find: passport and Emirates ID for whoever is making the will, the names and passport copies of everyone who should inherit, the title deed for any UAE property, the trade licence and share certificate if you hold company shares, and the details of the person you want as executor.
If you have children under 18, bring the guardian's details too - and think about an interim guardian who is already in the country.
What it costs
Two figures, and they are not the same kind of thing. There is the fee for drafting and registering, which is ours and is fixed before you commit, and there is the registry's own fee, which is set by the authority and passed through at cost. The DIFC Courts registration fee, for example, is AED 10,000 for one person and AED 15,000 for a couple.
Our price list shows the starting fee for every route. A couple registering two matching wills costs less than two separate ones, which is worth knowing before you ask.
A couple usually needs two wills, not one
A will is a personal document, so a married couple registers two of them, written to mirror each other. That is what "mirror wills" means, and every register prices the pair as a pair.
It matters more than it sounds: two matching wills is what stops the second death raising exactly the question the first one answered.
How long it takes
Typically five to seven working days for a UAE register once we have everything from you, and seven to ten for an offshore will, because each country has its own requirements to check. The appointment itself is short; the drafting and, where the register needs it, the official Arabic translation are what take the time.