MOFA Attestation Fees in the UAE: Full Cost Breakdown (2026)

Last updated: 24 September 2026

MOFA attestation in the UAE carries a government fee of AED 150 per stamp for personal and educational documents, and from AED 2,000 per stamp for commercial documents. That fee is set by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and no provider can discount it. What you pay in total depends on three things: the government fee, how the document gets to the ministry and back, and whether your document still needs the earlier stages of the attestation chain completed.

That last point is where most of the confusion — and most of the price difference between quotes — comes from.

The government fee

This is the fee paid to the ministry itself. It is fixed, and identical whichever provider submits your document.

Three things about this fee are worth understanding properly, because they are where most cost surprises come from.

It is charged per stamp, not per document. This distinction is rarely explained anywhere, and it matters. Some documents require more than one MOFA stamp — a commercial document needing two stamps carries the fee twice. That is why the commercial figure above says “from AED 2,000” rather than a flat AED 2,000. Before you budget for a commercial set, it is worth establishing how many stamps each document actually needs.

Each document is charged separately. Attesting a degree certificate and a marriage certificate means paying twice. A family visa set of four documents means four fees. This is the single biggest reason a document set costs more than people expect.

It applies whether the document was issued inside or outside the UAE. The fee does not change based on origin country. What changes is how many other stages your document needs first.

Government fees can change without notice. Treat the figures here as a guide and confirm the current rate at the point of submission.

What it costs if you do it yourself

Worth stating plainly, because most articles on this subject avoid it: you can submit to MOFA directly, and it is cheaper.

That AED 186 figure already includes the government fee — there is nothing further to add to it for the MOFA stage itself.

We charge AED 220–240 for the same stage. The difference buys you the handling: we arrange collection and return, track the submission, and deal with it if the ministry raises a query.

Most people we speak to already know they could do it themselves. What they usually tell us is that they are reluctant to hand an original certificate — often the only copy of a degree or a marriage certificate — to a courier and hope it comes back. That is a fair concern, and it is the actual reason most customers use an agency. It is not a knowledge gap. We compare both routes honestly here.

What sits on top of the government fee

The government fee is rarely the whole cost. Depending on your document, some or all of the following apply.

Service fee. What a provider charges to prepare, submit, track and return your document. For a MOFA-only submission — where the earlier stages are already complete — this is the smaller part of the bill.

Earlier stages in the chain. If your document was issued outside the UAE and has not yet been attested, MOFA is the last of four stages, not the only one. Each earlier stage carries its own fee:

1. Notarisation or authentication in the country of origin
2. That country’s ministry of foreign affairs
3. The UAE Embassy or Consulate in that country
4. UAE MOFA

Stages 1 to 3 are charged by the authorities in the country of origin, in that country’s currency, at rates that vary enormously. A UK document and a Nigerian document reaching the same MOFA counter will have cost very different amounts to get there.

Legal translation, where required. Documents not in Arabic or English generally need certified translation. Our rates are AED 35 per page for Arabic ↔ English and AED 140 per page for other language pairs. Government fees apply separately.

Courier and handling. Where physical documents move between countries.

Why two quotes for the same document can differ

This is the question we are asked most often, and the answer is usually one of five things.

One quote includes the full chain and the other does not. A quote of a few hundred dirhams for “MOFA attestation” and a quote of nine hundred for the same certificate are often both accurate — they are pricing different amounts of work. Always ask which stages a quote covers. Here is how to tell which stages your document needs.

The country of origin is different. The UAE Embassy fee in one country bears no relation to another. Country of origin drives cost more than document type does.

The document category is different. Commercial documents attract a materially higher government fee than personal ones.

Translation is included in one and not the other.

Urgency. Expedited handling costs more than standard, at every stage.

If you are comparing quotes, the useful question is not “how much is MOFA attestation” — it is “which stages does this price cover, and what is left for me to pay afterwards”.

A worked example

A typical case: an expatriate arriving in Dubai with a degree certificate issued abroad that has never been attested.

Only the MOFA line is fixed across every case. Everything above it depends on where the document came from. This is why an honest quote requires knowing the issuing country before a number can be given.

For a document that already carries stamps 1 to 3 — common for people who arranged attestation before relocating — only the final line and the service fee remain, and the cost is far lower.

How long it takes, and whether speed costs more

Timelines and fees are linked, so it is worth stating both.

For documents already carrying the earlier stamps, the MOFA stage itself is quick — we work to 2–3 working days as standard, with a 1 working day express option. The ministry also offers a digital attestation route for eligible UAE-issued digital documents, completed within around two hours during official working hours, and a courier-based route quoted at one to three business days depending on the courier.

The full chain, starting from scratch in another country, is a different scale of timeline entirely: typically two to six weeks depending on origin. India tends to run two to four weeks, the UK, Europe and the United States three to five, and parts of Eastern Europe up to six.

Express handling generally carries a premium at each stage that offers it. Where a deadline is fixed — a visa appointment, a job start date, a university admission — it is usually worth asking about early rather than late.