How to Check If Your MOFA Attestation Is Genuine (2026 Guide)

Last updated: 23 September 2026

You can check a UAE MOFA attestation yourself in about a minute, free of charge. Go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs verification portal at verify.mofa.gov.ae, choose Document Status, enter your document’s reference number and the issue date shown on the attestation, and the system confirms whether that attestation exists in the ministry’s records. If a document does not appear in the ministry’s system, it has not been attested — regardless of how convincing the stamp looks.

That single check is worth knowing, because MOFA attestation is the last gate before a UAE employer, court, university or government department accepts your paperwork. If the attestation is not genuine, the document fails at that gate — usually at the worst possible moment, such as a visa submission or a job start date.

There is a second reason to run the check. Not every provider who takes payment for attestation submits the document as promised. Verifying the result yourself is the only way to confirm that the work you paid for was actually done.

What does a genuine MOFA attestation look like?

The attestation is applied by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation — MoFAIC, commonly shortened to UAE MOFA. It appears on your document as a sticker or stamp carrying a reference number.

That reference number is the part that matters. Stamps can be imitated; a record in the ministry’s database cannot. Everything else you might look at — the print quality, the seal, the placement — is supporting evidence. The reference number is the decision-maker.

Method 1: check on the official verification portal

This is the authoritative method.

1. Open verify.mofa.gov.ae in any browser.
2. Select Document Status.
3. Enter the reference number printed on the attestation.
4. Enter the issue date shown on the attestation, then submit.

The system returns the attestation record if it exists. The service is free, and it is run by the ministry itself. Nobody needs to be paid to perform this check for you, and you do not need to visit an office to do it.

One common mistake: the issue date the portal wants is the date of the attestation, not the date your certificate was originally issued. A degree awarded in 2019 and attested in 2026 needs the 2026 date.

Method 2: scan the QR code

Some attestation stickers include a QR code. Scanning it with an ordinary phone camera opens the ministry’s verification page directly, usually with the reference already populated — a faster route to the same answer as Method 1.

If your sticker has no QR code, or the code will not scan, that on its own tells you nothing. Sticker formats have changed over the years. Enter the reference number manually instead.

Method 3: check the physical document

Use these as secondary signals only, after the portal check:

• The printing should be clean and legible, with the reference number complete and unsmudged.
• The sticker should be intact, not lifted, re-affixed or tampered with.
• The document should not be laminated. MoFAIC’s own submission rules state that documents must not be laminated — and lamination makes later verification, re-attestation and inspection considerably harder.

If you have already laminated an attested certificate, do not try to remove the lamination yourself. Ask before acting; a damaged document can mean starting the chain again.

What should you do if your document does not verify?

Work through this in order before assuming the worst.

Re-check what you typed. Reference numbers are long and easy to mistype. Check for transposed digits, and confirm you have used the attestation date rather than the certificate’s own date.

Confirm which attestation you are checking. This portal verifies UAE MOFA attestations. Earlier stamps in the chain — your home country’s notary, your home country’s foreign ministry, the UAE Embassy abroad — are verified by the authorities that issued them, not here.

Ask the provider for the submission record. A completed attestation always produces a reference number. If a provider cannot give you one, request it in writing.

If it still does not appear, the document needs to go through attestation properly. That is inconvenient, but it is far less costly than discovering the problem at a visa counter.

How can you avoid the problem in the first place?

Three habits protect you.

Ask for the reference number on completion, then verify it yourself. Any legitimate provider expects this. It takes a minute and it settles the question permanently.

Treat unusually low quotes and unusually fast promises with care. Attestation involves government fees that nobody can discount, and stages that cannot be skipped. A price or timeline well outside the norm usually means a stage is being left out — here is what attestation normally costs in Dubai.

Understand where MOFA sits in the process. The MOFA stamp is the final stage of a longer chain. For a document issued outside the UAE, that chain runs through notarisation in the country of origin, then that country’s foreign ministry, then the UAE Embassy there, and only then UAE MOFA. A document that never completed the earlier stages cannot legitimately carry a MOFA stamp at the end. If you are unsure which route applies to your document, the full UAE attestation chain is set out here.

It is also worth knowing that the UAE is not a member of the Hague Apostille Convention. An apostille alone is not accepted for use in the UAE, which is a frequent source of confusion for documents arriving from Europe and the United States — we explain the distinction here.