A legal translation is one produced and stamped by a translator the Ministry of Justice has licensed. It is what UAE authorities ask for when a document reaches them in a language they will not accept, and it is a different thing from a good translation. We arrange them for company paperwork: memoranda of association, board resolutions, powers of attorney, contracts, certificates and the documents behind a visa file, along with the attestation that usually has to happen around them.
The order of those steps costs more money than the translation itself. Get it wrong and you pay for the same document twice, which is what this page is mostly about.
What makes a translation "legal" in the UAE
The Ministry of Justice licenses the translator, not the translation. Its own service page sets out what that takes: a qualification recognised in the UAE, a certificate of experience covering five years for an expatriate, a health certificate and professional indemnity insurance, a fee of AED 3,000, and 65 days to process. The translator is then issued a card.
Two consequences follow, and both are worth knowing before you hand over a document. A licence covers specific languages, and adding another one is a separate application to the ministry, so "we handle any language" is a claim worth testing against the pair you actually need. And because the licence sits with a person, the right question is never "are you MOJ approved" but "which licensed translator will stamp this, and for which language pair". Source: Ministry of Justice, registration of a legal translator, read September 2026.
Attest first, translate last
For a document issued outside the UAE, the sequence that avoids repeat work runs like this. The document is attested by the appropriate authorities in the country that issued it. It is then legalised by the UAE mission there, where the destination requires that. It reaches the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here for UAE attestation. Only then is it translated, once the stamps that will need covering are already on the page.
MOFA is explicit about the two conditions that catch people out: the original has to be "in English or Arabic (or an official translation of it)", and the document "must be attested by the appropriate governing bodies prior to submission". It also will not accept a laminated document. So a translation produced before the attestations exist gets superseded by the stamps added afterwards, and somebody pays for a second pass.
What the attestation itself costs
| MOFA attestation | Fee |
|---|---|
| Individual affairs document (degree, marriage certificate, birth certificate) | AED 150 |
| Commercial document (parent company resolution, power of attorney, corporate certificate) | AED 2,000 |
| Commercial invoices | Scaled to the invoice amount |
Those are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' own published charges, read in September 2026, and they sit on top of whatever the issuing country charges and whatever the translation costs. The gap between the personal and commercial rate is the one founders never budget for: a parent company resolution is a commercial document. Source: MOFA attestation FAQs.
Company documents that usually need translating
- Memorandum and articles of association, and amendments to them
- Board and shareholder resolutions, including the ones appointing a manager or opening a bank account
- Powers of attorney, which a notary will want in Arabic
- Parent company documents behind a branch or a subsidiary
- Degree and experience certificates supporting a professional licence or a visa
- Personal certificates in a family visa file: marriage, birth, and their attestations
- Contracts where an authority, rather than the counterparty, is the reader
Family documents have their own rules. ICP, for instance, requires a marriage contract issued outside the UAE to be translated into Arabic and attested by the UAE embassy and MOFA before it will accept it, which is worth reading alongside sponsoring your family after setup.
When you do not need a legal translation
Three situations come up often enough to state plainly, because each one saves money:
- The document is already in English and only needs attesting. MOFA takes English originals. Translating first to "be safe" buys nothing.
- The reader is a counterparty, not an authority. A supplier contract nobody files needs a good commercial translation, not a licensed one.
- The authority has accepted English before. Some submissions genuinely do not require Arabic. Ask before assuming, because the reverse mistake is expensive too.
How the work runs with us
- Send scans of what you have, and tell us which authority will receive it.
- We confirm the order: what needs attesting, where translation belongs in the sequence, and what is already acceptable as it stands.
- Translation is produced and stamped by a licensed legal translator for the language pair you need.
- Attestation is coordinated where it is required, including the MOFA step.
- You get the stamped set back, with the original, ready to submit.
Most of this runs alongside something else: a licence application, a visa file, a bank account, a branch registration. If that is where you are, the PRO service page covers how the submission side fits together, and Amer and immigration services covers the visa documents specifically.
Legal translation FAQs
A translator licensed by the Ministry of Justice, for the languages their licence covers. The ministry registers translators individually after a recognised qualification, five years of experience for expatriates, a health certificate and indemnity insurance, and issues them a card.
Ask for the translator's name and card, and for confirmation that the licence covers your language pair rather than the office's general claim. A firm that cannot name the person who will stamp your document is describing a subcontractor it has not checked either.
After, in most cases. Attestation adds stamps, and stamps added after a translation are not covered by it. MOFA also accepts originals in English or Arabic, so an English document does not need translating merely to be attested. The exception is where the receiving authority asks for the translation as part of the file it attests, which is why we ask who the recipient is first.
Not on its own. MOFA requires a document to have been attested by the appropriate governing bodies before it is submitted here, and UAE missions abroad handle the legalisation step for documents issued in their country. Check the chain for your specific country before paying for anything.
Only if the authority receiving it says so. Where a UAE authority wants a legal translation, it means one stamped by a translator on the Ministry of Justice's register, and a translation produced abroad will not carry that stamp however good it is.
Translation is quoted per document, because a two-page certificate and a forty-page memorandum are not the same job. What is fixed is the government side: MOFA charges AED 150 to attest an individual affairs document and AED 2,000 for a commercial one. Send the scans and you get both numbers before anything starts.