Notarized vs Attested Documents in the UAE: What's the Difference

Notarization and attestation are both steps that give a document legal recognition in the UAE, but they serve different purposes and apply to different situations, and confusing the two is a common source of delay for businesses and individuals submitting paperwork to government departments.

Notarization is generally used for documents created or signed within the UAE, such as a power of attorney, a Memorandum of Association, or a shareholder resolution, where a notary public witnesses the signing and confirms the identity of the signatories, giving the document legal standing for use with UAE authorities. It's essentially a domestic verification step for locally executed documents.

Attestation, by contrast, applies to documents issued outside the UAE that need to be recognized as valid inside the country, such as a foreign degree certificate, a marriage certificate issued abroad, or a company's certificate of incorporation from another jurisdiction. Attestation typically involves a chain of verification: first by the relevant authority in the document's country of origin, such as the foreign ministry, then by the UAE embassy or consulate in that country, and finally, once the document arrives in the UAE, by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For businesses, this distinction matters most during company formation involving foreign shareholders or a foreign parent company: locally signed documents like the UAE company's own Memorandum of Association need notarization, while foreign shareholder documents like passport copies with supporting corporate documents, or a foreign company's incorporation certificate being used to open a UAE branch, need the full attestation chain completed in their country of origin before submission. Given the number of steps and the involvement of multiple government bodies across two countries, attestation in particular should be started well ahead of any licensing deadline, since delays at any single step in the chain push out the entire timeline.