Citizenship-by-investment programmes run background checks on every applicant, and a police certificate is one of the documents an agent will usually ask for. For someone who lives in the UAE, that means a police clearance certificate from a UAE authority, often called a good conduct certificate. Which authority issues it depends on where you live, and the details affect timing, so it is worth planning before your agent asks for it.
This guide covers the three issuers that matter for most residents: Dubai Police, Abu Dhabi Police and the federal Ministry of Interior. Fees appear only where the issuer itself publishes them.
Dubai residents: Dubai Police
Dubai Police issues a Police Clearance Certificate, also called a Good Conduct Certificate, for purposes that include work, study and immigration. According to its service page, the certificate is valid for three months from the date it is issued, and the stated completion time is five working days.
Dubai Police publishes its fees on the same page. A resident pays AED 200, a UAE citizen AED 100, and an applicant from outside the country AED 300. A knowledge and innovation fee of AED 20 is added, and applying in person at a service centre costs AED 100 more than applying online.
| Dubai Police item | As published |
|---|---|
| Resident | AED 200 |
| Knowledge and innovation fee | AED 20 |
| In person at a service centre | AED 100 extra |
| Validity | Three months from issue |
| Completion time | Five working days |
If you have already left the UAE
Former residents sometimes need a UAE certificate after moving away, for example when a programme asks about every country lived in over recent years. Dubai Police's published fee list includes a rate for an applicant from outside the country, AED 300, which indicates that the service is open to people applying from abroad. Check the service page for the documents it asks for in that case before you start, as you will not be able to visit a service centre.
Abu Dhabi residents: Abu Dhabi Police or the Ministry of Interior
Abu Dhabi Police announced that holders of an Emirates ID can obtain the Certificate of No Criminal Conviction, its name for the good conduct certificate, online and at police stations. That announcement is old, and we could not find a current Abu Dhabi Police page that publishes a fee, so none is shown here.
The federal route is the Ministry of Interior, which issues a Police Clearance Certificate through its website and its UAE-MOI smartphone app. The ministry's service page sits behind a browser check that we could not read, so its current fee is not published here either. If you live outside Dubai, ask your agent which of the two the programme prefers before applying.
Timing: the three-month window
The validity period is the detail that most often causes delays. A Dubai certificate is valid for three months from issue. A citizenship application can take longer than that just to be filed, once forms, other documents and due diligence are assembled. Our suggestion, not an official rule: collect the documents that do not expire first, and request the police certificate last, once your agent confirms the filing date.
Some programmes also check police records at more than one stage. Vanuatu's Financial Intelligence Unit, for example, asks for a police clearance among the documents for its own due diligence checks, alongside a passport valid for at least six months, a notarised CV and the government payment receipt.
Using the certificate abroad: attestation
A certificate issued in the UAE is often used outside it, and the receiving government may want it attested. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs runs a documents attestation service that certifies signatures and seals on documents issued in the UAE for use with the UAE mission in the destination country; you apply through its website or app. For personal documents the ministry publishes a fee of AED 150 per document.
Whether attestation is needed depends on the programme. Ask before you pay for it, and keep the original certificate safe: the ministry attests original documents.
Your other countries of residence
The UAE certificate covers only your time in the UAE. A programme may also ask for certificates from your country of nationality or from other countries where you have lived; your agent will confirm which. Those come from each country's own authorities, under their own rules and timelines, so it helps to ask about them early.
The other UAE documents that travel with it
The police certificate is rarely requested on its own. Three other kinds of paper usually go into the same file, each with its own source:
- A copy of your Emirates ID card. The federal identity authority (ICP) issues it, and a resident's card becomes renewable in its final six months, so look at the expiry date before you photocopy it for a file that could take a season to complete.
- Letters from your bank and from your employer. No government office produces these, but the foreign ministry will attest them if a programme wants them legalised, as they count among the personal papers it handles.
- Civil records such as birth and marriage certificates from your home country. These go through three stamps in turn: your own country's foreign ministry, then the UAE mission there, and finally the foreign ministry here in the UAE.
In our reading, the civil-document chain is likely to be the slowest, because two of its three steps happen in another country. If your agent needs attested birth or marriage certificates, start that chain before anything else.
A checklist you can print
Our document checklist for UAE residents lists the police certificate alongside the Emirates ID copy, bank and salary letters and attested civil documents, with the issuing body for each, and it prints as a checklist. The guide for UAE residents covers the wider questions, such as whether your home country lets you keep its passport.
If you have not chosen a programme yet, it is worth doing that first: requirements differ, and the programme decides which certificates, translations and attestations are needed. The five-question match gives a shortlist in two minutes.