If you are a non-Muslim foreigner living in or owning assets in the UAE, your estate is no longer distributed under Sharia by default. Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2022 on Civil Personal Status, in force since February 2023, gives non-Muslims a civil succession regime and lets you leave your UAE assets to whoever you choose by will. The real difficulty is procedural rather than doctrinal: until a UAE court issues a succession order, bank accounts sit frozen, title cannot move, and a family without a will registered in the UAE can spend months proving something that should have been obvious.
Which law decides who inherits my UAE assets?
Three rules interact, and which one bites depends on your religion, your nationality and the type of asset.
- If you are Muslim, your estate is distributed under Sharia fixed shares, whatever your nationality and wherever you were born. The civil regime described in this guide does not apply to you, and a will can normally only dispose of a limited portion of the estate.
- If you are a non-Muslim foreigner, Decree-Law 41/2022 applies to you as a matter of course. It allows a will covering all of your property in the UAE, and where there is no will it sets out civil default shares that do not distinguish between sons and daughters.
- You may also ask for your home country's law to govern your succession instead. The 2022 law preserves that option for non-Muslim foreigners, which is why the drafting of the will matters: a well-drafted UAE will states explicitly which law it elects and why.
There is one carve-out that has caused years of argument. Article 17(5) of the UAE Civil Transactions Law provides that UAE law governs the will of a foreigner disposing of real property located in the UAE. The Civil Transactions Law has itself been amended and re-issued over time, so the article should be read against the current consolidated text rather than an older edition. How firmly the carve-out survives alongside the 2022 civil regime is not fully settled either, and practice has not been identical in every emirate. If real estate is your largest UAE asset, treat this as a point to take advice on rather than a solved question.
What happens if I die without a UAE will?
For a non-Muslim, the civil default shares under Decree-Law 41/2022 are broadly as follows.
| Who survives you | Default civil distribution |
|---|---|
| Spouse and children | Half to the spouse; the remaining half divided equally among the children, sons and daughters alike |
| Spouse, no children, both parents living | Half to the spouse; the remaining half to the parents |
| Spouse, no children, one parent living | Half to the spouse; a quarter to the surviving parent; the balance to siblings |
| Spouse, no children, no parents | Half to the spouse; the balance to siblings in equal shares |
These defaults are more generous to a surviving spouse than many expats expect, but they are still defaults, not a plan. They say nothing about who administers the estate, they do not appoint a guardian for your children, and they do not stop the freeze described below. They also do not help at all if you and your partner are not married, if you have stepchildren, or if you want a specific asset to go to a specific person.
Do I still need a UAE will if I already have one at home?
In practice, yes. A foreign will is not automatically actionable in front of a UAE bank or land department. It has to be produced in a form the local system accepts, which typically means notarisation and legalisation in the country where it was made, attestation, and translation into Arabic by a legal translator licensed in the UAE. Each of those steps takes time while the estate is locked, and the court still has to be satisfied about the will's validity and about which law it is applying.
A will registered inside the UAE removes most of that friction. The usual arrangement for expats with assets on both sides is a UAE will limited to UAE assets, plus a home-country will covering everything else, drafted together so that neither revokes the other. That last point is where do-it-yourself templates most often fail: a standard revocation clause in the second will can quietly cancel the first.
Get a lawyer who handles cross-border estates to review both wills together.
Where can a non-Muslim register a will in the UAE?
- DIFC Courts Wills Service (Dubai). Open to non-Muslims aged 21 and over who have not previously been Muslim. Wills are in English, registered with the DIFC registry, and can cover assets located anywhere in the UAE, not only in Dubai. Probate is granted by the DIFC Courts, which then issue orders that mainland registrars and banks act on. Several formats exist, including a full will, a property will, a financial assets will, a business owner's will and a guardianship will.
- Abu Dhabi Non-Muslim Family Court. Created as part of Abu Dhabi's civil family law framework, it registers civil wills for non-Muslims and is generally the cheaper route. It is also open to non-residents with UAE assets, which matters if you own property here but live elsewhere.
- Notary public / local court wills, in Arabic with certified translation, registered in the emirate concerned. Workable, but usually narrower in scope and less convenient for English-speaking executors.
None of these is inherently the right answer. The choice usually turns on where your assets sit, whether minor children are involved, and how much you are willing to pay for the smoother probate route.
What actually happens to my bank accounts, property and company shares?
On notification of death, UAE banks freeze the deceased's accounts pending a succession order. Cards stop working, standing orders fail, and rent or school fees do not get paid.
UAE banks routinely freeze a joint account on the death of either holder, and the survivor does not automatically take the balance. Expat couples who keep everything in one joint account are the classic case: the surviving spouse loses access to the household money precisely when they need it for funeral costs, repatriation and legal fees. Keeping a separate account in each name, funded well enough to cover several months, is the cheapest protection available.
Real estate follows the same logic. A registrar such as the Dubai Land Department will not transfer title on the strength of a death certificate alone; it needs a court order identifying the heirs or giving effect to the will, and any mortgage over the property has to be dealt with as part of the settlement. If you are still at the buying stage, it is worth reading how ownership is structured in the first place, whether you are buying property in Dubai as a foreigner or buying in Abu Dhabi, because the ownership form you choose feeds directly into how easily the asset can later be transferred.
Company interests need their own thought. Shares in a mainland LLC pass through the succession process and the transfer has to be reflected in the licence and the corporate register, so a company can be effectively paralysed while that happens; if you are setting up a mainland company, the shareholders' agreement should say what happens on death. Free zone structures follow their own registry's rules, which is one of the practical differences to weigh when setting up in a free zone.
Debts do not disappear, but they also do not attach to your family personally in the way expats often fear. Liabilities are settled out of the estate before anything is distributed, and heirs are generally not liable beyond what they receive. Outstanding cheque and loan exposure is nevertheless worth cleaning up during your lifetime, given how seriously the system treats it: see our guide to bounced cheques in the UAE.
Who looks after my children if both parents die?
This is the single strongest reason expat parents register a will here rather than putting it off. Without a UAE guardianship arrangement, there is no automatic route by which a relative abroad takes charge of children who are physically in the country; the matter goes before the court, and the interim period is exactly when clarity is worth most. A guardianship will names both a permanent guardian, usually a family member overseas, and an interim guardian resident in the UAE who can act within hours. Parents who are separated should read this alongside how the courts approach child custody for expats and civil divorce in the UAE, since custody arrangements and guardianship provisions have to be consistent with each other.
Is there inheritance tax in the UAE?
No. The UAE levies no inheritance, estate or gift tax, and the corporate tax regime introduced for businesses does not change that for personal estates. Your home country may still tax the same assets — the United Kingdom taxes on a domicile basis and the United States taxes citizens wherever they live — so the tax question is almost always about the other jurisdiction, not this one. If part of your wealth is held through a company, how that entity is taxed is a separate question covered in our guide to UAE corporate tax for foreign-owned businesses.
How much does this cost, and do I need a lawyer?
Registration fees differ sharply between registries. The DIFC route is the most expensive of the common options, running into thousands of dirhams for a full will, with reduced fees for single-asset and guardianship wills and a discount where a couple registers mirror wills. Abu Dhabi's civil will registry is materially cheaper. Both publish current schedules, and both have changed their pricing before, so confirm the figure before you budget rather than relying on a number quoted in an article.
You are not legally required to use a lawyer to make a will here. You are, however, paying for the failure mode if the drafting is wrong, and the failure mode arrives when you are not there to explain what you meant. The situations that genuinely justify professional drafting are cross-border estates, minor children, business shareholdings, unmarried or blended families, and any case where an heir might contest. Contacting a firm through Brisamo is free, and Brisamo is a directory rather than a law firm — this guide is general information about a system that varies by emirate, not advice on your estate. Employment entitlements such as end-of-service gratuity also form part of what your family will need to claim, which our guide to employment rights in the UAE covers in more detail.
Figures last verified August 2026 against the sources listed at the end of this guide. Registration fees, court fees and procedural requirements change; confirm current figures with the relevant registry or a licensed lawyer before relying on them.
Fonti ufficiali
Norme, tariffe e soglie cambiano. Verifica sempre presso la fonte ufficiale prima di agire.
- Federal Tax Authorityagenzia fiscale
- ICPautorità per l'immigrazione
- Dubai Land Departmentregistro immobiliare