Attesting US Documents for the UAE

A peculiarity to the attestation of US documents is that it is possible to take a translation of a birth, marriage or death certificate from a scan and use the translated document to be process for use in the UAE. This initial step is only applicable to US Public Records. Attesting in this way is often used to avoid the expense and complication of having to return the original document to the individual state where it was issued prior to processing.

Check out our translations page to learn more about the different types of translations, and what they're used for.

For most documents, the first step is to have your document certified as being legitimate. In the case of educational qualifications or translations, this certification will be handled by a US Notary Public. For original birth, marriage or birth certificates, it is a registrar in the issuing state that will certify the document.

Before documents can be presented to the UAE Embassy in Washington, they need to undergo State-level certification. During this process an authentication certificate (certification page) is attached, signed and sealed, which confirms that the document being presented has been correctly processed by the relevant US authority. In the United States this can only be applied by the Department of State.

Before documents can be presented to the UAE Embassy in Washington, they need to be authenticated at a national level by the US Department of State. During this process an authentication page is attached, signed and sealed, which confirms that the document being presented has been correctly processed by the relevant US authority. In the United States this can only be applied by the Department of State.

The final step in the United States is to have the document stamped, known as attested, by the UAE Embassy in Washington. During this stage an official UAE-government sticker and seal is applied to the document. This confirms to the authorities in the UAE that the document has completed all the required steps in the US.

Once the document has reached the UAE, it requires a further attestation stamp by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the UAE which validates that your document has been processed correctly in the UK. Some employers make arrangements to handle this for you, so you should check whether this needs completing by you or not.

In certain circumstances, your document may also require translation into Arabic. Again, your employer may handle this for you so best to check. If required, the whole document and its relevant stamps are translated from English into Arabic by a recognised certified translator. Once the translation has been done, then everything has been completed to make it fully useable within the UAE.