Attestation

Attestation (also called legalisation) is the broader process that MOFA attestation sits inside. Before a foreign certificate — a degree, marriage certificate, birth certificate, or company document — can be used in the UAE, each authority in the chain must confirm the previous one's stamp is genuine. The UAE is not party to the Apostille Convention, so the longer embassy-legalisation route applies rather than a single apostille.

The standard chain runs: notarisation in the issuing country, certification by that country's relevant ministry (e.g., foreign affairs or education), legalisation by the UAE embassy in that country, and finally attestation by MOFA inside the UAE. Many documents also require a legal Arabic translation that is itself attested.

Attestation is needed for visa sponsorship (marriage and birth certificates), education and licensing (degrees), and corporate matters (powers of attorney, board resolutions, parent-company documents). ZETUP PRO manages the full chain end to end, including legal translation, so clients hand over the document once and receive it UAE-ready.