Cost to Open a Medical Center or Clinic in Dubai (2026): Every Government Layer, Sourced

Quick Answer: The Dubai Health Authority part of opening a clinic is precise and published: a general clinic or dental clinic pays AED 5,000 to activate its facility licence for one year, a specialty clinic AED 6,000, a multi-specialty medical centre (what DHA calls a polyclinic) AED 15,000, plus AED 1,000 on application and AED 2,000 for the inspection. So the minimum DHA cost to reach an operating one-year licence is AED 8,000 for a general clinic and AED 18,000 for a medical centre. What almost nobody tells you is that DHA is one of five authorities you will pay, and it is usually the smaller half. This guide takes each layer in turn, cites the ones that are published, and is explicit about the ones that are not.

Ask an AI assistant what it costs to open a medical centre in Dubai and you will get a careful answer about DHA fees followed by a lot of hedging. The hedging is correct. No single authority publishes the total, because the total spans five of them — DHA for the health licence, the Department of Economy and Tourism for the commercial licence, Dubai Municipality and Civil Defence for the premises, MOHRE for the labour file, and GDRFA and ICP for residence visas. Each publishes its own slice; none publishes the sum.

That is the honest starting point, and it is why so many clinic budgets are wrong.

The five layers, and which of them are actually published

Layer 1 — the DHA facility licence, by category

This is the layer with the cleanest numbers, and it is worth getting the category right first, because the fee moves by a factor of six between them.

On top of the licence itself, DHA charges AED 1,000 for the new-licence application and initial approval, AED 2,000 for the inspection, and AED 1,000 again if a re-inspection is needed. Hospitals and the larger outpatient facilities pay AED 2,000 on application and AED 3,000–4,000 for inspection.

Two things follow from the table that most clinic budgets miss.

The first is that the longer term is cheaper in every single category — DHA charges 1.75 times the annual fee for two years and 2.5 times for three, so a three-year licence costs one sixth less than paying yearly across the same period. A medical centre pays AED 37,500 for three years instead of AED 45,000.

The second is that the licence is issued inactive. The one-, two- and three-year amounts above are DHA's fee to activate it, and activation requires a NABIDH-compliant electronic medical record with tested connectivity — see NABIDH compliance for Dubai clinics. Budgeting the licence without budgeting the EMR is how clinics end up holding a licence they cannot use.

All 43 DHA facility categories, with every fee column, are in our Dubai Clinic & Medical Centre Licensing Fee Index, transcribed from DHA's own schedule and downloadable as JSON or CSV.

Layer 2 — a professional licence for every clinician

The facility licence covers the premises, not the people. Every doctor, nurse, dentist, pharmacist and allied health professional needs their own DHA professional licence, and each renews on its own cycle. DHA splits this into two priced services, and the second is the one that gets missed.

Registration is AED 200, and DHA states it applies to all professional categories; renewing the registration is also AED 200, and replacing a lost licence card is AED 50.

Activating the licence is separate, and it is the step after which — in DHA's own words — "a healthcare professional can practise once the licence is issued." It is applied through the facility's Sheryan account rather than the professional's, which is why it is catalogued under health-facility services and why plenty of cost write-ups never find it. DHA publishes it by category and term:

Renewing the licence costs the same as activating it, and converting a part-time licence to full-time is AED 200. So the real published DHA cost per clinician is the AED 200 registration plus AED 1,000–3,000 a year of licence — five to fifteen times the registration fee, and the number that actually belongs in a budget.

What is still not published is DataFlow primary source verification, the eligibility assessment, and the exam where one is required — each charged separately by the verification agency and the assessment provider. For a clinic hiring six clinicians this is six parallel workflows, not one, and it sits on the critical path to opening.

We take the two licences apart in DHA facility licence vs professional licence, and the clinician's own path — Sheryan, DataFlow, assessment and DHA's published fees for each step — in the DHA licence guide for healthcare professionals.

Layer 3 — the DET trade licence

Here is where published and quoted diverge sharply, and where you should be most sceptical of a round number.

Dubai's Executive Council Resolution No. 13 of 2011 publishes DET's own fees: trade-name reservation AED 200, initial approval AED 100, and licence issuance or renewal AED 600, with AED 1,000 for an Arabised trade name, AED 2,000 for a foreign one, and AED 500 per variation.

Those are the government's charges. They are not what a clinic pays to get licensed, because the real bill also carries market fees, chamber and knowledge charges, activity-specific approvals, and — for a healthcare activity — DHA's own sign-off attached to the licence. Any provider quoting you a single all-in DET number is quoting a composite that includes their own margin. Ask for it itemised, and check which line is the AED 600.

Layer 4 — the premises

This is the layer nobody can price for you in advance, and any figure you see published for it is an estimate rather than a fee.

DHA reviews the proposed location and layout before the premises is committed, and the floor plan must be drawn by a DHA-prequalified health-facility design consultant. The single most expensive mistake in the whole process is signing a tenancy contract before that approval — it means paying rent on a site DHA may not approve.

What is published at this layer is the tenancy registration: Ejari costs AED 120 in Dubai Land Department fees, or AED 220 as the total through a Real Estate Services Trustee. Dubai Municipality and Civil Defence approvals, and the fit-out to DHA's Health Facility Guidelines, are driven by the specific unit, its size, whether it was previously an approved medical premises, and how much construction is involved. We do not publish a number for them, because there isn't one.

Layer 5 — the labour file and staff visas

Once the clinic hires, it needs a MOHRE establishment file, a work permit for each employee, and a residence visa through GDRFA and ICP with medical fitness and Emirates ID.

The work permit is the fee that surprises people, because it is not a flat charge: MOHRE prices it by company category, from AED 250 to AED 3,450 over two years. The category is set by Cabinet Resolution No. 18 of 2022, and one of its criteria is the cultural and demographic diversity of your workforce. A clinic that staffs heavily from a single nationality can be moved into a higher-cost category — and at a dozen or more clinical and admin visas, that difference compounds into tens of thousands of dirhams a year. It is a cost you manage by hiring pattern, not by negotiation. We explain the mechanism in MOHRE establishment categories explained for clinics.

A worked example: a six-clinician medical centre

Because the unpublished layers genuinely cannot be priced from a desk, here is what the published government layers come to for a multi-specialty medical centre taking a one-year DHA licence and registering six clinicians. Everything in this table is a fee an authority prints on its own page.

That total moves with your clinical mix, because activation is priced per person by category: the same six clinicians as all nurses would be AED 6,000 rather than AED 14,000, and on three-year licences the same four physicians and two nurses would be AED 35,000 up front instead of AED 14,000 a year. Take the three-year facility licence too and the DHA facility line moves from AED 15,000 to AED 37,500 — covering three years against AED 45,000 paid annually.

Now the honest half. On top of that subtotal the same clinic still pays: DataFlow verification and assessment for each of the six clinicians; the DET composite over and above the AED 900 of resolution fees; Dubai Municipality and Civil Defence approvals; the design consultant; a NABIDH-compliant EMR and its integration; fit-out to DHA's guidelines; MOHRE work permits at AED 250–3,450 each by company category; and residence visas, medical fitness and Emirates ID for every member of staff. None of those is published as a fixed fee, so we do not print one. And to be precise about what the table above is: it is the subtotal of the layers we priced, not a claim to be every published government fee in Dubai. If you find a published fee we have missed, we would rather hear it than keep the number.

Why the published/unpublished split matters more than a headline number

Every provider in this market can quote you a single figure for opening a clinic. What tells you whether to trust it is whether they can tell you which parts of it are government fees an authority prints, and which are estimates or their own margin.

That is the whole basis of how ZETUP prices: the retainer covers our service, and government fees are passed through at cost with the receipts attached. For a medical facility, which carries more government fees than almost any other activity in Dubai, that distinction is the difference between a budget and a guess. The PRO services guide for medical centers and clinics covers the whole regulatory stack, and how we structure PRO pricing covers the rest.

View our transparent pricing | Book a free PRO Health Check for your clinic

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How much does it cost to open a medical center in Dubai? A: The layers we can price from published schedules come to AED 34,320 for a six-clinician multi-specialty medical centre on one-year licences — four physicians or dentists and two nurses. DHA accounts for AED 33,200 of that: AED 1,000 application, AED 2,000 inspection, AED 15,000 facility licence activation, AED 1,200 in professional registrations, and AED 14,000 to activate the six professional licences. DET resolution fees of AED 900 and AED 220 for Ejari make up the rest. On top of it sit DataFlow verification, the DET composite, Dubai Municipality and Civil Defence approvals, a NABIDH-compliant EMR, fit-out, work permits and staff visas — none of which any authority publishes as a fixed fee.

Q: How much is the DHA licence for a clinic in Dubai? A: AED 5,000 a year for a general clinic or a general dental clinic, AED 6,000 for a specialty clinic, AED 4,000 for a clinic inside a pharmacy, and AED 15,000 for a multi-specialty medical centre. Two years costs 1.75× the annual fee and three years 2.5×.

Q: Is a one-year or three-year DHA licence better value? A: Three years, in every category without exception. DHA charges 2.5× the annual fee for three years, so you pay one sixth less than renewing yearly — AED 37,500 instead of AED 45,000 for a medical centre.

Q: Do I pay DHA once, or every year? A: Every cycle. The facility licence activation fee is charged again at each renewal, each clinician's professional licence renews on its own cycle, and inspection can recur. Opening the clinic is the one-time project; the licensing spend is annual.

Q: Why can't anyone give me one total number for opening a clinic in Dubai? A: Because the total spans five authorities and each publishes only its own slice. DHA publishes a full facility fee schedule, DET publishes its resolution fees, DLD publishes Ejari, MOHRE publishes a work-permit range. Dubai Municipality approvals, Civil Defence, the design consultant, the NABIDH-compliant EMR and the fit-out all depend on the specific premises, so no one can price them without seeing it.

Q: Do these fees apply in Dubai Healthcare City? A: Not to the facility. Dubai Healthcare City is a free zone whose facility and business licensing runs through DHCR — Dubai Healthcare City Authority (Regulatory) — on its own path and its own fees, so this DHA schedule does not price a DHCC facility. Professionals are the exception: DHCC states on its own site that all healthcare professional licensing inside the free zone is managed by the Dubai Health Authority, so the AED 200 registration fee does apply to your clinicians either way. Confirm the facility path with DHCR before you commit to premises.

Q: What is the cheapest health facility licence in Dubai? A: Of the categories a private operator would realistically choose, a clinic within a pharmacy at AED 4,000 a year, then a general clinic or general dental clinic at AED 5,000. DHA's lowest figures overall — AED 2,500 — are for nursery clinics and first-aid units, which are not general-practice categories.

Official Sources

• Dubai Health Authority — Facility License Fees (published 2025-01-28): https://www.dha.gov.ae/uploads/012025/Facility%20License%20Fees202518279.pdf
• Dubai Health Authority — Facility Services Fees (published 2025-01-28): https://www.dha.gov.ae/uploads/012025/Facility%20Services%20Fees2025118386.pdf
• Dubai Health Authority — New Healthcare Facility License (delivery time and required documents): https://www.dha.gov.ae/en/services/details?id=281&segment=health_facilities_services
• Dubai Health Authority — Get Registered for healthcare professional (AED 200, all professional categories): https://www.dha.gov.ae/en/services/details?id=245&segment=professional_services
• Dubai Health Authority — Activate healthcare Professional License (fees by professional category and term): https://www.dha.gov.ae/en/services/details?id=274&segment=health_facilities_services
• Dubai Health Authority — Request to Renew healthcare Professional License: https://www.dha.gov.ae/en/services/details?id=273&segment=health_facilities_services
• Dubai Healthcare City — Professional licensing ("All healthcare professional licensing in the Dubai Healthcare City free zone is managed by Dubai Health Authority"): https://dhcc.ae/professional/professional-services
• Dubai Legislation Portal — Executive Council Resolution No. 13 of 2011 (DET fees): https://dlp.dubai.gov.ae/Legislation%20Reference/2011/Executive%20Council%20Resolution%20No.%20(13)%20of%202011.html
• Dubai Land Department — Register / Renew Tenancy Contract (Ejari): https://dubailand.gov.ae/en/eservices/register-renew-ejari-contract/
• u.ae — Work permits (MOHRE work-permit fee by company category): https://u.ae/en/information-and-services/jobs/employment-in-the-private-sector/job-offers-and-work-permits-and-contracts/work-permits
• MOHRE — New classification of private companies (Cabinet Resolution No. 18 of 2022): https://www.mohre.gov.ae/en/media-centre/news/1/6/2022/new-classification-of-private-companies-comes-into-force.aspx

This guide is general information, not legal or regulatory advice. Government fees and requirements change — verify current details with the relevant authority or ask ZETUP to confirm for your specific case.