DIFC, Dubai Courts and ADJD wills compared
Three bodies will register a will in the UAE: the DIFC Courts Wills Service, the Dubai Courts, and the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department. They differ in who may use them, what a single will may cover, how it is signed and what the registry charges. DIFC Courts publishes the most detail about its own service and we quote it here. ADJD publishes its procedure. The Dubai Courts publish theirs behind a robots.txt that disallows automated retrieval, so this page says so rather than filling the gap from somewhere else.
What actually separates the three
Not prestige, and not "strength". The differences that change what you do are narrower than the usual framing suggests: whether you qualify at all, whether one document can hold everything you own, how the signing happens, and what the registry charges on top of whoever prepares the will.
Two of the three answer those questions on their own websites. The third does not answer them anywhere we can read, which is itself worth knowing before you choose.
Who DIFC Courts says may use its service
DIFC Courts states four conditions plainly. You must be "at least 18 years of age". You must be "not Muslim and have never been a Muslim". You must own "assets in the UAE and/or have minor children residing with you in the UAE". And residency is not required: "You do not need to be a resident of the UAE to register a DIFC Courts Will".
That last one matters more than it looks. It means the DIFC route is open to someone who owns a Dubai apartment but lives elsewhere, which is a common position and one people often assume rules them out.
Source: DIFC Courts, Wills FAQ
One will or a narrow one: what DIFC covers, and what it charges
DIFC Courts does not sell one product. It publishes six, and the narrower ones exist because most people do not need a document that covers everything. Each has a published registration fee for a single will and for "Mirror Wills" - two wills of that type registered together by a married couple. These are the court’s own fees, charged by the court, and separate from whatever preparing the will costs.
- Full Will - covers a range of assets and can include guardianship. AED 10,000 single, AED 15,000 mirror.
- Property Will - "up to five (5) real estate properties (or a share in up to five (5) real estate properties)" "situated in the UAE". AED 7,500 single, AED 10,000 mirror.
- Financial Assets Will - "up to ten (10) separate accounts", held with a bank or brokerage whose branch is situated in the UAE. AED 5,000 single, AED 7,500 mirror.
- Business Owners Will - "up to five (5) separate shareholdings in any free zone or UAE onshore company situated in the UAE". AED 5,000 single, AED 7,500 mirror.
- Guardianship Will - "solely provides for the appointment of guardians for your children". AED 5,000 single, AED 7,500 mirror.
- Digital Assets Will - specific to digital assets, with a named list of supported tokens. AED 5,000 single, AED 7,500 mirror.
What Abu Dhabi publishes
The Abu Dhabi Judicial Department publishes a five-step registration for non-Muslim wills: the application goes in through the website; the employee in charge checks it; an SMS tells the applicant it is approved or needs changing; the fees are paid; and then the applicant "books an appointment to notarise the will via video call".
ADJD also states that "money and property outside the country can be bequeathed", and that a will form is available at its Office of Non-Muslims Wills.
What it does not publish on that page is as relevant: no fee amount, no language requirement, no witness rule, no executor condition. We do not supply those from elsewhere.
Source: Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, Wills for non-Muslims
Why the Dubai Courts column is empty
The Dubai Courts register wills, and for many people "a Dubai will" means theirs rather than the DIFC one. We have not quoted their eligibility, documents, procedure or fee anywhere on this site.
The reason is narrow and worth stating: the Dubai Courts service pages disallow automated retrieval in their robots.txt, and we respect that. So we have not read the authority’s own wording, and a comparison assembled from law-firm summaries would be a comparison of summaries. It is logged as an open question in our source registry until someone can read the page directly.
If Dubai Courts is the route you are weighing, treat this page as incomplete on that point and ask us what we have actually confirmed.
What none of the three settles
The UAE Government portal describes the federal framework and states that the Federal Personal Status Law "governs personal affairs such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc." It names no registry, publishes no registration procedure, and does not rank the three routes.
So nobody can honestly tell you one of them is the officially preferred option, and we do not. Which registry suits a particular estate, whether a will reaches assets held in another country, and how any of it interacts with UAE inheritance law are questions about legal effect rather than published procedure. They need a lawyer.
Source: The Official Portal of the UAE Government, personal status for non-Muslims
Narrowing it down
From the published facts alone, a few things follow without needing a legal opinion:
- If you are Muslim or have ever been Muslim, DIFC Courts states its service is not open to you. That is a published condition, not our view.
- If you do not live in the UAE but own something here, DIFC explicitly does not require residency.
- If the estate is one flat, or one set of accounts, a narrow DIFC will is published at half the price of the Full Will - so "which will" is a cost question as well as a coverage one.
- If you and your spouse want the same structure, that is two wills, not one, and DIFC prices the pair as a named case.
- If your assets are in Abu Dhabi, ADJD is the emirate’s own route and its process is published end to end.
- If you are weighing Dubai Courts specifically, get its requirements from the court rather than from any comparison page, including this one.
Questions
Which is better, a DIFC will or a Dubai Courts will?
We do not answer that, and we would be inventing an answer if we did. No federal source ranks them, and we have not been able to read the Dubai Courts’ own published requirements. What we can say is what DIFC Courts and ADJD publish about their own services, which is set out above.
Do I have to live in the UAE to register a DIFC will?
No. DIFC Courts states "You do not need to be a resident of the UAE to register a DIFC Courts Will". You do need to own assets in the UAE and/or have minor children residing with you here, and to be at least 18.
Can a non-Muslim register a will in Abu Dhabi if the assets are abroad?
ADJD states that "money and property outside the country can be bequeathed". It does not publish what happens when another country’s rules apply to the same assets, and neither do we.
How much does registration cost?
DIFC Courts publishes a fee per will type, from AED 5,000 for its narrower wills to AED 10,000 for a Full Will, with mirror pairs priced separately. ADJD refers to "the fees" without publishing an amount. Those are registry fees and are separate from the cost of preparing the will.
Can one will cover property in Dubai and a bank account in London?
DIFC states that a Full Will "may include assets within the UAE as well as outside of the UAE". Whether that will is given effect over the London account is a question of legal effect in that jurisdiction, which is outside what any of these pages publish and outside what we advise on.
What this page does not do
- This page compares what three registries publish about their own services. It is not advice about which one is legally right for your estate, and it does not state that any will is valid or enforceable.
- The Dubai Courts route is described without quoted requirements because their service pages disallow automated retrieval. That is a real gap in this comparison, not a judgement about the route.
- Registry fees and conditions change without notice. Every figure here is dated in our source registry and the authority’s own page is the version that counts.
- The Deedbox is not a law firm and not a notary office.