Power of attorney from the UAE for use in Pakistan
A power of attorney for Pakistan goes through the Pakistan mission in the UAE, and the mission publishes both routes. For a document issued in the UAE, attestation by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs is required first. For a power of attorney executed at the mission itself, the presence of the executant is mandatory and the list is specific: original plus one copy, copies of your passport, visa, Emirates ID and NICOP, and three photographs. Mission fees are published in dirhams. On apostille, be careful what you read: Pakistan runs its own apostille service, the UAE is not listed as a Contracting Party to the Convention, and no Pakistani source we found says which applies to this corridor - so ask the mission rather than assuming.
When people need this
Land is the dominant reason. Selling or transferring a plot, dealing with a mutation in the revenue record, managing an inherited share among siblings, or letting somebody handle a property matter that cannot wait for a trip home. After that come bank matters, pension and family documents, and company signatures.
The UAE has one of the largest Pakistani communities anywhere, and the Pakistan mission here treats power-of-attorney work as routine. That is also why the requirements are written down in more detail than most corridors manage.
The UAE stage comes first
The Pakistan Embassy in Abu Dhabi states it directly: for documents issued outside Pakistan, attestation by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs is required before the mission will attest them. That is the same MOFA stage described in our guide to using a UAE power of attorney abroad - MOFA certifies the signatures and seals, not the contents.
This ordering matters because it is the step people most often skip. A document taken straight to the mission without the MOFA stamp is a wasted trip.
Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan - Abu Dhabi attestation
Executing the power of attorney at the mission
For a power of attorney executed in the UAE, the mission publishes a specific list: the original plus one copy, copies of the passport, visa, Emirates ID and NICOP, three photographs, and - stated as a requirement rather than a preference - the presence of the executant of the attorney is mandatory.
If instead the power of attorney comes from Pakistan, the mission asks for the original and a copy together with the authority-holder’s passport or NICOP copy, and states that the original must be completed in all respects and attested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Pakistan.
Two routes, and neither is automatically the right one
The mission publishes requirements for two different things, and they are not interchangeable. One is a power of attorney executed at the mission, where a consular officer is involved in the signing and your presence is mandatory. The other is a document that already exists - drafted and dealt with in the UAE - which is attested by UAE MOFA and then presented to the mission.
Which one suits you depends on the transaction and on what the person acting for you in Pakistan needs to hold. We are not going to tell you one is generally better, because the missions do not say that and it would not be true across every matter. What we can say is that both are published, and that the mission is the party to confirm which it will accept for your purpose.
Whose fee is whose
The Pakistan mission publishes a fee table in dirhams. Powers of attorney and affidavits are listed at AED 40; educational certificates at AED 40; marriage, birth and death documents at AED 20; and foreign documents at AED 60. Pension forms sit at the bottom of the range at AED 5.
Those are the mission’s own fees and nothing else. Keeping the stages separate matters here more than usual, because Pakistan also publishes rupee apostille fees that belong to a different process entirely.
- UAE government fee - UAE MOFA attestation, priced in a guide we have not read. We quote no figure.
- Mission fee - AED 40 for a power of attorney or affidavit, AED 60 for foreign documents, as published on the ministry's Abu Dhabi page.
- Pakistan-side costs after arrival - stamp paper, revenue or registration charges where they apply. Not published in anything we read.
- Our own professional fee for preparing the document is separate again, and is never bundled into any of the above.
A trap worth naming
Pakistan’s foreign ministry serves its consular pages per mission, and the same web address without the mission parameter returns a completely different fee - in euros, from a European post. Anyone researching this online can end up reading one mission’s schedule and believing it applies in Dubai.
There is a second lookalike: a .org site carrying content that matches the official pages but evidencing no authorship of its own. We rely on the ministry’s own Abu Dhabi page and name it, and we would suggest you do the same.
The apostille question, and why nobody answers it
Pakistan acceded to the Hague Apostille Convention and runs an apostille portal, with online registration mandatory from 27 July 2026 and fees quoted in rupees. Separately, Pakistan publishes mission attestation for documents crossing to and from the UAE.
What no Pakistani source we read does is reconcile the two - it does not say whether a UAE-bound document takes an apostille or a mission attestation. What we can say is narrower, and it comes from the UAE side: the UAE is not listed among the Contracting Parties, so Pakistan's Convention membership does not by itself remove the UAE-side steps. That is a statement about Convention status, not a description of what any particular Pakistani office will demand of your document. Ask the mission, and ask whoever will act on the document in Pakistan.
Language
Neither the Pakistan mission in the UAE nor UAE MOFA publishes a translation requirement for this corridor. In practice these documents are usually drafted in English, which both sides accept.
Where a Pakistani revenue office, bank or court expects Urdu, that expectation comes from the receiving body rather than from either foreign ministry, and it is worth confirming with them before the document is executed.
Where this page stops
Pakistan publishes, for powers of attorney prepared inside Pakistan for use abroad, that they must be on stamp paper with passport-size photographs of the executant. Whether an equivalent stamp-paper requirement applies to a power of attorney executed in the UAE is not stated anywhere we read, and we are not going to guess at it.
The same caution applies to what a revenue office or sub-registrar will want to see. Ask the person handling the matter in Pakistan what the document must contain before you sign it here.
Questions
Do I need UAE MOFA attestation first?
Yes, for a document issued in the UAE. The Pakistan mission states that attestation by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs is required for documents issued outside Pakistan before it will attest them.
Must I attend in person?
For a power of attorney executed in the UAE, yes. The mission states that the presence of the executant is mandatory. There is no published alternative.
What does it cost?
The Pakistan mission publishes AED 40 for a power of attorney or affidavit, and AED 60 for foreign documents. The UAE MOFA stage is priced separately and we do not quote it.
Can I use a Pakistani apostille instead?
We cannot tell you that it works, and we will not tell you that it does not. Pakistan issues apostilles; the UAE is not listed among the Contracting Parties, so Pakistan's membership does not by itself remove the UAE-side steps; and Pakistan's own apostille pages do not mention the UAE either way. That is a genuine gap in what is published, and the mission is the party to settle it.
How many photographs do I need?
Three, for a power of attorney executed in the UAE, alongside the original plus one copy and copies of your passport, visa, Emirates ID and NICOP.
Does the mission check what the document says?
The consular act concerns the signature and the identity of the person signing. Nothing published states that an attested power of attorney is thereby effective for a particular transaction in Pakistan - that remains for the receiving body there.
What this page does not do
- Whether a power of attorney executed in the UAE must be on stamp paper for use in Pakistan is not stated in the sources we have read. The stamp-paper rule we found applies to documents prepared inside Pakistan for use abroad.
- Pakistan runs an apostille service and separately publishes mission attestation for the UAE. No Pakistani source we read reconciles them, and we have not reconciled them for it. What we state rests on the UAE’s absence from the HCCH status table - which settles Convention status and nothing more.
- Fees are quoted only from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ own Abu Dhabi page. Consular fees change, and a page found through a search engine may be another mission’s schedule in another currency.
- The Deedbox prepares documents. We do not carry out attestation or legalisation, do not act for you before any mission, and are not a law firm. The receiving authority in Pakistan decides whether to act on your document.