Hebrew Legal Translation in Dubai

Because the UAE is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, and the Convention only operates between its members. Israel is a member, so your apostille is genuine and works for other member states — it simply is not the instrument the UAE asks for. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes a consular chain instead: attestation by the issuing country's foreign ministry, then by the UAE mission there, then MOFA attestation inside the UAE, followed by an Arabic legal translation.

The chain has to start in the country of issue and cannot be reordered, because each authority only recognises the seal of the one before it. So the apostille and the UAE mission's legalisation happen where the document was issued; MOFA attestation and the Arabic legal translation happen inside the UAE. A document that skips the home-country steps cannot be rescued at a Dubai counter — the missing stamps have to be obtained where the document originated.

It depends on the document. Public-registry documents — a company extract, a land register extract, a government or educational certificate, a court document — are apostilled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Documents that carry a notarial certification, such as a power of attorney or a declaration prepared before a notary, are apostilled by a registrar of the Magistrates' Court. Matching the document type to the right authority is where files most often go wrong, so we confirm the route for each document before it moves.

No. Commercial contracts and commercial invoices fall outside the categories the apostille covers, along with customs and diplomatic documents and identity cards. A contract is handled through translation and, where required, notarisation for the receiving party or court. Commercial invoices and certificates of origin destined for the UAE go through the country's dedicated digital channel for such documents, not the ordinary attestation route. Sending either down the apostille path is a common cause of delay.

We render the whole instrument into Arabic, not just the English column. Some Israeli documents, and the apostille itself, appear in Hebrew or English, and it is tempting to translate only the easier English text. But a UAE authority reads the whole page, and a skipped Hebrew clause, seal or annotation reads as a missing part of the document. We check the Hebrew and English elements against each other and reproduce every stamp, the apostille and the reverse of each sheet in the Arabic version.

Directly, where the source is Hebrew. Routing Hebrew through English adds a second layer of distortion exactly where it hurts most — in names, dates, registration references and the exact legal formulae, all of which carry meaning in the original. The certified Arabic version for onshore use has to come from a translator on the Ministry of Justice register for the relevant language, who takes responsibility for the accuracy of the Arabic. Where a document is bilingual Hebrew-and-English, both language elements are covered so nothing is dropped.

No. They share a reading direction and nothing else. Hebrew and Arabic are different alphabets, with different letters and different conventions, and treating one as a variant of the other is the most basic error in this language pair. A Hebrew document is set in Hebrew; its Arabic translation is set in Arabic; the two never share a character. The genuine difficulty is the mixed direction inside a Hebrew corporate document, where left-to-right numbers and Latin names sit in right-to-left text — which is exactly where we check every figure against the original.

We fix one Arabic rendering of the name and carry it identically through the whole pack, while recording the Latin form beside it so the file can be reconciled with the letterhead, the bank records and the licence. The aim is that a UAE authority reads one company across the extract, the articles, the resolution and the power of attorney — not several. Where a name has been written more than one way in earlier UAE documents, tell us, so the Arabic rendering matches what is already on record.

Typically the company extract from the Registrar of Companies, the articles of association, a board resolution authorising the UAE step and a power of attorney for whoever will act here — each apostilled in Israel, run through the consular chain and MOFA attestation, and then translated into Arabic. A mainland licence works in Arabic; a financial free zone such as the DIFC or ADGM works in English and applies its own rules. Confirm the exact list and language requirement with the specific authority or free-zone registrar, whose checklist governs the file.

Inside those financial free zones, proceedings and filings are in English, so a Hebrew or English document may be usable without an Arabic translation under their rules. The exception matters: once a judgment, order or instrument has to be served or enforced elsewhere onshore in the UAE, an Arabic translation is required, and under the DIFC rules it must be lodged within a tight deadline, with the English version prevailing where the two conflict. We confirm the requirement for your forum first, so you translate what is needed and nothing that is not.

The attestation itself does not expire — MOFA states there is no expiry date on an attested document. That is separate from the underlying document, which may have its own validity window imposed by the receiving authority: a company register extract or a criminal-record certificate is often expected to be recent regardless of the attestation. So keep the attested set, but be ready to refresh a time-sensitive source document if a counter asks for a current one.