Hindi Legal Translation in Dubai
Indians form the largest expatriate community in the UAE, and their documents arrive from a federation of states, in more than one script, under a single persistent misunderstanding: that an Indian apostille is enough. This page explains how an Indian document — whether it is printed in Hindi, already bilingual, or English-only — becomes a file a UAE authority will accept: the attestation chain out of India, the UAE steps that follow, and the certified Arabic translation that ties them together.
- Hindi and Devanagari civil certificates, Indian degrees, PCC and court records — read in the original
- The apostille myth answered: why an Indian apostille alone does not clear a UAE counter
- The full chain mapped: the Indian state authority, MEA, the UAE mission in India, UAE MOFA
- Names reconciled with the passport, letter for letter and digit for digit
- Dubai-based, UAE-wide service
- Arabic & English
- Clear guidance on every document
- Direct request, no middlemen
One community, many states, more than one script
The first mistake with an Indian file is to assume that "Indian document" means "Hindi document". It often does not.
Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language written in Devanagari, an abugida with eleven vowels and thirty-three consonants that runs left to right. Article 343 of the Indian Constitution designates Hindi in Devanagari as the official language of the Union, but India has no single national language, and its documents are issued by the states, not only by the centre. That matters the moment a certificate reaches a UAE counter. A translator who reads Arabic fluently gets no head start on Devanagari: the two scripts share neither their letters nor their direction, and Hindi legal vocabulary has nothing in common with Arabic. Fluency in one is not competence in the other, and an office that treats them as neighbours because both are "Eastern" is guessing with your file.
Because the states issue documents, the source language shifts with geography. Certificates from the Hindi-belt states — Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh — are commonly printed in Hindi and Devanagari. Many other certificates carry Hindi and English together on the same page, and a large share of documents from the south and elsewhere are English-primary. Three certificates that look like "the same document" can therefore need three different translation decisions. The first question we ask about any Indian file is not what it says but which language it is written in.
The reason a translation is needed at all is set by UAE law, not by preference. Arabic is the official language of the state, and the onshore courts, the notary public and the residency and licensing authorities work in Arabic; a document in any other language enters those files only through a certified Arabic translation. The translation profession itself is regulated at federal level, and a translation gains legal weight only when it carries the stamp and signature of a translator entered on the register the Ministry of Justice maintains. For an Indian document, that means the person who signs the Arabic version must be registered for this work — not merely bilingual, and not merely fluent in Hindi.
This page walks through the documents the Indian community in the UAE actually files — marriage, birth, children, degrees, police clearances, powers of attorney and estates — and the road each one travels: the authentication chain inside India, the UAE mission there, attestation at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the certified Arabic translation at the end. Throughout, we separate three things that are routinely blurred: general information, requirements published by the authorities, and the way we handle files at MANJAZ. Where a rule could not be verified at its official source, we say so plainly — and the final word always belongs to the authority receiving your documents.
India can apostille. The UAE will not accept it alone.
This is the single most expensive misunderstanding an Indian applicant can carry into a UAE file, and it is expensive precisely because it is half true. India has been a contracting party to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention for years, which means Indian authorities genuinely can and do issue apostilles — a single square stamp that, between member states, replaces the old multi-step legalisation. So an applicant sees an apostille sticker, is told it is the international standard, and reasonably assumes the job is done.
The gap is on the receiving side. The Apostille Convention operates only between states that are both party to it, and the UAE is not on the list of contracting parties. An apostille is addressed to member states; the UAE is not one, so the certificate speaks to no one at a UAE counter. What the UAE requires instead is the older consular route: the document is authenticated inside India, then attested by the UAE Embassy or Consulate in India, then attested a final time by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs after it reaches the country. An apostille sticker does not perform the embassy step, and it is that missing step — not the sticker's quality — that causes the refusal.
The practical lesson is to plan the route by destination, not by habit. A document heading for Canada, most of Europe or Australia may travel on an apostille alone; the same document heading for the UAE needs the embassy-and-ministry chain. Getting the Indian apostille is not wrong and is not wasted — for some certificates it forms part of the paperwork the UAE mission asks for — but it is never the finish line for a UAE file. Confirm what the UAE mission in India expects for your specific document before you pay for anything, because missions publish their own requirements and those requirements change.
The Indian document family, in its own terms
- State civil certificates
- Birth, marriage and death certificates issued by the municipal or registration authority of the issuing state. From the Hindi belt they commonly arrive in Devanagari; elsewhere they may be bilingual or English-primary. They are the backbone of family, sponsorship and inheritance files, and the source language must be read off each certificate rather than assumed.
- SSC / HSC and degree certificates
- The Secondary and Higher Secondary certificates issued by state education boards, and degrees, diplomas, mark sheets and transcripts issued by universities. Educational documents follow a different first step from personal ones, and a degree needs recognition in the UAE on top of attestation — the two are separate procedures that are easy to confuse.
- Police Clearance Certificate (PCC)
- A certificate of no criminal record. Indian nationals resident in the UAE can obtain it through the Consulate General of India rather than travelling home; those still in India obtain it through the passport office or state police. For UAE use it then needs the attestation chain and, where required, an Arabic translation. Receiving authorities often want a recently issued PCC.
- Power of attorney
- The instrument by which an Indian resident of the UAE acts back home without travelling — selling inherited property, managing a case, operating an account. Personal instruments are authenticated by the issuing state's Home Department in India before the central and UAE steps, and the exact wording, the property description and the parties' names all have to survive translation intact.
- MEA — Ministry of External Affairs
- The single central authority empowered to attest or apostille Indian documents for use abroad. It authenticates on the strength of the signatures of the designated state authorities that came before it — so the state step cannot be skipped. Its verification runs through Regional Authentication Centres, and public submission and collection are handled by outsourced agencies rather than at a public counter.
- State Home Department vs State HRD
- The two possible first stops inside India, and choosing the wrong one is a classic cause of rejection. Personal documents — birth, marriage, death, affidavits, powers of attorney — go through the issuing state's Home Department or General Administration. Educational documents go through the state's Human Resource Development / education department. The category of the document decides the door.
- Outsourced attestation agencies
- Because the central ministry does not run a public walk-in counter, submission and collection pass through a small set of government-appointed agencies — the names that recur are BLS International, Superb Enterprises, IVS Global and Alhind Tours & Travels. Their service charge sits apart from the central stamp, and confusing an agency's branding with an official government seal is a common source of anxiety we routinely settle.
- Bilingual and English-primary certificates
- A large share of Indian certificates print Hindi and English side by side, and many are English-primary. Where a valid English text already sits on the certificate, a fresh English translation may be unnecessary — but an Arabic translation for the UAE authority may still be required. Whether the printed English is accepted or a separate Arabic translation is needed is decided by the receiving authority, per document.
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From a state register to a Dubai counter: the chain
The state authority in India
Every document begins with its own authority inside the issuing state. Personal documents pass through the State Home Department or General Administration; educational documents through the State HRD / education department; and where a document type has its own regulator, it starts there. This is the step most often skipped, and skipping it is not forgiven later — the file is refused at the next counter, not at the last one.
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India
The central ministry authenticates the document on the basis of the state authority's signature — for the UAE this is attestation, not the apostille route. Verification runs through the Regional Authentication Centres, and the paperwork physically moves through the government-appointed outsourced agencies rather than a public counter. Because the ministry only recognises the seal beneath it, the order is fixed: state first, ministry second.
UAE Embassy or Consulate in India
The UAE mission legalises the document only after the Indian ministry has attested it — this is the step an apostille cannot substitute for, and its absence is the commonest reason a UAE-bound Indian file fails. The mission publishes its own requirements for each document type; degree certificates in particular are generally handled in the country of issue rather than at a UAE mission elsewhere, so a degree earned in India is attested in India.
UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The final attestation happens inside the UAE through the ministry's online service. The ministry requires the document to be in Arabic or English, or accompanied by a legally certified translation — so a Devanagari-only certificate is neither and cannot clear this step as it stands, which is exactly where translation becomes a gate rather than a garnish. Laminated documents cannot be attested and are rejected; so are altered or non-original papers, and applications whose data does not match the uploaded document.
Certified Arabic translation
Produced against the fully stamped document by a translator on the Ministry of Justice register, so the embassy and ministry stamps themselves appear in the Arabic version. Names are locked to the passport spelling, the state authority is named and glossed rather than replaced with a UAE equivalent, and every seal, revenue stamp and endorsement is rendered rather than skipped.
The receiving authority
A court, the residency authority, a school, a land department, an employer or a notary each add their own final conditions — a recently issued certificate, an equivalency assessment, a particular bilingual layout. Attestation itself does not expire, but the certificate beneath it may need to be fresh. Ask the authority before you file; asking costs nothing and reorders nothing.
The directions we work
- Hindi → ArabicThe core direction for UAE courts, residency files and notary transactions — produced against the fully attested original by a translator on the register, with Devanagari read directly, not routed through an English draft.
- Hindi → EnglishFor Devanagari-only certificates that must be readable in English for a school, an employer or an authority that works in English, and for files leaving the UAE for a third country.
- English → ArabicFor bilingual and English-primary Indian certificates: the English is already valid, yet the Arabic version is still prepared from the complete document, with every stamp and seal included.
- Arabic → Hindi / EnglishThe reverse journey: UAE judgments, powers of attorney and no-objection letters prepared for use before Indian courts, registrars and banks.
The source-language decision, before any translation
Most Indian files fall into one of three cases, and the correct translation decision is different for each. The first is the Devanagari-only certificate — a birth or marriage record from a Hindi-belt municipality with no English on the page. It needs a certified translation produced by someone who genuinely reads Devanagari, into Arabic and, where the receiving authority works in English, into English as well. Treating such a certificate as "nearly English" because the numerals look familiar is how names and dates get mis-read.
The second case is the bilingual certificate that carries Hindi and English together. Here the English text is already on the document, so a fresh English translation is usually redundant; what the UAE authority typically still needs is the Arabic. The third case is the English-primary certificate, common from many states, where no Hindi translation question arises at all — only the Arabic, and the attestation chain, remain. Sorting a file into these three buckets at the start prevents both under-translating (missing the Arabic an authority requires) and over-translating (paying to re-render English that was already valid).
One caution runs across all three. Whether a UAE authority will accept the pre-printed English on a bilingual certificate, or insist on a separate certified Arabic translation, is not a universal rule — it varies by authority and by use-case. A court, the residency system, a school and a land department can each answer the same question differently. So the source-language decision is only half the picture; the other half is the receiving authority's own requirement, which we confirm at the start of a file rather than discover at the counter.
Family files: marriage, children, and estates
A spouse's visa file starts at the marriage certificate. The residency authority requires proof of the marital relationship through an attested certificate in Arabic, or one carried into Arabic by certified translation. For a marriage registered in a Hindi-belt state, that certificate may be in Devanagari, so the file needs both the full attestation chain and a translation that reads the original directly. Where the state issues a bilingual certificate, the English is already present, and the remaining work is the Arabic and the chain. Either way, the wife's name on the translation must match her passport exactly, because the residency file will be read as a set with the passport, not against it.
Children's files turn on the birth certificate. Adding a child born in India to a Dubai residence file, or enrolling that child in a school, means the birth certificate must be attested through the chain and translated. From Bihar or Uttar Pradesh it is likely to be in Devanagari; the child's name has to be reconciled with the spelling on the child's own passport, which is not always identical to a parent's spelling of the same family name. Schools and the residency system read these documents literally, so a difference that a human eye would forgive can still stall a file until it is explained.
Divorce and remarriage files bring their own documents — a decree or a registered divorce, and often a single-status certificate — each of which travels the same chain and, where issued in Hindi, needs the same careful translation. Because personal-status matters can turn on precise wording, a decree is not a document to summarise; the operative terms are translated in full, and any part that is genuinely illegible in a photocopied original is flagged rather than reconstructed from guesswork.
The hardest files arrive in bereavement. For Muslim residents, succession is governed by Sharia by default, while the 2022 civil personal-status framework and the DIFC wills route address non-Muslims; either way, an estate file is built from the death certificate and the documents that establish the heirs and the assets, each legalised through the chain and translated into Arabic for the UAE court or bank. Indian succession and heirship documents, where the estate has an Indian side, travel the same road in the other direction. This is general information, not legal advice; for estate planning, take proper counsel.
Before you courier anything to India, send us clear scans of your documents — we will read the source language off each one, map the exact chain, and lock the name spellings your file needs.
Start your requestDegrees and jobs: who attests what in India
| Document | First authority in India | Then |
|---|---|---|
| University degree and transcript | State HRD / education department (university documents) | MEA attestation, then the UAE mission in India, then UAE MOFA, then certified Arabic translation — and equivalency is a separate step on top |
| SSC and HSC (school) certificates | State HRD / education department | The same chain; a Devanagari certificate is read directly and the board name is glossed, never swapped for a UAE equivalent |
| Birth, marriage, death, affidavit | State Home Department / General Administration | The same chain; personal documents never enter through the education route |
| Power of attorney (property, litigation) | State Home Department (personal instrument) | The same chain; the property description and party names must survive translation intact |
| Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) | Passport office / state police, or the Consulate General for UAE residents | The chain and Arabic translation; receiving authorities often want a recently issued certificate |
| Experience / employment letter | The employer, plus chamber channels for commercial papers | Certified Arabic translation for labour files; the full chain where relied on as an official record |
A degree needs two different things, not one
The commonest degree mistake is to treat attestation and equivalency as the same job. They are not, and completing one does not complete the other. Attestation authenticates the seals and signatures on the certificate — it says the document is genuine, and nothing about its academic level. Equivalency is a separate assessment by the UAE education authorities that recognises the qualification against the local framework — it says what the degree is worth here, and nothing about whether the seals are genuine. A job or a professional licence can require both, in that order.
Between the two sits a third step that surprises many applicants: primary-source verification. The UAE education authorities generally require the awarding university to confirm the qualification directly, through an authorised verification provider — DataFlow is the name most applicants encounter — before an equivalency decision is issued. This is why a genuine, fully attested degree can still take time to convert into a recognised one: the university itself has to answer, and that answer is outside anyone's control but the university's.
Where does translation sit in all this? Alongside attestation, not instead of it. Degrees from many Indian universities are issued in English, so the Hindi question may not arise; the Arabic translation, however, is what allows the attested degree to be read by an Arabic-working authority, and it is produced against the fully stamped document. We can prepare the certified Arabic translation and translate any Hindi or Devanagari elements on a mark sheet, but recognition itself — the equivalency decision — is a matter for the education authorities, and we are careful never to promise an academic outcome that is theirs to grant.
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One person, several defensible spellings
A name written in Devanagari can be transliterated into Latin letters several defensible ways, and into Arabic several more. The same first name yields Mohammad, Mohammed and Muhammad; the same second name yields Fatima and Fathima; a vowel that is short in one system is long in another. None of these is "wrong" in the abstract. But only one spelling is correct for your file, and that is the one on your current passport. Our rule is simple and strict: the passport is the master, every Latin rendering matches it letter for letter, and the Arabic form is built to reconcile with it rather than with how the name happens to sound.
Indian names carry structures that Gulf systems can misread. Many carry an initial that expands a father's name or a village or house name, and treating that initial as a mere middle initial quietly changes the recorded name until the translation no longer matches the passport. In much of the country the "surname" behaves differently from a Western family name, and some documents record a single given name with no surname at all — which UAE forms, built to expect a family name, can mishandle. Each of these is answered not by a rule of thumb but by matching to the passport and holding that match across every document in the set.
Numbers and dates carry the same risk in a quieter form. Devanagari documents sometimes use Devanagari numerals, which are easy to mis-key into Western digits, and a single transposed figure in a certificate number, an identity number or a date of birth can break the link between a document and its holder. Dates recorded in one calendar or one order (day-month-year versus month-day-year) must be converted consistently across the whole file, or the record appears to contradict itself.
At MANJAZ, an Indian family file begins with a spelling register before any translation starts: every person named across the set, the passport spelling of each, and the agreed Arabic form of each. Only then does translation begin, and every certificate, stamp and endorsement is checked against that register before delivery. It is unglamorous work. It is also the difference between a set that reads as one family and a set that reads as a coincidence of similar names.
An Indian apostille answers a question the UAE never asked; the passport answers the one it always asks. Plan the route by the destination, and lock every name to the passport.
If this is you: common situations
An engineer from Uttar Pradesh accepting a UAE offer, whose degree carries a UGC-listed university seal
What is usually neededState HRD attestation of the degree first, then MEA, the UAE mission in India and UAE MOFA, then certified Arabic translation. Separately, primary-source verification and an equivalency decision from the UAE education authorities — attestation and equivalency are two different procedures, and the job may need both.
A family from Bihar enrolling a child in a Dubai school with a Hindi/Devanagari birth certificate
What is usually neededThe birth certificate attested through the State Home Department, MEA, the UAE mission and UAE MOFA, plus a certified translation that reads the Devanagari directly, with the child's name matched to the child's passport for both the school and the residence-visa file.
A Delhi resident sponsoring a spouse, holding a marriage certificate printed in Hindi
What is usually neededThe marriage certificate run through the full chain and translated into Arabic, with the spouse's name matched letter for letter to her passport. If the certificate is bilingual, the English is already valid and only the Arabic and the chain remain.
An Indian resident of Dubai who needs a police clearance certificate for a new employer
What is usually neededA PCC obtained through the Consulate General of India without travelling home, then attested through the chain and translated into Arabic where required — bearing in mind the receiving authority often wants a recently issued certificate, so timing matters.
A Dubai resident selling inherited property in India without flying back
What is usually neededA power of attorney executed for use in India and, on the Indian side, authenticated through the State Home Department as part of the domestic chain; the instrument, the property description and the parties' names are translated with the passport spellings held throughout.
An applicant who already paid for an apostille and is now told the UAE will not accept it
What is usually neededThe document routed through the consular chain the UAE actually uses — the UAE mission in India and UAE MOFA — since the apostille alone does not perform the embassy step. The earlier apostille is not necessarily wasted; confirm with the UAE mission what it now needs for that specific document.
Why Indian document sets get bounced
The mistakeGetting an Indian apostille and assuming it is enough for the UAE.
The fixThe UAE is not a party to the Convention; route the document through the UAE mission in India and UAE MOFA — the embassy step is what the apostille skips.
The mistakeSending an educational document through the State Home Department, or a personal one through the education department.
The fixThe category decides the door: HRD for education, Home Department for personal documents — the wrong first stop is refused later in the chain.
The mistakeTreating a Devanagari certificate as English-ready because the numbers look familiar.
The fixA Devanagari document needs a certified translation by someone who genuinely reads the script; assumption is how names and dates get mis-read.
The mistakeTranslating into Arabic before the chain is complete, so the embassy and ministry stamps are missing from the translation.
The fixTranslate the finished document, stamps and all — the seals are part of the text, not decoration around it.
The mistakeTransliterating a name by ear, so it cannot be reconciled with the passport or Emirates ID.
The fixThe passport spelling is the master; one spelling register governs every person and every document in the file.
The mistakeConfusing attestation with equivalency and assuming an attested degree is a recognised one.
The fixAttestation proves the seals are genuine; equivalency recognises the academic level, usually after primary-source verification — a job may need both.
The mistakeLaminating a certificate to protect it before the chain.
The fixThe UAE ministry states laminated documents cannot be attested and will be rejected; obtain a fresh original before starting.
The mistakeSending a photocopy, scan or reprint for the courier step instead of the original.
The fixNon-original documents are a stated rejection ground; keep certified copies for yourself and send the genuine original where the step requires it.
From Dubai or from India?
What can be done from Dubai
- A police clearance certificate for Indian nationals, obtained through the Consulate General of India
- Certain consular services and attestations handled by the Indian mission for its nationals
- The final UAE ministry attestation, applied for through its online service
- The certified Arabic translation itself, produced against the fully stamped set
- Reading the source language of each certificate and sorting the file before anything is couriered
- Planning: mapping the chain, the translation moments and the name register in advance
What must happen in India
- Issuing or re-issuing the state certificate through the municipal or registration authority
- State-level authentication: the Home Department for personal documents, the HRD department for educational ones
- MEA attestation, verified through the Regional Authentication Centres and submitted via the outsourced agencies
- Legalisation by the UAE mission in India — the embassy step an apostille cannot replace
- Primary-source verification of a degree by the awarding university, where equivalency is sought
Everything on this page is general information, not legal advice. Requirements differ between emirates, between authorities and over time; some India-side figures and timelines reported elsewhere could not be confirmed at their official sources and are therefore not stated here as fact. The receiving authority's current instructions always prevail.
Two practical protections cost nothing: keep certified copies before couriering any original to India, and confirm whether the receiving authority needs a recently issued certificate — the attestation itself does not expire, but the paper underneath it may age out of acceptance.
What to send us for an Indian file
- Sharp, complete scans of every page — including the reverse side and every stamp and revenue sticker
- Passport bio pages for every person named, so spellings are locked before work begins
- The issuing state and the language you can see on the page — Hindi, bilingual, or English-only
- Emirates ID copies for anyone already holding one
- The receiving authority and purpose: visa, court, school, employer, licence or property
- Any apostille, attestation or earlier translation already sitting on the document
- Certificate and identity numbers exactly as they appear, so no digit is transposed
- Dates the file must meet — hearings, visa deadlines — so the sequence can be planned around them
Not sure which route applies to your document?
Questions Indian families actually ask
Because the apostille only works between countries that are both party to the 1961 Hague Convention, and the UAE is not on that list. India is, so India can issue apostilles — but the certificate is addressed to member states, and the UAE is not one. For the UAE the document needs the consular chain instead: authentication in India, then the UAE mission in India, then UAE MOFA. The apostille is not necessarily wasted; confirm with the UAE mission what it now needs for your specific document.
The English on a bilingual certificate is usually valid, so a fresh English translation is often unnecessary. What a UAE authority typically still needs is Arabic. Whether the authority will accept the pre-printed English or insist on a separate certified Arabic translation is not a universal rule — it varies by authority and by use-case — so we confirm the receiving authority's requirement before deciding. The safe general answer: the Hindi question may be settled, but the Arabic question usually is not.
For most files, run the chain first and produce the Arabic translation at the end, against the fully stamped document, so the embassy and ministry stamps appear in the Arabic version. Translating too early is the commonest sequencing error we see: a translation made before those stamps exist cannot include them, and the stamps are part of the document. There is one nuance — a Devanagari-only certificate may need a certified translation to satisfy a step that requires Arabic or English — which is exactly why we map the translation moments at the start.
Possibly all three, and they are separate. Attestation authenticates the seals through the chain. Primary-source verification is the university confirming the qualification directly, usually through an authorised provider such as DataFlow. Equivalency is the UAE education authorities recognising the academic level. A job or a professional licence can require each of them; finishing one does not finish the others. We prepare the certified Arabic translation and translate any Hindi elements — recognition itself is a decision for the education authorities, which we never promise on their behalf.
Inconsistent spelling across a set is one of the commonest, most preventable causes of trouble, and it is especially live for Indian names, which can be transliterated several defensible ways from Devanagari. We fix the passport spelling as the master, apply it to every name in every document, keep an expanding initial or a father's-name element intact rather than recasting it, and where a historic document genuinely differs, an explanatory note travels with the file so the authority sees a reconciliation rather than a discrepancy.
Indian nationals resident in the UAE can obtain a PCC through the Consulate General of India rather than travelling home; the mission publishes its own submission requirements. For UAE use it then needs the attestation chain and, where required, an Arabic translation. Bear in mind that receiving authorities often want a recently issued PCC, so it is worth timing the request to the deadline it has to meet rather than obtaining it far in advance.
Largely, yes. State authentication and MEA attestation are routinely handled through representatives and the government-appointed outsourced agencies, and the UAE mission in India runs its own service; originals travel by courier. What generally cannot be moved is the country-of-issue rule: a degree earned in India is attested in India, not at a UAE mission elsewhere. Plan the Indian side before couriering anything, and keep certified copies of every original that leaves your hands.
The UAE ministry states that attestation itself carries no expiry date. The underlying certificate is another matter: receiving authorities can and do require recently issued documents — a police clearance is the obvious example — so an old attestation on an old certificate may still be declined. Before reusing last year's set, ask the authority whether it wants fresh paper; the answer costs nothing and saves a wasted trip through the chain.
For use before UAE authorities, the Arabic translation generally has to carry the stamp of a translator on the UAE register — a translation produced abroad, however competent, does not carry that standing here. A separate point sometimes arises earlier in the chain, where a step requires the document to be in Arabic or English or accompanied by a certified translation; that can call for a translation on the Indian side too. The two are different needs, which is why we look at the whole route before deciding what to translate and where.
It matters in two ways. First, the state decides the source language: a Hindi-belt certificate is likely Devanagari, while other states issue bilingual or English-primary documents, and that changes the translation decision. Second, the state authority is the first stop in the chain — its Home Department for personal documents, its education department for academic ones — and it is named and glossed in the translation rather than swapped for a UAE equivalent. Tell us the issuing state and we can read the rest from the certificate itself.
Official references
- HCCH — Apostille Convention status table (India party; UAE not listed)
- India Ministry of External Affairs — Attestation / Apostille
- Consulate General of India, Dubai — Police Clearance Certificate
- UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs — Attestation of Official Documents and Certificates
- UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs — FAQs
- UAE Ministry of Justice — Services (Notary Public / e-Notary)
This page is general information about translation services, not legal advice. Requirements are set by the authority receiving your document and can change — always confirm with the receiving authority or ask us to check for your specific case.
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