Guide · updated 16.08.2026 · 14 min read · Lucent Legal team

Inheritance and Wills in the UAE: DIFC Will, Sharia, and Your Assets — 2026

You're an expat in the UAE with an apartment in Dubai, a local bank account, a car, and kids at school, and no plan for what happens to any of it. Without a will, your estate follows a legal default rather than your wishes, and your family inherits a court process in an unfamiliar country and language on top of a loss. Here's what actually happens to an expat's assets without a will, your options for making one, and where there honestly isn't a clean answer yet.

What Happens Without a Will

Without a will, a non-Muslim's estate no longer defaults to Sharia shares. Since 1 February 2023, the UAE applies Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2022 on Civil Personal Status, updated by Decree-Law No. 41 of 2024. When someone dies without a will and no applicable foreign law is proven, the civil default takes over: 50% to the surviving spouse, and the remaining 50% split equally among the children, regardless of gender.

That beats the old default, where Sharia shares could apply to non-Muslims too, with different shares for sons and daughters. But "better than before" isn't "what you'd choose." A flat 50/50 split may miss your intentions entirely — leaving everything to a spouse, including parents, a friend, or a charity, or splitting between children unevenly.

The statutory default only kicks in when there's neither a will nor proven foreign law. Proving another country's inheritance law — Indian, Filipino, Russian, or otherwise — in a UAE court without a will already in place is often slow, with no guaranteed outcome. Case practice under this law is still developing, and courts can read the same facts differently in contested cases. No honest lawyer will promise a specific result without a will in place.

Bank Accounts Freeze After Death

The bank freezes every account the moment it learns of the death. Under Article 379 of the UAE Civil Code, all of the deceased's local accounts — joint ones included — stay frozen until a court order on asset distribution arrives. A spouse who held the account jointly still can't reach the money until the court rules.

A will doesn't lift the freeze on its own, because the freeze is a legal requirement, not a consequence of leaving no wishes. But a registered will speeds up the court order that unfreezes the account. Instead of establishing the heirs and applicable law from scratch, the court works from an already-recognised document. In practice, that's the gap between a few weeks and several months — sometimes longer, by some accounts — of a family locked out of money at the worst possible time.

Choosing Your Own Country's Law

Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2022 lets non-Muslim foreigners choose their home country's law over the UAE civil regime. That helps anyone with a clear picture of how, say, Indian, UK, or Russian inheritance law would handle things, or whose estate spans several countries and needs one consistent set of rules.

The choice only really works in two ways: written into a registered UAE will that names the foreign law explicitly, or proven in a UAE court through expert evidence, translation, and document legalisation — a separate process with no guarantee of a fast outcome. Having the right to choose and being able to use it after death without any advance paperwork are two different things. Whether your home country's law, the UAE civil default, or a local will fits you depends on nationality, your mix of assets, and your family, so discuss it with a lawyer ahead of time rather than assuming the general rule sorts itself out.

DIFC Will: Types and Cost

A DIFC will is the standard tool for non-Muslim expats in Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah. Any non-Muslim, and anyone who has never been Muslim, aged 21 or over can register one, provided they have assets in the UAE and/or minor children living in Dubai or Ras Al Khaimah. UAE residency isn't required.

DIFC offers several will types for different needs:

• Full Will — all movable and immovable property in the UAE plus guardianship of minor children.
• Property Will — up to five properties (or shares in them) in the UAE.
• Financial Assets Will — up to ten bank or brokerage accounts in the UAE.
• Business Owners Will — up to five shares in UAE-registered companies.
• Guardianship Will — guardianship of minor children only, with no property provisions.

Cost figures vary across sources, and that's expected: the DIFC Courts fee schedule updates periodically (the latest update legal sources reference is July 2026), and the final price depends on the will type and whether a lawyer drafts the text. As a rough guide, a Full Estate Will runs around USD 1,400 in court fees, a single-asset-type will (property only, or accounts only) around USD 840. Other estimates put a Full Will at AED 10,000–15,000, with simpler options starting around AED 5,000. A lawyer, translator, or tax adviser is billed separately and isn't part of the DIFC court fee. Check the current figure for your situation on the DIFC Wills Service Centre portal or with a practising lawyer, since numbers in articles go stale quickly.

The process is straightforward and can run entirely remotely: drafting the text (from a template or with a lawyer), uploading documents (passport, ID, witness details), an online or in-person appointment of about 20 minutes, and electronic signing before two witnesses. Witnesses must be over 21, hold valid photo ID, and not be beneficiaries, guardians, or their spouses. They can join remotely from anywhere in the world.

The Abu Dhabi Alternative

If your assets sit outside Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah — in Abu Dhabi or another emirate — the ADJD registry is the parallel option. The Abu Dhabi Judicial Department runs a wills registry for non-Muslims, and unlike a DIFC will (built mainly around Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah assets), an ADJD will is recognised by courts across all seven emirates.

The court fee, per legal sources, runs around AED 950 for a single will and about AED 1,900 for mirror wills for couples. The process is fully digital: apply online, get notified of approval or requested changes, pay the fee, then formalise the will over a video call with a notary. No court appearance is needed, and UAE residency isn't required. Separately from the court fee, you'll need a certified Arabic translation, since the will is issued bilingually.

Which one fits — DIFC or ADJD — depends on where your assets sit and which emirate your children live in. Sometimes registering both makes sense, and again, a lawyer beats guessing which registry to use.

Children and Guardianship

For parents of minor children, guardianship often matters as much as who gets what. A Guardianship Will at DIFC, or the guardianship section of a Full Will, lets you name a temporary and a permanent guardian for children living in Dubai or Ras Al Khaimah, in case one or both parents die. Without that, a court decides guardianship on general child-welfare principles, with no reference to what the parents wanted — extra uncertainty and delay for a family already under stress.

This weighs heaviest for blended families, or families whose preferred guardians live outside the UAE, back home. The mechanism for transferring guardianship abroad and getting it recognised depends on the specifics, and there's no honest "just name grandma and it works automatically" answer. Extra steps may be needed both in the UAE and in the country the child would move to.

Property and Taxes

Real estate is usually what pushes expats to make a will in the first place. Without one, the property falls under the general distribution rules — the civil default, or proven foreign law where it applies — and until a court order issues, you generally can't sell, rent out, or re-register it in the heirs' names. A DIFC Property Will, or the matching section of an ADJD will, clears much of that by naming who the property goes to directly.

On taxes, the news is good: the UAE charges no inheritance tax, no estate tax, and no gift tax, confirmed by government and independent sources alike, for all heirs regardless of nationality or residency. That doesn't zero out tax consequences everywhere, though. Heirs who are tax residents of another country — the UK and others with their own inheritance tax regimes — owe under that country's law, not the UAE's. Check that separately, based on the specific heirs' nationality and tax residency.

Assets in Two Countries: Conflicting Jurisdictions

Assets in two countries need more than one plan. Many expats hold a flat, a bank deposit, or a business stake both here and back home, and cross-border estates are typically governed separately by each jurisdiction, so one will doesn't automatically cover everything. The UAE isn't a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so documents issued here — death certificates and court orders included — generally need consular legalisation abroad rather than a simple apostille. The exact steps vary by home country and its consulate (for Russian nationals specifically, our Russian-language guide covers the consular legalisation process in detail).

Lawyers who handle cross-border estates often recommend separate wills for the assets in each country, drafted so they don't contradict each other, rather than one document covering everything. But which approach fits — one will with a chosen governing law, or several local wills — depends on your assets, your heirs' nationalities, and each jurisdiction's requirements. There's no universal answer, so consult lawyers in both the UAE and the other country where your assets sit, ahead of time.

When to Talk to a Lawyer

Some situations are worth a lawyer before you draft anything yourself:

• you hold property, a business, or accounts in the UAE worth a meaningful amount;
• you have minor children and guardianship matters to you;
• your assets are split between the UAE and another country;
• your family is blended (spouses of different nationalities, children from different marriages), where the default split could pit heirs against each other;
• you want heirs' shares to differ from the 50%-spouse / 50%-children-equally default, or to include people outside your immediate family.

A straightforward DIFC or ADJD will with no complications is something many people handle themselves from a template. But once multiple jurisdictions, business shares, contested family circumstances, or a wish to deviate from the standard split come in, one lawyer consultation up front is far cheaper than leaving your family a document that doesn't hold up a few years down the line.

Topic: UAE Inheritance & Wills for Non-Muslims 2026

This material is for information only and is not legal advice. UAE law changes — a lawyer will assess how it applies to your situation.