Guide · updated 31.07.2026 · 12 min read · Lucent Legal team

UAE Court Fees: What a Lawsuit in Dubai Actually Costs

Before filing a claim in Dubai, almost everyone asks the same question: how much will this actually cost, and could the court itself eat up more than the debt you're chasing. The short honest answer — it depends on the claim amount and whether an expert gets involved, but the cost structure itself is public and predictable. Below: what UAE court fees are actually made of, who pays the translator and the expert and when, and what really happens to the money if you win. How the filing itself works is covered in a separate guide on how to sue in the UAE; if you're the one being sued, see the guide on legal notices in the UAE.

What makes up the cost of a UAE lawsuit

"How much does a court case cost" isn't one number — it's usually a sum of up to four separate items:

1. Court fees — paid when filing, tied to the claim amount.
2. Document translation — into Arabic, mandatory for any foreign-language paperwork.
3. Court expert (khibra) — if the court appoints one to assess damages or a technical question.
4. Lawyer's fee — if you decide not to represent yourself.

Not every case has all four. A straightforward claim with no expert and no lawyer in the Small Claims Tribunal can come down to just the fee and translation. Here's each item in detail.

Court fees: 6% and the caps

The base rate in Dubai courts is 6% of the claim amount, minimum AED 500. Above that, a cap applies depending on the claim size:

This is set by Law No. 21 of 2015 as amended by Law No. 2 of 2019. Some dispute categories have lower rates of their own — per one industry overview, rental disputes in Dubai carry a fee of 3.5% of the contract value capped at AED 20,000 (though these usually go through the dedicated rental dispute body, not the regular courts). Appeals cost extra — generally 50% of the first-instance fee — and cassation involves a fixed deposit plus fees running to a few thousand dirhams. Sources disagree on the exact appeal and cassation figures, so confirm the number for your specific instance with a lawyer or via the fee calculator on dc.gov.ae.

Labour disputes are a different story

If you're an employee suing an employer over unpaid wages or other labour rights, the fee rule flips. Labour claims are exempt from court fees at every stage of the process — including appeal and enforcement — for claims up to AED 100,000, regardless of outcome. If the employee loses, no fee is collected from them; if the employer loses, the employer ends up paying the fee once the ruling is settled. The exception: employees of free zone companies, who fall outside the federal labour law and may not have this exemption.

Translating documents into Arabic

Arabic is the official language of UAE court proceedings, and that's a real cost line, not a formality. Any document in another language — a contract, correspondence, a bank statement — needs translation by a UAE Ministry of Justice-accredited translator; courts generally don't accept a self-made translation.

Per pricing from several Dubai translation agencies, a standard document page runs about AED 30–150, and complex commercial contracts can run AED 300–500 per page. The total depends heavily on how many pages you're submitting — for a typical dispute running dozens of pages, translation can become a cost line comparable to the fee itself.

The court expert (خبرة, khibra)

When the court can't resolve a question from documents alone — say, it needs to assess damages, the quality of construction work, or the state of a company's books — it appoints a court expert (khibra). One or both sides pay a deposit toward the expert's fee, which later gets factored into the final bill.

Estimates vary, but expert fees typically range from AED 5,000 for a simple case up to AED 90,000 for a complex construction dispute; standard cases are more often quoted at AED 15,000–30,000. Since August 2025, a dedicated guideline approved by Dubai Courts (Dubai Courts Director's Decision No. 210 of 2025) governs the rates, setting uniform criteria for expert fees based on task complexity and time spent.

Lawyer's fee

A lawyer isn't required for claims up to AED 500,000 in the Small Claims Tribunal — the law lets you represent yourself there (more in the guide on filing a claim). If you do hire one, rates in the UAE, per various overviews, look roughly like this:

• Hourly rate — about AED 500–1,000 for junior and mid-level lawyers, AED 2,000–5,000 and up for partners.
• Fixed price for standard tasks (drafting a demand letter, a power of attorney) — from a few hundred to a few thousand dirhams per document.
• A monthly retainer for ongoing business legal support — roughly AED 10,000–50,000 a month, which doesn't apply to a one-off court case.

The actual cost of running your specific case needs to come from a lawyer once they've seen your documents — the figures above are only a ballpark. A detailed breakdown of rates and payment structures is in the separate guide on what a lawyer costs in Dubai.

Who pays if you win

The general principle in UAE courts is that the losing side covers costs ("loser pays"), but in practice this applies unevenly across cost types:

• Court fees — the court typically orders the losing side to reimburse the winner.
• Expert costs — also usually recovered from the losing side in favour of the winner.
• Lawyer's fee — a different rule applies here: the court awards only a symbolic amount, commonly cited around AED 1,000–2,000, not the actual legal bill. So even winning a case outright rarely means getting your full lawyer's fee back.
• If the court finds that a party ran up unnecessary costs through its own conduct (hiding documents, for example) or filed a groundless claim, it can allocate costs differently and even impose a penalty — reportedly anywhere from AED 1,000 to AED 10,000.

We're not promising that winning a case will cover all your court costs — based on legal commentary, fully recovering a lawyer's fee is the exception, not the rule.

Example: what a typical claim might cost

To put it together, here's a rough illustration for a straightforward civil claim of AED 200,000 — not a calculation of your specific case, just an order of magnitude:

• Fee: 6% of AED 200,000 = AED 12,000 (within the AED 20,000 cap).
• Translating a 20–30 page document package: roughly AED 1,000–4,000.
• Expert, if needed: AED 5,000 and up depending on complexity.
• Lawyer, if hired: depends on rate and workload — anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dirhams.

The final total can vary substantially depending on whether the defendant contests the claim on its merits and whether an expert is needed — get an actual estimate for your case from a lawyer once they know the facts.

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