South African police clearance for the UAE
The United Arab Emirates is the corridor where the rules genuinely change: the UAE is not in the Hague Convention, so your certificate needs embassy attestation, not an apostille. Getting this wrong costs weeks.
- PCC (our fee)
- R2,450per applicant
- Legalisation
- Attestation chainquoted per case
Why the UAE is different
Most emigration destinations — the US, UK, Canada, Europe, Australia — are Hague Convention countries, where a single apostille legalises your document. The UAE is not a Convention member. That means an apostille is not accepted, and your police clearance must instead go through the longer attestation chain: authentication by DIRCO, then legalisation by the UAE Embassy in South Africa, and often a final step by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs after arrival.
This is the single most common UAE mistake. Applicants pay for an apostille because that is what worked for a friend going to the UK or Australia, then find the UAE rejects it. If your certificate is going to Dubai, Abu Dhabi or anywhere in the Emirates, you need attestation — not an apostille. We will set it up correctly the first time.
When you need it
UAE employers and the immigration authorities require an attested police clearance for most employment and residency visa applications, and increasingly for family sponsorship. A certificate that is not properly attested will not be accepted at the visa stage, which can hold up a job start date.
The chain, in order
- SAPS issues your police clearance (our standard R2,450 application).
- DIRCO authenticates it.
- The UAE Embassy in South Africa attests it.
- Where required, the UAE MOFA completes the final attestation after arrival.
Because attestation involves an embassy and multiple steps, it takes longer than an apostille and the cost depends on the current embassy fees. We quote the full chain per case rather than a single flat figure, so you see the real total before starting. Other Gulf states — Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait — follow the same non-Hague attestation logic.
How we do it
Fingerprints on the SAPS form (in the UAE, at a police station or typing centre that offers the service, or before you leave South Africa), couriered to us, and we run the clearance and the full attestation chain, returning the finished document to your UAE address. See applying from abroad.