Abu Dhabi Judicial Department: Wills, Courts and Non-Muslim Inheritance

Search for how an expatriate registers a will in the UAE and you will be told, almost universally,
that the answer is DIFC. It is a good answer. It is not the only one, and for a great many people it is
not the right one.

Abu Dhabi runs its own statutory wills registry, with its own law, its own court and its own free
bilingual template — and on eligibility it is broader than DIFC, not narrower. Here is how
Abu Dhabi wills actually work, and four things the published guidance gets wrong.

Correction one: Abu Dhabi has its own registry

The Abu Dhabi Civil Wills Office, run by the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, was
created under Abu Dhabi Law No. 14 of 2021 on Civil Marriage and its Effects, as amended by Law No. 15
of 2021 and supplemented by Regulation 8 of 2022. It is a parallel regime to DIFC, not a subordinate
one.

It comes with something DIFC explicitly does not offer. The Abu Dhabi Civil Family Court publishes a
standardised will template in English and Arabic, free, “to help you prepare your Will in a cost
effective and efficient manner”, along with a revocation form. The DIFC Courts Wills Service, by
contrast, states that it cannot give legal advice or draft your will — it maintains a Register of Will
Draftsmen instead.

Correction two: the Abu Dhabi eligibility test is citizenship, not religion

Nearly every guide describes Abu Dhabi’s service as a “non-Muslim wills registry”. The Department’s
own published FAQ answers the question directly, under the heading “Can Muslims register a Will?”:

“If you are not a UAE citizen, then, regardless of your religion, you may register a Will with
Abu Dhabi Civil Wills Office.”

We should be honest about a tension here rather than paper over it. The underlying statute, Law
14/2021, defines the persons it governs as “Non-Muslim male and female foreigners or UAE nationals” —
so the law is framed around non-Muslims while the Department’s own service guidance opens the Wills
Office to any non-citizen. Both are published by the same body. If you are a Muslim expatriate
considering this route, that is a question to put to the Wills Office directly rather than to a
website — and the contact address the Department publishes is, with some irony,
wills.non-muslim@adjd.gov.ae.

Correction three: DIFC’s age requirement is 18, not 21

The “you must be 21” claim appears across dozens of expat guides. The DIFC Courts’ own Wills FAQ sets
out the requirements verbatim: you are not Muslim and have never been a Muslim; you are
at least 18 years of age; and you own assets in the UAE and/or have minor children
residing with you in the UAE.

Note the religious test is also stricter than usually reported — not merely “non-Muslim” but “never
been a Muslim”.

Correction four: intestacy is no longer decided by Sharia default

The line that a non-Muslim who dies without a will has their UAE estate distributed under Sharia is
still repeated constantly. It is out of date.

Abu Dhabi Law 14/2021, Article 11(2), sets a codified civil default: half the estate to the surviving
husband or wife, and the other half divided equally among the children without distinction as
to gender. Where there are no children, the estate passes in equal shares to the parents; where
one parent has died, half to the surviving parent and half to the siblings; where both have died,
equally among the siblings, again without distinction as to gender.

Federally, Federal Decree-Law 41 of 2022 on Civil Personal Status, with its executive regulations in
Cabinet Resolution 122 of 2023, provides that non-Muslim residents may follow the laws of their home
country or select alternative personal status laws in effect in the UAE, covering marriage, divorce,
inheritance and custody. The government portal states plainly that civil marriage does not apply to
Muslims.

The point almost nobody publishes

Here is why registering a will still matters even though the civil default now exists.

Article 11(3) of the Abu Dhabi law provides that heirs may request the application of the law
applicable to estates under the Civil Transactions Law — “unless there is a registered will
stipulating otherwise.”

Read that carefully. The tidy 50/50 civil split is a default that your heirs can apply to
displace. A registered will is the thing that closes that door. If you assume the default protects
your spouse and children and therefore do nothing, you have left the outcome open to challenge by
someone with a different preference.

Registration is also what gives a will legal force in the first place: the Department’s guidance is
that “for a Civil Will to be recognised as legally valid, it must be ‘registered'”, by submitting the
application and a copy of the will to the Civil Wills Section. Article 13 keeps the register; Article
11(1) confirms full testamentary freedom over UAE assets, with no forced-heirship reserve.

One distinctive Abu Dhabi feature worth knowing: under Article 13(2), spouses may complete a will
registration form at the time of signing the marriage contract, settling how assets are
distributed if one of them dies. If you are marrying here, our guide to
civil and court marriage in the
UAE covers the ceremony this attaches to.

Abu Dhabi and DIFC compared

The guardianship row is the one that decides it for many families. DIFC’s Full Will covers appointment
of interim and permanent guardians for minor children residing in Dubai or Ras Al Khaimah.
If your children live in Abu Dhabi, that scope does not reach them. Our guide to
DIFC wills sets out that
route in full.

DIFC’s five will types are worth knowing too, because three of them are cheap, template-driven and
narrow: a Property Will covering up to five UAE properties, a Business Owners Will covering up to five
UAE shareholdings, and a Financial Assets Will covering up to ten UAE-branch accounts.

The court behind it

The Abu Dhabi Civil Family Court was created by the same 2021 law — the Department describes it as the
first time civil marriage was introduced as a concept in the region. It sits in the main court building
next to Zayed Sports City.

Its jurisdiction runs well beyond wills: civil marriage, no-fault divorce, financial rights and
alimony, joint custody, inheritance, and proof of parentage. Two provisions stand out. Article 15
excludes divorce cases under this law from referral to family guidance committees, sending them straight
to the court. And Article 12 allows a divorce ruling at the first hearing on one spouse’s stated desire
to separate, “without the need to justify that request or blame the other party or prove his/her fault”.

Foreign lawyers may apply to join a Roll of Foreign Lawyers to represent litigants before it — an
unusual feature, and one that makes the court considerably more accessible to expatriates than its
profile suggests. Readers interested in the wider civil-law architecture available to expatriates should
also see our guides to
arbitration in the UAE and
to ADGM’s English-law
courts.

Practical notes

One dead link to be aware of: the ADJD page most often cited for non-Muslim wills,
adjd.gov.ae/EN/Pages/NonMFAQs.aspx, now 404s and redirects to an error page, though law firms
and guides still link it. The live page is the Civil Family Court page linked below.

We are not repeating the “AED 1,900 for mirror wills” figure that circulates on commercial
will-writing sites — it does not appear on any Department page we could verify. The Department’s own
published figures are AED 950 for regular will registration and AED 2,500 for special registration.

You will also need your documents in order before any of this: our guides to
document attestation through
MoFA and to TAMM, Abu
Dhabi’s services platform cover the surrounding admin, and our explainer on
pensions and gratuity
covers the end-of-service entitlements that often form part of an estate.

Primary sources: the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department’s
Civil
Family Court page, including its wills FAQ and fees, and its published consolidated text of
Abu
Dhabi Law No. 14 of 2021 as amended, with Regulation 8 of 2022; the
DIFC Courts
Wills FAQ; and the UAE Government portal on
personal
status affairs for non-Muslims. This article is general information, not legal advice — and wills are
one area where paying for advice is usually worth it.