As of 1 October 2026: the UAE inheritance calculator run by Abu Dhabi through TAMM, letting anyone work out how an estate splits under the UAE’s default distribution rules before a single dirham moves. Running a real scenario through the tool myself shows exactly how the shares are worked out, numbers most people only encounter secondhand through a lawyer.
What does the calculator actually ask?
The flow is designed for anyone to use without legal training, no login is required just to run a scenario and see how the numbers come out.
The tool, run by the Department of Health through TAMM, walks through a short sequence of questions: the total estate value, the deceased’s gender, then whether specific relatives, father, paternal grandfather, mother, a wife or wives, sons, daughters, are alive. Each answer changes which relatives qualify for a share and how the remaining estate gets split.
A worked example, using the tool directly
Entering a sample estate of AED 1,000,000, a deceased man whose father and grandfather are no longer living, a surviving mother, one wife, two sons and one daughter, the calculator returned:
- Mother: 16.67% of the estate
- Wife: 12.50% of the estate
- Two sons combined: 56.67% of the estate
- One daughter: 14.17% of the estate
Those percentages are not arbitrary. A surviving mother receives a fixed one-sixth share when the deceased leaves children, and a wife receives a fixed one-eighth share under the same condition, which is exactly what the calculator returned. The remainder is then split among the children, with each son’s share set at twice a daughter’s share, which is why two sons collectively took four times what the single daughter received.
Why does this matter if nothing has been written down?
This is the detail with the biggest real-world consequence, and the one families are least likely to think about until it becomes urgent.
This distribution is the UAE’s default framework, the one applied when someone has not registered a will specifying something different. It governs real money and property automatically unless an individual has taken a separate legal step to opt into another arrangement.
What is the alternative, and who actually needs it?
Non-Muslim expats who want a different distribution, leaving everything to a spouse regardless of other relatives, for instance, need to register a will through a route like the DIFC Wills Service Centre, which lets non-Muslims opt out of the default framework entirely. Without that step, the default distribution shown by TAMM’s calculator applies regardless of what the deceased might have preferred informally.
How accurate is the tool itself?
That caveat matters more than it might first appear, since the underlying calculation is well-established and consistent, the real-world complexity usually sits in confirming who exactly counts as a living relative and what the estate actually contains.
TAMM’s own disclaimer is direct about this: the calculator is intended to illustrate the methodology of asset distribution under local UAE law, not to serve as a final, binding legal determination. An actual estate involves verifying every living relative, confirming asset ownership, and settling any debts first, steps a calculator cannot do on its own. It is a planning and understanding tool, not a substitute for the actual legal process.
How does this connect to the rest of settling an estate?
Before any of these percentages can actually be applied, a family first needs the deceased’s death certificate, the foundational document every subsequent legal step depends on. Anyone sponsoring family members in the UAE should also understand how a sponsor’s death affects dependent residence status, covered in our family visa sponsorship guide, since both issues often arise together in the same difficult period.
What is the short version?
Abu Dhabi’s TAMM Inheritance Calculator shows exactly how an estate splits under UAE default rules: fixed shares for a surviving mother (one-sixth) and wife (one-eighth) when children survive, with the remaining estate divided among children so that each son receives double what each daughter receives. This is what applies automatically without a registered will specifying otherwise, which is exactly why non-Muslim expats who want a different outcome need to register one through DIFC.
Last updated: 1 October 2026. Primary source: TAMM, Calculate Inheritance (Department of Health), tested directly with a sample scenario.
