How to get a DHA license in Dubai: Requirements, fees, and steps

Key takeaways

A DHA license comes in two forms, and a practice owner usually needs both a professional license and a facility license.

Every application runs through Sheryan, DHA’s online licensing portal, because paper and emailed submissions are not accepted.

The professional route takes roughly three to six months, and DataFlow verification plus the Prometric exam account for most of it.

Fees change and vary by profession, grade, and facility category, so confirm the current figure in Sheryan before you budget.

A facility license only activates after a DHA inspection that asks for proof of tested NABIDH connectivity.

A DHA license is the Dubai Health Authority’s permission to work in healthcare in Dubai, and it comes in two forms. A professional license covers one clinician. A facility license covers one site, and the business that operates it.

Both run through Sheryan, DHA’s online licensing portal. There is no paper form and no email route, so the sequence below is the whole process for either license.

This guide is written for the person opening or running the practice rather than the clinician relocating for a job. That means both routes, what each one costs, and the step that decides your opening date.

That last step is a software one. Pabau is practice management software with a native NABIDH integration. It sends patient and clinical data to DHA in the format the exchange expects.

DHA license requirements for a clinician and for a facility

The DHA license requirements split by applicant. A clinician is measured against DHA’s Professional Qualification Requirements, which set the qualification, experience, and licensing history needed per profession and grade. A facility is measured against its premises, its people, and its records system.

For a clinician, the checklist is short and the verification is slow:

• Qualifications that pass the self-assessment — Sheryan runs a free eligibility check before you pay a fee.
• Credentials that survive verification — degrees, licenses, and experience letters are confirmed with the bodies that issued them.
• A pass in the DHA assessment — a Prometric computer-based exam for most specialties, or an oral exam before a DHA panel.
• A DHA-licensed facility willing to register you — without one, the license stays unissued.
• Malpractice insurance — issued before DHA releases the active license.

For a facility, the requirements are about the site and how it will run:

• A settled facility category — DHA classifies by type, from general clinics to specialty centers and dental laboratories.
• Location paperwork — the Makani number, the Dubai Municipality plot certificate, and the Ejari tenancy contract.
• A layout from a DHA-prequalified design consultant — drawn for the services you intend to offer.
• A trade license and an appointed Medical Director — the director post cannot sit vacant beyond two weeks.
• An EMR that meets NABIDH standards — including the Minimum Data Set and tested connectivity.
• FANR registration — required from the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation if you install radiology equipment.

Notice which items you cannot buy in a hurry. Verification depends on other institutions replying, and the layout depends on a consultant DHA already recognizes.

Professional license vs facility license: Which one you need

If you are opening a practice, you need both. The facility license lets the business treat patients, and each clinician working there holds their own professional license, registered to that facility.

The two routes also run on different clocks, and sequencing them is what a launch date depends on. The diagram below sets them side by side.

The dependency runs one way. A clinician cannot switch on their own license, and your facility cannot pass its inspection without enough licensed staff for the services you applied for. Start the hiring paperwork before the fit-out is finished.

How to get a DHA license in Dubai as a practitioner

The professional route runs in six steps, and the order is fixed:

1. Run the Sheryan self-assessment. It is free, and it checks your qualifications against DHA’s requirements for the profession and grade you want.
2. Apply for a new professional license. Sheryan returns an Application Reference Number, which you quote from here on.
3. Complete Primary Source Verification. The DataFlow Group confirms your credentials with the institutions that issued them, typically in 30 to 60 days.
4. Sit the DHA assessment. Most specialties take a Prometric computer-based exam of about two hours. Specialties outside that scope sit an oral exam before a DHA panel.
5. Get registered by a hiring facility. The facility registers you in Sheryan, and that registration is what triggers activation.
6. Arrange malpractice insurance. Once it is in place, DHA issues the active license.

Two details matter more than they look. Verification and an exam pass are not a license to practice, since a facility still has to register you. And the pass gives you about a year to find that facility.

For an owner recruiting a launch team, that year is a scheduling tool. A candidate who passed nine months ago is on a shorter clock than their resume suggests. Their license is also only as fast as your activation date.

How to license the practice itself

Licensing a facility takes two separate Sheryan services rather than one. New Facility License issues a license that is inactive, and Activate Facility License turns it into one you can treat patients under.

1. Request a Facility Qualification Recommendation. It is free, and it tells you whether the practice you are planning is likely to qualify. Run it before you sign a lease.
2. Settle the facility category. A general practice and a med spa are licensed as different facility types, and the category shapes the requirements.
3. Submit the New Facility License application. It asks for five inputs: trade name and ownership, a facility proposal, location details, a facility layout, and signed DHA terms.
4. Assemble the activation requirements. A valid trade license, an appointed Medical Director, FANR registration for radiology, an EMR meeting NABIDH standards, and a passed inspection.
5. Book the DHA inspection. The visit checks documents as much as the space, including your engineering layout, staffing, equipment list, Civil Defence certificate, policies, and insurance and waste contracts.
6. Activate. DHA issues the active license for a term of one, two, or three years, and professional licenses registered to the facility activate with it.

The inactive stage is where launch plans slip. The license lasts one year in that state, and the practice can neither treat patients nor advertise. Miss the year and it is canceled, so you apply again from the start.

Unsubmitted drafts expire faster. An application left untouched for 90 days cancels itself. So a half-finished form is not a safe place to park a project while you wait on a landlord.

The Medical Director appointment deserves attention early. The post cannot sit vacant for more than two weeks, and one director can cover several facilities inside the same group. Plan cover when you hire a medical director, not just a name.

For the portal mechanics behind these steps, including account setup, the facility service catalog, and what each application status means, read the Sheryan portal guide.

DHA license fees: What each stage costs

A professional DHA license usually costs somewhere between AED 2,400 and AED 12,000 in total, spread across four payments. The spread is that wide because issuance scales with grade, and a consultant pays far more than a nurse.

Treat every figure above as indicative. DHA revises fees, and the amount you owe depends on your profession, your grade, and your facility category. Sheryan shows the current figure when you apply, and that is the number to budget from.

One of those stages moves the total far more than the other three. The bars below put all four payments on the same scale.

Nurses and allied health professionals renew more cheaply, at roughly AED 1,000, 1,500, or 2,500 for the same one, two, and three-year terms. Owners covering license costs for a team should budget per grade rather than per head.

How long does it take to get a DHA license?

Plan for three to six months on the professional route, measured from the day DataFlow verification starts. Verification alone takes 30 to 60 days, and it runs longer whenever an issuing institution is slow to reply.

The exam adds a booking wait rather than a long delay. The slow parts are verification at the front and facility registration at the back, and neither is inside your control.

A facility timeline works differently, because the deadline is yours to miss. Once the inactive license is issued, you have one year to fit out, hire, connect your EMR, and pass the inspection.

Read those two clocks together and the order sorts itself out. Verification for your first clinicians should start while the layout is still with the design consultant.

Renewing a DHA license before it lapses

Renewal is a Sheryan service, and a facility license renewal opens three months before expiry. Leave it more than six months past expiry and the license is canceled outright, which means a fresh application rather than a renewal.

Professional licenses renew on the same one, two, or three-year terms, submitted in Sheryan by the clinician or the employing facility. The longer terms cost more up front and less per year.

For a practice with a dozen clinicians, renewal is a calendar problem rather than a form-filling one. Every license carries its own expiry date, and one lapsed clinician narrows the services you can legally offer.

Put both kinds of expiry in the same place your team already looks. A renewal that only exists in one person’s inbox is the one that gets missed during a busy quarter.

How to check if a DHA license is active

Search the person or the business in Sheryan’s public lookup. The Sheryan portal offers Search Health Professional and Search Health Facility, and both accept a name, a license number, or a specialization.

A professional result shows more than a yes or no:

• Name, nationality, and qualification.
• Specialization and license type, such as general practitioner, specialist, or consultant.
• Status, shown as active, suspended, or revoked.
• The facility the license is registered to, and the expiry date.

Those last two fields are the useful ones for an operator. A locum whose license still names a previous employer has not been registered to you yet. An expiry date inside your next quarter is a hiring risk.

The same lookup works before you refer a patient to another practice, or sign a rental agreement with one. Check the facility’s status and the grade of the clinician you are naming.

How Pabau handles the NABIDH step in DHA licensing

NABIDH is DHA’s health information exchange, and connecting to it is an activation requirement rather than a follow-up task. Activation asks for evidence of an installed EMR meeting NABIDH’s Minimum Data Set and connectivity requirements. The inspection then asks for the email confirming that connection was tested.

Practices usually meet that in one of two ways. They commission an integration on top of their records system, or they buy a middleware layer to sit between the two. Both are projects, and both land in the same weeks as the fit-out and the hiring.

Pabau removes that project by reporting from inside the working day. Patient demographics leave as HL7 v2.5.1 messages at registration, update, and check-in. Visits, allergies, prescriptions, lab results, documents, and patient merges are available as opt-in message types.

Setup is a one-time entry rather than a build. You add your DHA NABIDH EMR code, your Sheryan facility license ID, the NABIDH endpoint, and an application key. Each practitioner’s Sheryan ID is mapped once and rides on their visit messages.

The outcome is one fewer blocker on the inspection checklist, and a delivery log for every message once you open. Owners comparing EMR software in Dubai should filter on NABIDH support first, then compare the EMR features their team will use daily.

Clear the NABIDH requirement before your inspection

Pabau sends NABIDH HL7 messages as your team registers and treats patients, and logs the delivery of each one. So your Dubai practice can evidence tested connectivity when DHA asks for it.

Book a demo

Conclusion

Work backwards from the inspection date, not forwards from the application. The slowest requirements sit at the end of both routes, and the one-year activation window is shorter than a fit-out schedule makes it look.

The trade-off worth remembering is that the two licenses look alike in Sheryan and behave differently. A clinician’s license is switched on by a facility. A facility’s license is switched on by an inspection that wants a NABIDH email.

So pick the records system early, while the layout is still in draft. Book a demo to see how Pabau reports to NABIDH from the work your team already does.

Continue your research

Opening a second site in Abu Dhabi? What is Malaffi explains the emirate’s own health information exchange and what connecting to it asks of your records system.

Choosing software for a Dubai practice? Medical spa software in the UAE compares what a UAE practice needs from its records system.

Moving off a system that cannot report to NABIDH? EMR conversion covers how to move patient data between systems without losing history.

Preparing the policies an inspector asks for? Clinical documentation software explains how notes and policies stay audit-ready day to day.

Building the compliance side of a new practice? Compliance management software shows how consent, records, and access controls sit in one system.

Frequently asked questions