Succession in the United Arab Emirates

There is no inheritance tax, and that settles less than it seems

The federal tax framework consists of value added tax, excise tax and corporate tax on the profits of businesses. There is no inheritance duty, no estate duty and no gift duty, at federal or emirate level, and the government portal's taxation page lists none.

The planning problem in the UAE is therefore not fiscal. It is that the devolution of the estate, the reach of a foreign will, the release of bank accounts and the guardianship of minor children are each governed by a different instrument, and that the default outcome where nothing has been arranged is rarely the one the family expects.

Which law governs the estate: nationality, not residence

Article 17 paragraph 1 of the Civil Transactions Law provides that succession is governed by the law of the country to which the deceased belonged at the time of death. The connecting factor is nationality, not residence and not domicile. A French national who lived in Dubai for twenty years is, on this rule, governed by French succession law.

That article was renumbered nowhere. The 1985 civil code was repealed in full on 1 June 2026 and replaced by Federal Decree-Law 25 of 2025, but the conflict rule survives as article 17, with the same paragraph numbering and the same substance. Guides that cite article 17 of the 1985 law are citing a repealed text, even where the rule they state is still correct.

The new code carries no transitional provision for estates or wills. The general rule of article 4 paragraph 1, that a law is not retroactive, therefore governs: a death before 1 June 2026 falls under the former code. How the courts will treat an estate opened before that date and still under administration after it has not yet been settled.

Non-Muslims: a civil regime, and a right to choose

Federal Decree-Law 41 of 2022 has applied since 1 February 2023 to non-Muslims, whether UAE nationals or foreign residents. Article 1 preserves the right of any of them to insist on the application of the law of their home country to marriage, divorce, succession, wills and parentage, and allows them to agree instead on another personal status legislation in force in the State.

Article 11 paragraph 1 is the provision that matters most in practice: the testator may dispose by will of the entire property he owns in the State, in favour of anyone he wishes. There is no reserved share under this regime.

Article 11 paragraph 2 sets the default where there is no will: half of the estate to the surviving spouse, the other half divided equally between the children, with no distinction between sons and daughters. Where there are no children it passes to the parents, or is split between a surviving parent and the siblings, and failing all of these to the siblings equally. Article 11 paragraph 3 adds that any foreign heir may ask for the succession law designated by the civil code to be applied instead, unless a registered will provides otherwise.

Muslims: fixed shares, and a will capped at one third

Federal Decree-Law 41 of 2024 replaced Federal Law 28 of 2005 and has applied since 15 April 2025. It re-enacts rather than abandons the Sharia based regime: debts and funeral expenses first, then a will within the limit of one third of the estate unless the heirs consent to more, then distribution to the heirs in the fixed shares.

The difference of religion remains a bar to inheritance under that regime, and article 3 of the new Civil Transactions Law still classifies the personal status of Muslims, including inheritance and lineage, as a matter of public order.

The real estate lock

Article 17 paragraph 5 of the Civil Transactions Law provides that UAE law applies to a will made by a foreigner concerning his immovable property located in the State. It survived the recodification unchanged.

So the rule of paragraph 1, which points to the national law of the deceased, and the rule of paragraph 5, which claims UAE law over wills disposing of UAE real estate, sit in the same article and pull in different directions. This is the reason why a home-country will that disposes of a Dubai apartment is the single most exposed document in a cross-border estate, and why registering a will locally for the property is the standard answer rather than a precaution.

Registering a will, and where

Article 13 of Federal Decree-Law 41 of 2022 requires the wills of those it governs to be recorded in the register kept for that purpose. A married couple may also complete a will registration form when signing their marriage contract.

In Dubai, Dubai Law 15 of 2017 governs inheritance, wills and probate for non-Muslims across the emirate, including within the Dubai International Financial Centre, and provides for a register of non-Muslim wills at both the Dubai Courts and the DIFC Courts. The DIFC Courts Wills Service, created by Resolution 4 of 2014 and reaffirmed by that law, administers the DIFC register and handles probate.

The DIFC Courts publish five types of will: a full will, a property will, a business owners will, a financial assets will and a guardianship will. The published eligibility conditions are that the testator is not Muslim and has never been Muslim, is over the age of majority, and owns assets in the UAE or has minor children residing with him. Guardianship provisions reach minors habitually resident in Dubai or Ras Al Khaimah.

The age of majority is worth checking at the time of registration rather than assumed. The new Civil Transactions Law lowered the civil age of majority to eighteen Gregorian years, and the DIFC rules define their own.

What happens in the first weeks

Two points are consistently reported by counsel practising in the UAE, and neither follows from a single article that can be cited: bank accounts of the deceased are blocked on notification of the death, including accounts held jointly with a spouse, until the court issues its instructions; and guardianship of minor children is not automatically vested in the surviving parent, so that in the absence of an arrangement recognised locally the matter falls to the discretion of a judge.

They are stated here as practice rather than as statute, which is the honest characterisation, and they are the reason a guardianship will and a locally registered will are usually arranged before anything else. The financial consequence of a freeze is immediate for a family whose living costs run through a single account.