The DIFC Wills Service is the best-engineered will registry in the UAE, and for most of the people reading this site it is irrelevant as a product, because its own eligibility rules exclude anyone who is or has ever been Muslim. Both halves of that sentence deserve to be taken seriously. Judged on its own terms, this is a professional registry with published, VAT-exempt fees, six modular will types, worldwide video registration and genuine common-law probate through the DIFC Courts. Judged on price, it costs roughly ten times the ADJD alternative. Here is the full picture.
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What it is
A common-law will registration service operated by the DIFC Courts, letting eligible non-Muslims register English-language wills covering UAE assets, with probate through the DIFC Courts rather than the onshore civil courts. It sits within the UAE's post-2022 architecture: Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2022 created a nationwide civil succession track for non-Muslims, and the DIFC registry is its premium, common-law expression. Eligibility requires that the testator is not and has never been Muslim, is 21 or older, and has UAE assets and/or minor children residing in Dubai or Ras Al Khaimah.
The fee schedule, in full
- Full Will: AED 10,000 single, AED 15,000 mirror. Covers the whole estate.
- Property Will: AED 7,500 single, AED 10,000 mirror. Real estate only.
- Financial Assets Will, Guardianship Will, Digital Assets Will, Business Owners Will: AED 5,000 single, AED 7,500 mirror each.
- Modifications: AED 550 per will. Fees are VAT-exempt. Non-refundable booking portions of AED 500 to 2,000 apply by type.
- Professional drafting is separate and optional, typically AED 3,000 to 6,000 in the market, taking a full single will to AED 13,000 to 16,000 all-in.
The modularity is genuinely useful. A foreign owner of one Dubai apartment does not need a Full Will; a Property Will at AED 7,500, registrable by video conference from anywhere in the world with no UAE residence requirement, matches the actual exposure.
What the premium buys
- Common-law probate through the DIFC Courts, the strongest testamentary machinery in the UAE and the reason practitioners still steer complex and high-value estates here.
- English-language proceedings in a framework familiar to common-law expatriates and their advisers.
- A published fee schedule with no surprises, rare enough in this market that we treat it as a feature.
- Worldwide video registration: you can execute from London or Singapore without setting foot in the UAE.
What it does not do
- Serve Muslims. Eligibility expressly excludes anyone who is or has ever been Muslim, including converts. For Muslim readers the correct instruments are the wasiyya and guardianship nominations through court notary services, mapped in our faraid guide.
- Cover guardianship beyond Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah minors.
- Prevent the account freeze. UAE banks freeze accounts on death, joint accounts included, pending succession certification, whatever registry holds your will. A DIFC will speeds the path through certification; liquidity planning is still on you, as our freeze playbook explains.
- Beat ADJD on price for straightforward estates. AED 950 versus AED 10,000 is not a rounding error, and the comparison deserves ten minutes before you book.
Who should actually pay for this
The honest segmentation: non-Muslim residents with substantial or complex Dubai and RAK estates, especially where business ownership, multiple properties or potential disputes make common-law probate machinery worth real money. Foreign owners of UAE property who live abroad and value executing remotely inside a familiar legal framework. Non-Muslim parents in Dubai or RAK who want the dedicated Guardianship Will at AED 5,000 as part of a larger structure. For a straightforward single-property, single-bank-account expatriate estate, ADJD's civil will at AED 950 has quietly become the sensible default, and the DIFC service is the specialist instrument.
Verdict
Five things about the DIFC Wills Service are true at once: it is excellent, it is expensive, it is honest about its prices, it is closed to Muslims by design, and it is overkill for simple estates. That makes the buying decision unusually clean. If your estate is complex, non-Muslim and centred on Dubai or RAK, the premium buys real machinery. If your estate is simple, price ADJD first and spend the difference on professional drafting. And if you are Muslim, this registry was never your instrument: the estate planning hub and Islamic will guide cover the tools that are.
Frequently asked
Do I need to live in the UAE? No. UAE residence is not required, and registration by video conference works from anywhere in the world, which is why the service suits foreign owners of Dubai property so well. What is required: you are not and have never been Muslim, you are 21 or older, and you have UAE assets and/or minor children residing in Dubai or Ras Al Khaimah.
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See side-by-side comparisons of Shariah-compliant products, or let our matcher recommend the best options for your situation.
What does common-law probate actually mean for my family? It means the will is administered through the DIFC Courts under principles familiar to anyone from a common-law country, in English, with the procedural machinery those systems use for executors and estate administration. For complex estates, that machinery, and advisers' fluency in it, is genuinely worth money. For a simple estate, it is capability you pay for and never use.
Can one will cover assets outside the UAE? The service exists for UAE assets. Cross-border estates need coordinated planning between jurisdictions, and the right structure depends on where everything sits; treat the DIFC will as the UAE component of a plan, not the whole plan, and see the expat checklist for the coordination steps.