DHA Licence for Doctors
A DHA licence for doctors is the registration you need to practise medicine on Dubai mainland. What decides your application is classification: general practitioner, specialist or consultant. Your postgraduate qualification determines which title DHA will accept, and surgical specialties must also submit a two-year logbook.
Which title will DHA classify you at?
Everything else in a medical application follows from this. The title you are licensed under determines what you may be employed as, what you may do unsupervised, and what a hospital can pay you for. It is decided at application from your qualifications and experience, not negotiated afterwards.
The three tiers are general practitioner, specialist and consultant. Which one your file supports depends on your postgraduate qualification and how DHA maps it, and that mapping is the single most common reason a doctor is licensed a tier below where they expected to be.
Applying at the wrong tier is not a harmless optimism. A file built for consultant that does not support it comes back, and the resubmission costs both time and the verification fee again.
What does DHA require of doctors?
DHA publishes a Professional Qualification Requirements list setting out which qualifications it accepts for each title and specialty. Your file is assessed against that list, not against how your qualification is regarded at home.
Before you pay for anything, use the self-assessment tool. Eligibility can be self-assessed free of charge through the Sheryan self-assessment tool, and for doctors it is the fastest way to find out whether your postgraduate qualification maps to the title you are aiming for.
- A primary medical qualification from a recognised institution
- Postgraduate qualifications and specialty certificates, which decide your classification
- Current registration with the medical council or authority you practise under
- Post-qualification clinical experience evidenced by signed certificates
- [VERIFY: the minimum post-qualification experience DHA requires at each title, by specialty.]
What exam do doctors take?
A Prometric assessment set for your specialty rather than for medicine generally. A cardiologist and a paediatrician do not sit the same paper.
Some qualifications and titles are exempt from assessment. Establishing whether yours is exempt before you pay is worth doing, because the fee is not refundable and a reattempt costs the same again.
[VERIFY: DHA examination blueprint, question count, duration and pass mark for this profession and its specialties. Obtain from DHA before publishing any figure.]
Why no single question count applies across professions, and what to ask your authority instead, is covered on our Prometric explainer.
What documents do doctors need?
What to assemble, with the items specific to doctors marked by what they have to establish.
- Passport and photograph to the authority specification
- Primary medical qualification, attestedAttested in the country that issued it, in the correct chain order.
- Postgraduate qualifications and specialty certificatesThese decide your classification, so completeness here has the largest effect on the outcome.
- Academic transcripts
- Current medical registration or licenceFrom the medical council or authority you practise under.
- Good standing certificate from your medical councilLess than six months old at submission. Not from your hospital.
- Experience certificates signed by HR or the medical directorA supervising consultant signature is a documented reason for return.
- Logbook, for surgical specialtiesCovering the last two years, stamped and signed by the medical director. Assembling this retrospectively from a former employer is slow, so start it early.
Good standing must come from the medical council or authority holding your registration, and GCC authorities generally accept one only while it is under six months old. The sequencing trap is explained on our good standing guide.
How much does it cost for doctors?
Regulator and third-party fees only, paid by you directly to the authority or provider. Where a row reads Not published we hold no sourced figure and will not estimate one.
| Item | Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Primary source verification | AED 1,150-1,500 | Varies with number of credentials submitted. Fixed packages also quoted at AED 1,235 doctors / AED 935 nurses and allied health. |
| Fixed verification package | AED 1,235 | The band DHA quotes for doctors. |
| Examination | USD 180-300 | By profession and specialty. Non-refundable; full fee payable on each reattempt. |
| Application | AED 1,000-2,000 | |
| Good standing certificate | AED 100-500 | Varies by issuing country. Must be less than 6 months old at submission. |
| Total government fees | AED 4,400-8,100 |
Doctors sit in the higher of the two verification bands DHA quotes. That is a function of how many credentials a medical file typically carries: primary qualification, postgraduate qualifications, registration and several employers all get verified separately.
Our advisory fee is not published. It is quoted per case, in writing, after a free eligibility consultation, because it depends on your title, how many credentials need verifying and whether attestation applies. The costs page explains what moves that number.
How long does it take?
Typically 4-12 weeks for DHA licensing overall. Dependent on how quickly primary source verification clears.
The stage that moves a medical timeline is rarely the assessment. It is verification, and specifically the employer checks, because a doctor with four posts across three countries has four registries and three former employers to hear back from.
Surgical specialties should add the logbook to the critical path. It needs a medical director signature from a hospital you may no longer work at, and that is not a same-week request.
Verification itself runs 15-25 working days from the date of payment and submission of a complete set of documents, and a resubmission costs 50 to 100 percent of the original fee. See DataFlow verification.
Where does this sit in the wider process?
This page covers doctors under DHA specifically. The authority, the sibling professions and the same profession elsewhere in the Gulf are covered separately.
- DHA licensing in Dubai, the authority page for every profession
- DHA licence for dentists, a comparable clinical or allied route
- DHA licence for nurses, a comparable clinical or allied route
- Healthcare licensing across the GCC, if the country is not settled yet
What else do doctors ask?
Will DHA license me as a specialist or a general practitioner?
That is decided from your postgraduate qualification and experience, assessed against DHA's published qualification requirements for your specialty. It is not a preference you state. Run the free Sheryan self-assessment before paying for anything, because it is the cheapest way to find out where your file actually sits.
Do I need the logbook if I am not a surgeon?
No. The two-year logbook requirement applies to surgical specialties, stamped and signed by the medical director. Non-surgical specialties are assessed on qualifications, registration and experience certificates.
Can I apply before I have a hospital offer?
Yes, and for doctors it is usually the right order. You can obtain an eligibility letter confirming DHA accepts your qualifications for a given title without an employer. The licence itself is issued against a facility, so that step waits, but the long stages do not have to.
My specialty certificate is from a college, not a university. Is that a problem?
Not inherently. What matters is whether the qualification appears in DHA's accepted list for the title you are applying for. Royal college and board qualifications are common among applicants. The self-assessment tool is where to check yours.
Does a DHA licence cover Dubai Healthcare City?
No. DHCC is regulated separately by DHCR, and a DHA licence has no validity inside the free zone. Several large specialist hospitals sit inside DHCC, so check which regulator licenses the facility named in your offer before you apply anywhere.
How many credentials will be verified?
Every qualification, registration and employer you list. That is why doctors sit in the higher verification band. It is also why an accurate, complete first submission matters more for medicine than for professions with shorter credential histories.