Do I need a will in the UAE? A guide for expat families

By MyHaven Team·Published 7 September 2026·6 minute read

Most non-Muslim expats in the UAE know they should probably have a will and are not sure whether it is urgent. This guide answers the question properly: what the default position is, what changed in 2022, and which situations turn a good idea into something worth doing this month.

The short answer

If you are a non-Muslim living or holding assets in the UAE, a registered will is the only reliable way to say who receives what and who looks after your children. Without one, your family is left arguing from a default position rather than from your instructions. That is true whether you own a villa or a single bank account, and it is truest of all if you have children under eighteen.

Whether you need one urgently depends on your circumstances. The four situations in who needs one most are the ones where waiting has real consequences.

What happens without a will

If you die in the UAE without a registered will, nothing you said informally counts. Not a conversation with your spouse, not a note in a drawer, not a will made years ago in another country that nobody here knows about. The courts apply the default inheritance rules to your UAE estate, and those rules were written for the general case rather than for yours.

The default may well be roughly what you would have chosen. It may also not be. The point is that you do not get a say, and neither does your family. Someone has to go to court to find out, at the worst possible moment, and the answer arrives on the court’s timetable rather than on theirs. The detail of what that looks like in practice is in what happens if you die without a will in the UAE.

What the 2022 law changed

Federal Decree-Law 41 of 2022 on civil personal status is the reason this conversation is simpler than it used to be. It lets non-Muslims in the UAE choose how their estate is distributed, rather than having a single set of rules applied to everyone. Wills made under it are recorded in a register kept for the purpose.

What that means in ordinary language: the choice is now clearly yours to make, but it is yours to make actively. The law opened the door. Registering a will is walking through it. Doing nothing leaves you exactly where you were.

What a registered will actually changes

It is worth being concrete about what you get, because “peace of mind” is not an outcome you can check.

• You name who inherits. Specific gifts to specific people, and then who takes the rest of the estate, in shares you decide.
• You name who is in charge. An executor, and someone to step in if that person cannot act. Without a will, that role is decided for your family rather than by you.
• You name guardians for your children. Both an interim guardian who can act immediately and a permanent one. This is the part people most regret leaving undone, and it has its own guide: guardianship for expat children.
• You provide for people the rules do not. An unmarried partner, a stepchild, a sibling, a charity. Default rules recognise defined relationships. A will recognises the people you name.
• You leave written instructions. Your executor has a document to work from rather than a set of guesses to defend.

Who needs one most

Parents of children under eighteen

This is the strongest case, and it is not about money. If both parents are gone and no guardian has been named, the question of who raises your children is answered by a process rather than by you. Naming an interim guardian who is already in the UAE, and a permanent one who may not be, is what closes that gap.

Property owners

A property is the asset that most often sits still while everything else is sorted out. Whoever inherits it needs a clear route to the title, and a registered will is the shortest route there. This matters just as much for someone who has moved away and kept a UAE property as it does for a resident.

Mixed-nationality and unmarried couples

An unmarried partner has no automatic claim in the UAE. If you have built a life with someone you are not married to, a will is the only way to provide for them. Married couples of different nationalities have their own version of this, where assumptions carried over from two home countries turn out to contradict each other.

Business owners and shareholders

Shares in a UAE company are an asset like any other, and one that does not pause while ownership is worked out. If a business depends on you being able to sign things, saying who inherits your stake is part of keeping it running.

What a will does not do

Three honest limits, because a guide that only lists benefits is a sales page.

• A UAE will covers your UAE assets. Property and accounts in another country generally follow that country’s law, so a second will made there is usually the answer, written so the two do not contradict each other.
• A will only takes effect once it is registered. A drafted document that never reached the register is a plan, not a will.
• A will does not update itself. A marriage, a divorce, a new child or a property sold is a reason to look at it again.

What to do next

The first useful step is not paying for anything. It is answering a few questions about your family and your assets so you know which route fits, whether the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, the DIFC or Dubai Courts, and what it will cost. Our assessment does that and tells you before you pay.

From there: ADJD vs DIFC compares the registries, how it works walks through the process end to end, and pricing shows the service fee and the court fee separately, because they are paid to different people.

MyHaven is not a law firm and this guide is not legal advice. It explains how the process works so you can make your own decisions. What that means