Doctor licensing · Dubai Health Authority
DHA licensing requirements for doctors
Three conditions decide most General Practitioner applications: how long your medical degree ran, whether your internship is documented, and whether your two years of experience were in a field DHA accepts.
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Who this applies to
Doctors applying to practise in Dubai under the General Practitioner title, who qualified outside the UAE. DHA applies the Unified UAE Professional Qualification Requirements alongside its own licensing manual.
Specialist and consultant titles are separate categories with their own conditions, and this page does not cover them. If your workplace will be in Abu Dhabi or one of the northern emirates, a different authority applies.
Qualification: the two conditions people miss
MBBS, MBChB or an accepted equivalent
The physicians table sets the General Practitioner title as requiring MBBS or MBChB, or an equivalent qualification from an accredited institution, together with successful completion of the internship programme and two years of clinical experience.
The degree must have run at least five years
The PQR requires a medical degree of not less than five years’ duration of study, explicitly excluding the internship year. Check what the certificate and transcripts actually say about programme length — a five-year figure that only reaches five by counting internship does not meet this.
Twelve months of internship, post-graduation
A full year of internship after graduation is required, and it needs to be documented as such. It is a separate requirement from the experience below, and it does not count towards it.
Experience, and which fields count
The General Practitioner title requires two years of clinical experience. What is unusually specific here — and unusually helpful — is that the PQR names the fields it accepts: Cardiology, Critical Care Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, General Surgery, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Paediatrics.
If your two years sit outside that list, that is worth establishing before you pay for verification rather than after.
What counts as experience at all
DHA defines it as hands-on clinical experience gained by a licensed professional during salaried employment or a contractual period. Volunteer work, observerships and clinical attachments are excluded, however clinical they felt.
UAE nationals and Children of Emirati Women
Exempted from the experience requirement for the General Practitioner title, within three years of completing the internship.
Ten questions about your qualification, internship, experience and practice history — and which of the requirements for this title your answers appear to meet.
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How the DHA route works
Three stages, and a distinction at the end that catches people out.
Self assessment
DHA runs a free automated self-assessment that evaluates your credentials immediately. Use it before anything else — it is where an unusual degree structure or an internship documented oddly should be raised. A payable Review Registration Eligibility service also exists, at a credentialing fee of AED 200 quoted at ten working days, where you want the accreditation team to look rather than the automated tool. DHA is explicit that an eligibility assessment does not give you the right to practise.
Verification and the assessment
Your degree, internship, registration and employment are checked directly with the bodies that issued them, and you sit any computer-based test that applies to you. These two can run at the same time rather than one after the other, which is the easiest available saving on your timeline. A new verification report is quoted at fifteen working days from payment; transferring a report you already hold, five.
Registration — which is not yet a licence
Registration is issued for one year. It has to be activated into a licence by a healthcare facility before you can see a patient. A doctor who registers speculatively and then spends eight months looking for a post has spent most of the year the registration was good for.
You must pass the related assessment within three attempts across the UAE Authorities, and must not be blacklisted. Attempts follow you between authorities rather than resetting, so a failed attempt elsewhere in the country counts here.
Your home registration, and the certificate that expires
A licence where you qualified or last worked
A valid professional licence to practise, or registration where applicable, in your home country and/or your country of last employment. The "and/or" is doing real work: a licence that has lapsed in one of them does not by itself fail the requirement where a valid one is held in the other.
It has to span the two years
The validity of that registration must cover the minimum experience the General Practitioner title requires. Two years of clinical work completed before you were registered anywhere will not satisfy a two-year requirement, however real the work was.
Good Standing, and its six-month clock
The certificate must not be older than six months on the date you apply, and must cover the minimum experience for the title. It comes from the health regulatory authority in your country of last employment — for a doctor who trained in one country and worked in another, that is the second one, not the first.
It can also be requested too early
The Authorities will not issue a Good Standing Certificate until three months of clinical experience have been completed from the date the licence was issued. Doctors applying soon after first registration can hit this without expecting it.
Free, and it applies the conditions for the title you are actually applying under rather than a general checklist.
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Returning to clinical practice after a break
Three separate thresholds. Most of the advice circulating conflates them.
Beyond two years — a definition, not a hurdle
DHA’s licensing manual defines discontinuity in practice as an interruption exceeding two years. That is what the phrase means. It imposes nothing on you by itself, beyond being able to account for the period.
Beyond three years — CPD and supervised training
Above three years the requirements call for CME/CPD credits and clinical training in a practice setting the Authority recognises, before licensure, with the Authority’s licensure examination after that. Securing a recognised training placement is the part with a lead time, so it is worth starting on that before the paperwork.
Beyond five years — where applications generally stop
In general a non-UAE national cannot apply with a gap of practice exceeding five years; for UAE nationals and Children of Emirati Women the figure is ten. "In general" leaves the Authority discretion, so an unusual case is worth putting to DHA — but not worth spending verification fees against on optimism.
Time in UAE mandatory National Service is not counted as a gap at all, for those it applies to. Establish the month you last practised rather than the year: a twelve-month uncertainty can straddle a threshold, and because the gap is measured at assessment rather than when you began preparing, it keeps growing while you gather documents.
Assembling the file
Medical degree certificate and full transcripts
The transcripts matter more than usual here, because they are what evidences the duration of study the five-year condition turns on.
Internship certificate
Documenting a full twelve months post-graduation. A letter that implies it without stating the dates tends to come back.
High school certificate
Mandatory in the application unless the qualification you hold is a BSc or higher.
Home licence or council registration
Current, and covering the period your claimed experience falls in.
Certificate of Good Standing
Under six months old when you apply, from the regulator in your country of last employment.
Experience certificates naming your duties
Dates and a job title are not enough — the field you practised in is what the requirement turns on. Each employer is verified separately, so each one adds fee and time.
Legal translations, with the originals alongside
Both are uploaded. Supplying only the translation is an incomplete submission.
On attestation: DHA states that documents submitted in the application do not need to be stamped unless the credentialing team asks for it. Worth knowing before you buy a full chain of stamps — though the team can ask case by case, and your employer or the visa process may want attestation for reasons of their own.
Where doctor applications commonly go wrong
Counting the internship year towards the five
The five-year requirement excludes internship. A programme described as five years including a final clinical year is not the same thing, and the transcripts will show which it was.
Two years in a field outside the accepted list
The PQR names eight fields for the General Practitioner title. Experience in something else may not satisfy the requirement even where it is unquestionably clinical.
Experience gained before licensing
The licence or registration you rely on has to cover the experience period. Time worked before you were registered does not count towards the two years.
Treating registration as the licence
DHA registration lasts a year and has to be activated into a licence by a healthcare facility. Applicants who register early and then take months to find a post can watch the year run down.
Names that do not match across documents
Passport, degree, registration and employment letters are compared. Differences in spelling or name order are common, and an affidavit of one and the same person is much cheaper obtained before submission than after a mismatch is raised.
A university that cannot be reached
Where the issuing institution holds no retrievable record, verification returns Unable To Verify rather than a refusal you can argue with. Re-verification of the same document can be applied for, so it is not final, but it adds weeks nobody planned for.
What Medverik can and cannot tell you
We can tell you which of DHA’s published requirements your circumstances appear to meet, which need attention, and which we could not establish from official material — with each requirement traced, in the paid report, to the authority that published it.
We cannot license you, we are not affiliated with DHA, and we do not decide your application. Some questions only the Authority can answer, and DHA’s free self-assessment is the right place to take them.
Common questions
How many years of experience does DHA require for a General Practitioner?
Two years of clinical experience, in addition to a completed twelve-month internship. The PQR accepts that experience in Cardiology, Critical Care Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, General Surgery, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Paediatrics. UAE nationals and Children of Emirati Women are exempt within three years of completing internship.
Does my internship year count towards the five-year degree requirement?
No. The requirement is a medical degree of not less than five years of study, explicitly excluding the internship year. The internship is a separate twelve-month requirement of its own.
Is DHA registration the same as a licence to practise in Dubai?
No. Registration is issued for one year and must be activated into a licence by a healthcare facility before you can practise. Registering without a post lined up starts a clock.
Can primary source verification and the exam run at the same time?
Yes. DHA states that primary source verification and the computer-based test can run in parallel rather than in sequence, which is the simplest way to shorten the overall timeline.
Do I need to attest my documents for DHA?
DHA states that documents submitted in the application are not required to be stamped unless the credentialing team requests it. The team may still ask case by case, and your employer or the visa process may require attestation for their own purposes — so confirm before paying for a full chain of stamps.
What happens if a document comes back Unable To Verify?
DHA’s licensing manual provides that the applicant may apply for re-verification of the same document. It is not a final answer, but it costs time, so confirm in advance that your university and councils hold retrievable records and answer third-party requests.
Related guides
- DHA licensing requirements for pharmacistsTwo things decide most pharmacist applications: which title your qualification actually maps to, and whether the experience you are relying on is the kind DHA counts. A great deal of pharmacy experience is not.
- Healthcare licensing across the GCCThe Gulf states are often described as one licensing market. They are not. The conditions that decide your application differ by country, by authority, and sometimes by which sector you are joining.
- The Good Standing Certificate, and how to time itIt is a short letter from your regulator saying your registration is current and unrestricted. It is also the document most likely to expire while you are still waiting for something else.
- The documents GCC licensing actually turns onMost applications that stall do not fail on eligibility. They fail on a document that was the wrong version, the wrong age, or disagreed with another one.
Find out where you actually stand
Ten questions about your qualification, registration and practice history. It tells you which requirements for your route your answers appear to meet, and which need attention — before you spend anything on verification.
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This assessment is provided for general informational and pre-submission guidance purposes only and is based on regulatory information available from the relevant authorities at the time of assessment. It does not constitute legal, medical, immigration, licensing or professional advice and does not guarantee eligibility, approval, registration, licensing or successful Primary Source Verification. Final eligibility and licensing decisions are made solely by the relevant regulatory authority and/or verification provider. Requirements may change without notice, and applicants should independently confirm the applicable requirements with the relevant authority before submitting an application. MEDVERIK is not responsible for any rejection, delay, additional cost, loss or other consequence arising from reliance on this assessment.
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