UAE Doctor Attestation for Indians: DHA, DOH, MOH UAE & DataFlow

A cardiologist at Apollo Hyderabad, with a DM Cardiology from AIIMS Delhi, eight years post-DM and two papers in JACC, gets offers from Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi and from Mediclinic City Hospital Dubai in the same week. He cannot apply through both. Each goes through a different UAE regulator, each runs its own DataFlow primary source verification, each charges its own licensing fee. The Cleveland offer puts him under the Department of Health Abu Dhabi (DOH) on the Tamm portal. The Mediclinic offer puts him under the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) on the Sheryan portal. If he picks DHA and later moves to Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, he files a new DOH application. The DHA licence does not travel across the Emirate boundary.

The first decision an Indian doctor with a UAE offer makes is not whether to apply. It is which of the three UAE medical regulators to apply through, because the choice shapes the document set, the verification timeline, the salary tier and the practice scope. The UAE has three: the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) for the Emirate of Dubai, the Department of Health Abu Dhabi (DOH) for Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, and the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOH UAE) for Sharjah, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Umm Al Quwain and federal hospitals. SiZA Global Solutions Private Limited, a Noida-based documentation services firm at C-25, C Block, Sector 8, handles the document authentication in India for Indian doctors moving to any of the three regulators. The UAE is not a Hague Apostille country for Indian personal and educational documents, so degree attestation for the UAE runs through embassy attestation, never apostille in India. This is the UAE MOFA attestation path, and it is different from the apostille work you would do for a Hague country. The work is state Human Resource Development (HRD) attestation, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) attestation in Delhi, UAE Embassy attestation in Delhi through VFS Global, and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) attestation, the digital stamp also completed in India through the VFS-run UAE embassy service since 2023. You can read the full picture on our UAE country page.

This page is for Indian doctors with offers from Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, NMC Royal, Burjeel Holdings, Pure Health, Mediclinic, Aster DM Healthcare, NMC, Prime, Saudi German, Emirates Healthcare Group, Thumbay Group, Aster Sharjah, Saqr Hospital RAK or any of the UAE hospital networks that recruit out of AIIMS Delhi, AIIMS Bhopal, CMC Vellore, JIPMER Pondicherry, KMC Manipal, KEM Mumbai, Grant Medical College Mumbai, Maulana Azad Medical College Delhi, Madras Medical College Chennai, Bangalore Medical College, Government Medical College Trivandrum and the wider Indian medical-college network.

Which UAE medical regulator do Indian doctors apply to: DHA, DOH or MOH?

The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) licenses doctors for the Emirate of Dubai. DHA-licensed doctors can practise in Dubai's public sector (Latifa Hospital, Rashid Hospital, Dubai Hospital) and across DHA-registered private chains including Mediclinic, Aster, NMC, Prime, Saudi German Hospital and the Emirates Healthcare Group. The DHA Sheryan online portal handles the entire licensing application end to end.

The Department of Health Abu Dhabi (DOH) licenses doctors for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the city of Al Ain. DOH covers Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, NMC Royal, Burjeel Holdings, the Pure Health network and the Abu Dhabi public sector. The Tamm portal and the DOH licensing system are separate from DHA Sheryan.

The Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOH UAE) licenses doctors for the remaining five emirates (Sharjah, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Umm Al Quwain) and for federal hospitals across the UAE. MOH UAE is the regulator for doctors going to Thumbay Hospital, Aster Sharjah, Saqr Hospital RAK or the federal hospital system.

A doctor cannot apply to all three regulators at the same time. Some plan a primary application with a backup, but each application means a separate DataFlow verification and a separate licensing fee. Most candidates plan around the offer already in hand.

Which documents do DHA, DOH and MOH UAE need from Indian doctors?

The core document set is the same across DHA, DOH and MOH UAE. The educational certificate attestation covers the MBBS degree with all marksheets and the post-graduate degree (MD, MS, DNB, MCh or DM) with marksheets. Alongside those sit the rest of the file:

• The internship completion certificate.
• The National Medical Commission (NMC) registration and the home-state medical council registration.
• A Good Standing certificate dated within six months.
• Experience letters from every hospital from internship to the present.
• The UAE hospital offer letter.

Specialty board certificates and fellowship credentials are added where they exist.

The differences sit in three places.

Experience window

DHA wants a continuous, gap-free experience trail from internship completion to the present, dated by month, with hospital head-of-department or HR sign-off. DOH is similar but accepts brief unemployment gaps if documented in writing. MOH UAE is the most flexible of the three on this point but the strictest on the specialty match between the post-graduate qualification and the role applied for.

Specialty board certification

For US-trained Indian doctors going through DHA, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) certificate accelerates the application. For UK-trained candidates, MRCP, MRCS, FRCS and Royal College memberships are recognised. Indian post-graduate degrees (MD, MS, DNB, MCh, DM) are accepted across all three regulators, but a higher tier (Specialist, Consultant) requires more years of post-PG experience under DHA and DOH than under MOH UAE.

Good Standing freshness

DHA Sheryan checks the date carefully. A six-month-old Good Standing usually still passes; an eight-month-old one will be challenged. Order the Good Standing certificate from your Indian state medical council only after the UAE offer is in hand and the regulator route has been chosen.

Why does DataFlow verification fail for UAE doctor applications?

All three UAE medical regulators run primary source verification through DataFlow Group. This DataFlow check is separate from the embassy attestation in India and runs in parallel with it. DataFlow contacts the issuing university, the National Medical Commission, the home-state medical council and every past hospital employer you have listed. They ask each one for direct, written confirmation of authenticity.

Three failures show up most often on UAE doctor applications.

Degree roll-number mismatch

A NEET-PG-era post-graduate degree where your roll number on the marksheet does not match what the university registrar has on file. Resolved with a corrected provisional certificate from the university, but it takes two to four weeks.

A past employer who cannot find your record

A small or mid-sized private hospital that you worked in five years ago, where management has changed and HR has no record of you. We help draft a verification request the new HR can answer, or work with you to find an alternate verifying signatory.

A council registration number that does not match

A state medical council registration where your original card was lost and the duplicate carries a different registration number. DHA Sheryan in particular checks the number against the NMC registry, and a mismatch stops the application.

The fix in all cases is to clean the papers before DataFlow runs, not after. We recommend a SiZA Global scan-review two to three weeks before the formal DataFlow application is submitted, so number mismatches, expired certificates and missing employer signatures can be caught early.

How does attestation in India work for a UAE doctor visa?

The UAE is not a Hague Apostille country for Indian personal and educational documents. The authentication runs through embassy attestation and UAE MOFA attestation, not apostille in India. Both the UAE embassy attestation and the UAE MOFA attestation are now completed inside India and digitally through the VFS-run UAE embassy service, so your set is ready before you fly. The same ordered steps apply whether your degree was issued in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana or Kerala. Read more on our UAE country page and our HRD attestation page.

Step	What happens	Where	Notes
1. State HRD attestation	HRD department attests the MBBS and post-graduate certificates	Issuing state directorate (Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and several others)	Some states accept the SDM route, but for UAE doctors HRD attestation is safer than SDM regardless of state. State HRD attestation runs roughly 7 to 45 working days depending on the state and university
2. MEA attestation	The Ministry of External Affairs counter-signs the state attestation	New Delhi	Done after the state HRD step
3. UAE Embassy attestation	The UAE Embassy attests the MEA-attested documents	New Delhi, through VFS Global	Follows MEA attestation; UAE embassy attestation is done inside India
4. UAE MOFA attestation	The MOFA digital stamp is applied so your set is ready before you fly	In India, through the VFS-run UAE embassy service	Since 2023 this is done in India; until then it happened in Dubai after arrival
5. Certified Arabic translation	Arabic translation of educational and council documents	UAE-approved or India-listed translator	Done after the embassy attestation is complete, not before

The full authentication in India takes seven to twelve working days when everything runs cleanly, with two of those days lost to courier movement between Delhi-based offices and your home city.

How do experience letters affect a UAE doctor's salary tier?

DHA, DOH and MOH UAE classify Indian doctors into Specialist, Consultant or other tiers based on the post-graduate qualification, the years of experience and the specialty board status. The UAE hospital cannot offer a higher tier than the regulator has classified you into. This is why your experience letters matter so much. An incomplete experience letter that DataFlow rejects can downgrade you from Consultant to Specialist tier for a year or longer, which materially changes the salary band the hospital is allowed to offer.

We work with each Indian hospital where you have worked to draft a re-issued experience letter that names the exact department, the joining and leaving dates, the head of department or HR signatory and the actual clinical work done. This is the single highest-return preparation step before DataFlow runs.

Who handles UAE doctor licensing, DataFlow and attestation in India?

The three UAE medical regulators handle three things: filing the application on their portal, DataFlow verification, and licence issuance. DHA Sheryan, DOH Tamm and MOH UAE each do this on their own platform with their own timelines and their own fees. The UAE hospital files on the relevant portal; you do not. DataFlow Group runs primary source verification on the regulator's instructions, contacting your AIIMS Delhi or CMC Vellore or KMC Manipal registrar, the National Medical Commission in Delhi, the relevant State Medical Council in Mumbai or Bengaluru or Chennai or Hyderabad, and every past hospital employer from Apollo Hyderabad to KEM Mumbai to Fortis Bengaluru. The UAE Embassy in New Delhi stamps the visa once the licence is in hand. The hospital completes local credentialing on arrival in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain or wherever the role is.

You handle three things directly.

1. You decide which of the three UAE regulators to apply through, based on the hospital offer in hand.
2. You sit any specialty exam, board recertification or interview the UAE hospital asks for.
3. You arrange your own arrival logistics in the destination emirate.

Everything else on the paperwork side belongs to us.

We handle the document authentication in India. Send scans of the MBBS degree, the post-graduate degree (MD, MS, DNB, MCh or DM), the internship completion certificate, the NMC and State Medical Council registration cards, the Good Standing certificate, your experience letters and the UAE offer letter to WhatsApp +91 9220161774. We review what will fail DataFlow, list the corrections that need to start in parallel, and price the work in writing before any payment. When the originals reach our Noida office, we run state HRD attestation at the relevant directorate (Mumbai Mantralaya for Maharashtra-issued degrees from KEM, Grant Medical College, BJMC Pune; Bengaluru for Karnataka degrees from Bangalore Medical College, KMC Mangalore, JSS Mysore; Chennai for Tamil Nadu degrees from Madras Medical College, Stanley, Kilpauk, PSG Coimbatore; Hyderabad for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh degrees from Osmania Medical College, NIMS, Andhra Medical College; Trivandrum for Kerala degrees from Government Medical College Trivandrum and similar). Then MEA attestation in Delhi, UAE Embassy attestation through VFS Global in Delhi, UAE MOFA attestation through the same VFS-run UAE embassy service, and certified Arabic translation of the degree and council documents by a UAE-approved or India-listed translator. The completed set then goes by tracked courier back to you in your home city or directly to your UAE hospital's HR. This is the full UAE MOFA attestation and certified translation file, ready before you fly.

Named SiZA Global staff carry the originals between Delhi NCR offices. No third-party bike-aggregator app handles your MBBS degree or your State Medical Council card.

If you want us to read your papers before any original moves out of Hyderabad or Mumbai or Bengaluru or wherever they live, send a WhatsApp message to +91 9220161774. We tell you, in writing, what is going to clear DataFlow and what is going to stall, before you pay anything.