French translation services in the UAE
French reaches the UAE from a lot of directions at once: European corporate and civil documents, Maghreb and Lebanese personal records, and francophone African certificates that follow different rules again.
The legal vocabulary is the substantive problem. French is a civil law language, Arabic legal drafting in the UAE is civil law too, and English is not — so a French contract translated into English and then into Arabic loses precision twice. Where the destination is a UAE authority we translate French directly into Arabic. Terms like société à responsabilité limitée, acte de notoriété, livret de famille and extrait Kbis have specific UAE equivalents or none at all, and pretending otherwise causes problems downstream.
The attestation route varies sharply by issuing country. France, Belgium and Switzerland are Hague parties, so people frequently arrive with an apostille — which the UAE does not accept on its own. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon each run their own consular chains. We confirm the issuing country before quoting, because it determines both the cost and the timeline far more than the translation does.
How it works
- 1Send a scanEmail or upload the document, and tell us which authority will receive it.
- 2Get a written quoteA fixed price and a realistic date, with government fees shown separately from our fee.
- 3We handle the countersSubmission, tracking, fees and follow-up, with an update whenever the status changes.
- 4DeliverySigned PDF the moment it is ready, hard copies by courier or collected in person.
Services available in this language
Available across the UAE
Questions we are asked
I have an apostille from France. Is that accepted in the UAE?
Not on its own. The UAE is not a Hague party, so a French document needs UAE consular legalisation in France and then MOFAIC attestation here. We can take over from an apostilled document.
Should the translation go into English or Arabic?
Arabic if a UAE authority will receive it, and translated directly from the French rather than via English — two hops through different legal traditions cost precision.
Do you cover Maghreb and Lebanese documents?
Yes, including documents issued bilingually in French and Arabic, where the two versions occasionally differ and the discrepancy has to be flagged rather than resolved silently.
Request a quote
Prices vary by document, language pair and receiving authority, so we quote rather than publish a rate card. Most enquiries are answered within one working day.