Mandatory health insurance in the UAE: what the rules require

General consumer information only, not legal advice. Rules and regulations can change, so check the latest official guidance for your circumstances.

There is no single UAE health insurance law

Health insurance is mandatory in the UAE, but it is not governed by one federal law that applies the same way everywhere. Dubai and Abu Dhabi each have their own health insurance law and their own regulator. Since 1 January 2025, a separate requirement has extended mandatory cover to private sector employees in the other five emirates. The practical result is that what you or your employer must provide depends on where the employment or residency is registered.

Dubai: Law No. 11 of 2013

Dubai's mandatory health insurance law requires every employer and sponsor to arrange cover for the people they are responsible for.

• Employers must enrol their employees in health insurance at or above the Basic Benefit Plan, the statutory minimum level of cover set by the DHA.
• Sponsors must do the same for anyone they sponsor who does not have an employer, such as a dependent spouse or children.
• The cost sits with the employer or sponsor. The law states this cost cannot be passed on to the person being insured.
• Separate arrangements exist for visitors needing emergency treatment; this guide does not cover visitor or tourist insurance in detail.
• UAE nationals are enrolled by the government, with their own scheme (Enaya for Dubai Government employees and citizens).

Abu Dhabi: Law No. 23 of 2005

Abu Dhabi's scheme predates Dubai's and works on a similar principle: the employer or sponsor provides and pays for cover, not the employee.

• Employers must provide Basic Plan cover for their employees and the employees' dependents, defined under the regulation as one spouse and up to three children under 18.
• Sponsors of residents without an employer carry the same obligation, and are personally liable if a sponsored resident turns out to be uninsured.
• A trade licence cannot be renewed, and a residency visa cannot be issued, without proof of valid cover.
• UAE nationals do not fall under this employer/sponsor scheme. They are covered through the government's Thiqa programme, which gives eligible citizens broader access across public and private providers.

The other five emirates: mandatory from 1 January 2025

Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah did not previously run their own compulsory scheme for private sector residents in the way Dubai and Abu Dhabi do. That changed on 1 January 2025. From that date, private sector employers in these emirates must provide health insurance for their employees and for domestic workers, and proof of cover is required before a residency permit is issued or renewed.

• Workers with an existing work permit are exempt from the new requirement until their residency permit comes up for renewal, at which point cover becomes mandatory. Official and secondary sources disagree on the exact cut-off date for "existing," and re-checking this for this release sharpened the conflict rather than settling it: the u.ae government portal states 1 January 2024, and three independent secondary sources checked directly for this release (a DLA Piper legal update, Sharjah24, and a Gulf News report on the scheme's extension) all independently state 1 January 2024 as well. Against that, MOHRE's own guidance page and its own December 2024 press release both state 1 January 2025. A further Khaleej Times report from around the announcement confirms 1 January 2025 as the scheme's enforcement start date but does not itself state an exemption cut-off, so it does not resolve the conflict either way. No source checked, including a dedicated search for the underlying Cabinet Resolution text, gives a resolution number that would settle this definitively. This guide follows MOHRE, as the regulator directly administering the scheme, while flagging that several independent secondary sources agree with u.ae's earlier date instead. If the cut-off date matters for your situation, confirm directly with MOHRE rather than relying on any single page.
• The employer bears the cost. Employees are not expected to contribute.
• Some of these emirates, including Sharjah and Ajman, already ran separate government health insurance arrangements for their own citizens and government employees. The 2025 change is specifically about private sector employees and domestic workers.

What this means in practice

If you are a private sector employee anywhere in the UAE, your employer is responsible for arranging your minimum legal cover as a condition of your visa. UAE nationals are covered separately through government schemes such as Thiqa and Enaya, not through an employer-arranged policy. If you are sponsoring a spouse or child in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, or employing a domestic worker, that responsibility for arranging and paying for cover sits with you or your employer, as set out above for your emirate. In every emirate with a scheme, the authority ties insurance to a visa or licence step, which is how the requirement gets enforced day to day, more than through random checks.

If you are renting a home as part of settling into a new emirate, the same visa and paperwork sequence often comes up alongside tenancy registration. See our guide on renting a home in the UAE for how that process typically runs. Setting up a bank account is usually part of the same early-weeks checklist too. See opening a personal bank account in the UAE.