Private notary vs public notary: which one fits your document

Public notary vs private notary: the core difference

A public notary in Dubai works inside the Dubai Courts notary public department. It is the government’s own notarisation channel, and it handles the full range of notarial acts open to the public.

A private notary is a lawyer licensed by Dubai Courts to work as a notary under the same law. They are not a Dubai Courts employee, but they are still authorised, listed on the roll of private notaries Dubai Courts keeps, and subject to the same regulatory framework. In practice this means a private notary can run a smaller office with more flexible appointment times than a single government counter serving the whole emirate.

Both routes issue a notarial certificate carrying the same legal weight for the act they perform. The difference is where you go, how fast you can get an appointment and, often, the working hours on offer, not the underlying validity of the notarisation.

Is a private notary document accepted the same way

For the acts a private notary is licensed to perform, a document notarised by a private notary is accepted the same way a Dubai Courts notarisation is, because both are carried out under Dubai Law No. 4 of 2013.

Some receiving authorities, particularly for high value property transactions, have their own internal preferences about which notary channel they want to see on file. If you are notarising a document for a specific authority such as Dubai Land Department, a bank or a court, it is worth checking that authority’s own requirement before you book, rather than assuming either route is automatically accepted.

Comparison table

Where the MOJ e-notary fits

The Ministry of Justice runs its own E-Notary System for remote and electronic notarisation of certain documents, including a digital power of attorney service that has existed since 2023. This is a federal Ministry of Justice channel, separate from both the Dubai Courts public notary and any private notary’s physical office. It suits people who can complete the process electronically and whose document type is supported by that system. It does not replace the Dubai Courts or private notary route for documents that still need an in-person or Dubai-specific notarial act.

When to choose each route

Choose the public notary at Dubai Courts when your document needs to go through the government channel directly, when you are dealing with a receiving authority that has told you it wants a Dubai Courts notarisation specifically, or when a private notary near you is not licensed for that particular act.

Choose a private notary when appointment speed matters, when you want office hours that fit around work, or when you are already working with a lawyer who is also a licensed private notary and can handle the document as part of the same visit. For most personal documents, power of attorney, affidavits, acknowledgements and signature authentication, a licensed private notary is a normal and accepted route.

Either way, the document itself needs to be in Arabic, with a legal translator registered with the UAE Ministry of Justice handling any translation, before the notary can proceed.