HAAD Licensure Examination Fees

Licensing in UAE

Licensing in UAE:

 There are four licenses, one granted by Dubai government (Dubai Health Authority or DHA) after successful examination and entitles the holder to practice only in Dubai, the other is granted by the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi or HAAD which allows you to practice in the cities of Abu Dhabi and Al Ain and the third option is to pass the Abu Dhabi Ministry exam (MOH) which entitles its holder to practice anywhere in the UAE except the Emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, such as Sharjah or Ras Al Kheima. A separate license by Harvard International is issued for the Dubai Health Care City, a free Zone with the Government of Dubai as your sponsor. This license allows to set up a practice strictly within the DHCC free zone area. You can apply on line through the government websites.

The requirements to take the exam in Dubai are the following (takes 2-4 weeks):

Must submit the application filled by employer

• Updated CV
• Medical school certificate
• American Boards all equivalent
• A certificate of good standing from the state Board or Medical Syndicate in home country
• A recommendation letter.
• Photocopy of passport clearly showing expiration date
• Four photographs
• Certificate of experience detailing your practice after graduation obtained either from your hospital or medical society.
• In the case of surgeons, a list of the surgeries they usually perform is required to be submitted with the application.

Items 3 and 4 must be authenticated by the UAE consulate in the country where certificates are issued. American Board certification entitles doctors to a quasi automatic licensure. An interview is required with a licensing committee and rarely does a qualified person fail. The interview is usually a routine affair for board certified physicians although I strongly recommend that you study/refresh your memory for a few weeks.

Depending on the qualifications and training of the individual the committee would be tough or lenient. A three year post graduate experience is strongly preferred and five years is even better.

Abu Dhabi and Al Ain Licensing (currently takes 3-4 months):

To apply for licensure as a ‘General Practitioner’ including Dentistry to work in the private sector in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi you are required to demonstrate the following:

You have successfully completed and hold an accredited recognized primary medical qualification in your own country

You have successfully completed and can demonstrate a one(1) year internship ‘General Practice’ program. Plus you must show evidence of practice as a non training grade registered General Practitioner (GP) or Dentist for a minimum of two(2) years experience

You hold a current and valid license to practice as a registered Medical Practitioner (General Practice) in your home country without any conditions or limitations

You are proficient in reading and writing English (all examinations conducted in English)

To apply for licensure as a ‘Specialist Physician\Dentist’ in work in the private sector in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi you are required to demonstrate the following:

You have successfully completed and hold an accredited recognized primary medical qualification in your own country

Specialization certificate obtained after a full time structured residency program/ course of no less than 3 years duration for Physicians and no less than 2 years duration for Dentists in a university center, teaching hospital or where appropriate, in a health establishment approved by the competent authorities.

No less than 3 years post certification

You hold a current and valid license to practice as a registered Specialist Physician in your home country without any conditions or limitations

You are proficient in reading and writing English (all examinations conducted in English)

To apply for licensure as a ‘Consultant Physician\Dentist’ in work in the private sector in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi you are required to demonstrate the following:

You have successfully completed and hold an accredited recognized primary medical qualification in your own country

Specialization certificate obtained after a full time structured residency program/ course of no less than 3 years duration in a university center, teaching hospital or where appropriate, in a health establishment approved by the competent authorities.

No less than 8 years post certification in an acute care hospital and no less than 3 years as Consultant

You hold a current and valid license to practice as a registered Specialist Physician in your home country without any conditions or limitations

You are proficient in reading and writing English (all examinations conducted in English)

LICENSING APPLICATION CHECKLIST

The following checklist provides you a guide on the documents that you are required to submit along with your application form. Proof of originals is required upon submission. All attached documents for licensing require legal English translation because these documents may have to be reviewed by Non – Arabic speaking officers.

Completed application form with completed declaration by Private Health Care Facility including their official stamp

Current and up to date detailed resume with 5 passport photographs

Passport and Visa (Residence or Visit) – valid and current

High school leaving certificate. This is not a strict requirement for Physicians, Dentists and pharmacists

Professional qualifications – Certificate/ Diploma/ Degree/ Post Graduate

Transcript of professional training – must include theory and clinical hours

Practicing Professional License – valid and current from home country

A certificate of ‘Good Standing’/ Registration or License from each country where you have been employed to meet minimum requirement of 2 years experience post internship If you worked in a country and for a government facility where you practiced on your ‘home license’ (e.g. Saudi Arabia) please ensure to summit certificate of employment in place of certificate of ‘good standing’

Relevant Experience:

Official certificate of service from an authorized person at health facility. Preferably from HR

Experience must be in a substantive post (Volunteer work and training is not acceptable)

Know your worth: How much do doctors get paid in the UAE?

Healthcare professionals seem to beat all odds in the UAE. Firstly, being a recession-proof industry, doctors did not see redundancies or job cuts. Secondly, the country is faced with a shortage of doctors and could easily absorb many healthcare professionals in the country.
According to figures released by the Saudi German Hospital-Dubai, the industry in the country faces a shortage of doctors and the number could go up to 56,920 by 2018. 

Going back to the basics of demand and supply, this translates into bigger salary and pay packages for doctors in the UAE.
If we compare the figures of Hays, an international recruitment company,  salaries of doctors in the UAE have gone up substantially over the past one year, when other industries were crying fowl of no increments and no bonuses. 

Last year’s figures of Hays, shows the average salary of a starting GP to be between Dh18,000 and Dh34,000 with housing and transport allowance.

This year, the salary of this category of professionals has gone up to Dh25,000–30,000. This means a GP working in the UAE got a hike of more than 35 per cent beating any kind of crisis.
Similarly, a general practitioner, who made Dh25000-35000 last year saw his personal income go up to Dh30,000-40,000. 

Consultant doctors get a plum salary of Dh73,000-Dh95,000 with profit sharing options whereas CEOs of large hospitals get paid an average salary of Dh100,000–150,000 per month with big yearly bonuses. 

“According to the input of UAE medical practitioners on our online remuneration benchmarking platform, associate specialists receive an average of up to Dh10,420, medical consultants receive an average of up to Dh39,560 and general practitioners receive an average of up to Dh26,236. However, salaries vary largely from one institution to another and also according to the academic and professional background of the person in question as salaries of doctors particularly depend to a very large extent on the certificates and the higher degrees they hold, in addition to their years of experience in the field and their specific areas of specialty and expertise,”

How to Convert or Transfer DHA License to HAAD?

We all know about the unification of Medical licenses in UAE was finalized and started this year. It is a good news for medical professionals about the Memorandum of Understanding between Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (HAAD). It is an agreement signed where a medical professional will be able to convert or transfer medical license from one issuing authority to another. i.e. like from DHA to HAAD etc. In a nutshell this change is to revive the recognition of medical licenses of health care professionals across the region.

Things are getting simpler but still some questions are asked on how to convert DHA license to HAAD, where to start the conversion process? what are the requirements for transfer of license, what is the fees, how many days are needed to complete this whole process of transfer?. You will find the answers of these questions as we are providing this information to those who can get benefit from this memorandum.

Things to remember firstThis step is quite important before you start the procedure to convert DHA License to HAAD. As you can't start your procedure just after passing your DHA Exam. First you have to be on a job with DHA License. Secondly, you should spend at least 6 months on the job. And fulfill the requirements needed for the transfer.Step by Step ProcedureFirst your would need a Good Standing certificate. It will cost 510 aed for normal process and it is available from your DHA account. If you need it urgent fees will be 1010 aed ( 2 -3 working days). Payment is done online and using a credit card.

• Create account on Data Flow HAAD section  (http://www.dataflowgroup.com/haad/login.aspx). Fill up the profile and upload all necessary documents required. 

• You should have your data flow report from DHA which is available in DHA account under the section of PSV. If you don't have this report you can always request it by sending an email to dha@dataflowgroup.com.

• If you don't have any sponsor upto now you can simply put in self-applicant. Process will be quite simple if you have you have a sponsor at this stage.

• Now you should expect a Payment notification from HAAD Data Flow. As you have PSV report with you already, you can send them back your PSV report to their email and wait for the next step

• As a next step HAAD will send you an email with your login details and direct link to HAAD website. Now login with the details sent to you into the online HAAD portal. Now upload and fill up again all necessary documents needed. Wait for their email or you can always check the status of application submitted in your HAAD account

We have tried our best to get you through the process to convert DHA License to HAAD license easily. Even if you need our assitance and any help at any stage you can always contact us for helping you our to transfer your DHA license to HAAD license easily.This process to convert DHA license to HAAD is more or less similar for most of the medical fields including Pharmacists, Assistant Pharmacists, Nursing, Radiologists, Dentists etc. Since this DHA and HAAD agreement things are getting simpler. It will open doors for more jobs in recent future. Many candidates and health professionals also wish to unify the examination process of DHA, HAAD and MOH Uae.HAAD stands for Health Authority of Abu Dhabi; DHA stands for Dubai Health Authority; Data Flow is a third party hired by MOH UAE, HAAD, DHA for verification of your documents from their original issuers; PSV stands for primary source verification; 

unified system to allow medical professionals to work anywhere in UAE

Doctors and nurses are able to practice anywhere in the country after the unified system, unifying the licensing of medical professionals was launched on 2014.

An agreement was signed by Abdul Rahman bin Mohammed Al Owais, the Minister of Health, Essa Al Maidoor, the director general of the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), and Dr Maha Barakat, director general of the Health Authority Abu Dhabi (Haad) on the sidelines of the Arab Health Exhibition and Congress earlier this year to make it easier for doctors to practice in different emirates.

The Ministry of Health, DHA and HAAD  implemented the system since 2014, 

"The agreement paves way for medical professionals to work across the UAE and is important as it unifies as well as streamlines the professional medical licensure process," said Mr Al Maidoor.

The move has several benefits for the healthcare sector, he said. 

It will also remove the confusion of getting licensing from various emirates.

"With the introduction of this process, all healthcare professionals will be evaluated based on the same criteria across the UAE," said Mr Al Maidoor. 

CONVERT A FOREIGN DRIVING LICENSE TO DRIVE IN DUBAI

​Transfer of Existing Driving License
You may be eligible to transfer your existing driving license, without having to take a driving test or going to a driving school, if you have a valid driving license from some countries. You have to be a citizen of the country given below with current resident status in UAE. This means that former residents from these countries who may be holding permanent driver licenses are not eligible and you will have to follow all the steps to get a new license as given here.

The countries from which citizens can transfer their driving licenses are given below:

Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States. (Please call RTA on 8009090 for any changes to this list)

Please note: Driving license holders of some countries in the above list will require translations or consulate letters. These countries include:
Canada: A letter from the Canadian Consulate in Dubai to verify that the license is genuine is required, before transferring your license.
Driving license holders from Greece, Canada, Cyprus, Poland, Turkey, Japan & South Korea will require a translation of their driving license from their respective consulates.


Fees & Documents Required: Passport for residents (original & copy) residence permit copy, current driving license (original & copy), translation of driving license (for some countries), consulate letter (for Canadians), 1 passport photo, eye test certificate & AED 360 for transfer fee and opening a driving file. Also required is a no-objection letter from your sponsor.

Easy Steps


1. Get an eye test done. This can be done at any hospital, clinic or optician. Give them 2 passport-sized photos and mention that it is for a driving license. Most opticians will not charge for the test, while there may be a small fee for others.
2. Carry all documents mentioned above & go to Dubai Traffic Department Driving License Section in Al Ghusais from 7.30 am to 2.30 pm on a working day. Ladies can go to the Ladies Section, where the work is even quicker.
3. Fill up application form & submit all documents to the officer.
4. Take signed documents from officer & pay AED 360 to the cashier.
5. Submit all documents at Data Entry Counter.
6. Your name will be called out and your photograph taken.
7. A few minutes later, you will receive your license.

HAAD Standard for Exemption from HAAD Examination

Health Authority – Abu Dhabi

The HAAD PQR sets out the categories of healthcare professions requiring HAAD licence to practise in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and the requirements to be satisfied in order to be granted a HAAD licence.HAAD has specified certain categories of healthcare professions and professionals to be eligible for exemption from all components of the HAAD examination requirement for licensure, subject to satisfying HAAD set criteria.

List of Competent Authorities recognised by HAAD and Healthcare Professions Exempted from Licensure Examination and Eligibility Criteria 
The following countries for the purposes of recognition of competent authority model in support of exemption from examination
Australia,
Canada,
Ireland,
New Zealand,
South Africa,
United Kingdom,
United States of America.