Last updated: 11 August 2026
There is no single per-page rate for legal translation in Dubai, and any office quoting one before seeing your document is guessing. Six factors move the number, and understanding them is the difference between a fair quote and an expensive surprise.
Why we do not publish a price list: a one-page birth certificate and a one-page share transfer clause take very different amounts of work. Pricing by page alone rewards the office and penalises the client with dense documents.
The six factors that decide your quote
1. Word count, not page count
A “page” is not a unit of work. A death certificate might carry 90 words; a page of a shareholders’ agreement can carry 600. Serious offices count words or lines.
2. Document type and legal density
Certificates follow fixed templates and move quickly. Contracts, judgments and memoranda contain defined terms that must stay consistent across the whole file — that is review time, not typing time.
3. Language pair
English ↔ Arabic is the highest-volume pair and therefore the most competitively priced. Rarer pairs cost more because far fewer sworn translators are registered for them. See translation by language.
4. Urgency
Same-day delivery means displacing other scheduled work. It is legitimate for that to cost more — what is not legitimate is charging urgency fees without telling you in advance.
5. Certification and stamps required
A translation for internal reference, one stamped for a court, and one prepared for embassy attestation are three different deliverables.
6. Source quality
A sharp PDF is fastest. A blurred phone photo of a stamped page adds reading time before translation even begins — and increases the risk of an error that gets the file rejected.
What should never appear on your invoice
- Re-typing fees for sending a photo instead of a file.
- Charges for correcting the office’s own error — a rejection caused by a mistranslation is their cost.
- Undisclosed urgency surcharges appearing only at collection.
- Per-stamp fees that were not quoted upfront.
Cheap quotes that end up expensive
The rejection risk is the real cost. A document refused at a court counter or a free-zone desk costs you the re-translation, the second trip and — if a deadline passes — far more than the difference between two quotes. The Federal Decree-Law No. 22 of 2022 framework exists precisely because unqualified translation carries consequences.
How to compare two quotes properly
| Ask | What a straight answer sounds like |
|---|---|
| Is the price final? | “Yes, confirmed before we start” |
| Is the translator MOJ-registered? | A clear yes, not “we are certified” |
| Is the stamp included? | Included, not billed separately at collection |
| What if it is rejected? | Re-done at their cost if the error is theirs |
| Who does the work? | In-house, not outsourced onward |
Want the real number for your document?
Send a clear photo or PDF and tell us the receiving authority and your deadline. You get a fixed price before any work begins.
See also: what determines legal translation cost · turnaround times · what certified translation means under UAE law.
