Article 209 of the Personal Status Law lists exactly six fixed-share fractions: two thirds, one third, one sixth, one half, one quarter and one eighth. That list does not describe every mode of inheritance. Article 206 separately recognises fixed shares, agnatic inheritance, both together, and inheritance through uterine relatives. Each fraction therefore has to be read with its trigger and the complete eligible heir set. The law has been in force since 15 April 2025. The worked cases below illustrate its arithmetic. They do not determine a reader's personal outcome.
Four payments come before any share
Article 201 of the Personal Status Law sets the sequence for an estate governed by its inheritance provisions, in this order: proper preparation of the funeral, settlement of debts "whether they are due to Allah (God) or to people", execution of the will within a one-third limit unless the heirs consent to exceed it, and only then division of the remainder among the heirs. The estate chapter of the new Civil Transactions Law (Federal Decree-Law 25 of 2025, in force 1 June 2026) adds the administrative layer around it: liquidation expenses come off the top with the priority of judicial expenses, and the court-supervised executor settles undisputed debts before anything is distributed. While all of that runs, the deceased's bank accounts sit frozen, which is why the accounts freeze, and what a family can still use.
Two consequences follow from the order. First, the one-third ceiling on the wasiyya, the bequest a Muslim can make by will, bites on the net estate. Article 173 executes the will "within the limits of one-third of the estate, after deducting the expenses of preparing the funeral of the deceased and settling his/her debts". Take an expressly illustrative calculation: AED 1,000,000 in UAE assets, AED 400,000 of debt and AED 30,000 in funeral-preparation expenses. The net base is AED 570,000, so the one-third ceiling is AED 190,000.
Second, the third has rules about direction as well as size. A bequest in favour of someone who is already an heir requires the approval of the other mature heirs, or a court-acknowledged likely interest, and it binds only the shares of those who consented (Article 184). Whether the beneficiary counts as an heir is judged at the date of death. One claim on the same third can also arrive by force of law: Article 179 gives orphaned grandchildren, whose parent died before the deceased, a mandatory bequest drawn from that one third.
Creditors are paid before family, and the testator's discretion operates on the net estate. The fixed-share calculations below begin only after those steps are complete.
The fixed shares, with the working shown
Article 210 lists who takes a fixed share: the husband, the wife, the father, the mother, the paternal grandfather, the grandmother, the daughter, the son's daughter, the full sister, the paternal sister, the maternal brother and the maternal sister. Article 206 names four statutory modes: a fixed share (fard), agnatic inheritance (ta'seeb), both modes together, and inheritance through uterine relatives (rahem). Fixed-share heirs take the fractions worked in this section. Agnatic heirs take the residue under later provisions, while some heirs can take in both modes. The classical terms still used by lawyers are furud (fixed shares) and asaba (residuary heirs).
What a widow and a widower receive
Article 212(1): the wife inherits one quarter if her husband leaves no inheriting descendant, and one eighth if he does. Article 211 gives the husband exactly double in both configurations: one half without an inheriting descendant, one quarter with one.
The trigger term matters more than the fraction. An "inheriting descendant" under Article 207 means the son and his descendants through the male line, and the daughter. A daughter counts, so a widow whose only child is a girl still takes one eighth. A grandchild through a daughter does not count as an inheriting descendant.
Where a man leaves more than one wife, Article 212(2) is blunt: the co-widows divide the share of one wife. The eighth, or the quarter, is a single block. Two widows of a father of children take one sixteenth each.
What the parents receive
The mother's share moves on two triggers (Article 215). She takes one sixth if the deceased left an inheriting descendant, or two or more siblings of any kind, and the statute adds "whether they are heirs or excluded". Otherwise she takes one third.
There is a special case, codified at Article 215(3): where the heirs are limited to the two parents plus one spouse, the mother takes one third of the remainder after the spouse's fixed share. That is a different number from one third of the whole. Worked: a man dies leaving his wife and both parents, no children, no siblings. The wife takes one quarter. The mother takes one third of the remaining three quarters, which is one quarter. The father takes the rest, one half. Giving the mother one third of the whole would be wrong under these facts. A related trap sits one generation up: where the heirs are a spouse, a mother and a grandfather, Article 214(3) sends the mother back to a third of the entire estate. The two rules look similar and give different numbers.
The father is the heir who can take in both modes at once (Article 213). With a male inheriting descendant, he takes one sixth as a fixed share. With a female inheriting descendant and no male, he takes one sixth plus whatever residue is left. With no inheriting descendant and no spouse, he takes the entire estate as a residuary.
Daughters, sons, and the 2:1 ratio
Article 217(1): one daughter alone takes one half as a fixed share; two or more daughters share two thirds. Article 217(2) is where the 2:1 ratio operates: where there is a son, the daughter takes no fixed share. She is pulled into the residue alongside her brother, "with the male receiving twice the share of the female".
A precision worth insisting on: the son appears nowhere in Article 210. He has no fixed share. Sons take the residue, and the sentence "a son gets two thirds and a daughter one third" is correct only where those two are the sole heirs after everyone else's fixed shares are paid. A worked example shows the difference. A man dies leaving a wife, one son and one daughter. The wife takes one eighth, which is 3/24. The residue is 21/24, split 2:1: the son takes 14/24, which is 7/12, and the daughter 7/24. Reverse the genders of the deceased: a woman leaves a husband, one son and one daughter. The husband takes one quarter, 3/12. The son takes 6/12 of the estate and the daughter 3/12 of the estate, together exhausting the 9/12 residue.
The 2:1 pattern repeats for the son's daughter with the son's son, the full sister with the full brother, and the paternal half-sister with the paternal half-brother (Articles 218 to 220). It is a rule about residuary pairs, and it has a statutory exception: where the deceased leaves a group of maternal half-siblings, Article 222 divides their collective one third equally among them, "without distinction between the male and female share".
One more worked case, because it combines everything above. A man dies leaving a wife, one daughter and both of his parents. In twenty-fourths: wife 3 (one eighth), daughter 12 (one half), mother 4 (one sixth), father 4 (one sixth). That totals 23/24, and the loose 1/24 goes to the father as residue on top of his sixth, for 5/24 in all. That totals 24/24.
The residue, and what happens when the fractions misfit
Fixed shares do not always sum neatly to one. The statute has machinery for both directions.
When they sum to less, the remainder goes to the residuary heirs, the agnates. Article 229: a sole agnate takes the entire estate; an agnate alongside a fixed-share heir takes what is left after the fixed shares. Article 230 orders competing agnates by class, then by closeness of degree, then by strength of kinship, with a full relative beating a paternal half-relative on the same side. Article 231 states the hard edge: agnates are dropped entirely if the fixed shares exhaust the estate. Being a residuary heir is a real entitlement that can be worth nothing.
Article 228 treats a full sister, together with a daughter or a son's daughter, as a brother in entitlement to the remainder, and she excludes the remoter agnates. This is how a daughters-only estate can route a slice to the deceased's sister. Worked: a man leaves a wife, two daughters and a full sister. Wife 3/24, daughters 16/24 between them (8/24 each), and the sister takes the remaining 5/24.
When the fixed shares sum to more than one, Article 232 reduces every share in proportion. The classical demonstration, run on the UAE articles: a woman dies leaving her husband, two daughters and both parents. Husband one quarter, daughters two thirds, mother one sixth, father one sixth. In twelfths that is 3 + 8 + 2 + 2 = 15/12, more estate promised than exists. So every share is rescaled onto fifteenths: husband 3/15, each daughter 4/15, mother 2/15, father 2/15. The father's usual residuary top-up is worth nothing here, since there is no residue to take. The reduction preserves everyone's position relative to everyone else.
The mirror case, an estate the fixed shares underfill with no residuary heir alive, is governed by the return rules in Article 233. The precise mechanics, including whether a surviving spouse participates in the return, turn on the full text of that article, and this guide deliberately stops short of stating the outcome. The same restraint applies to the full ordered ladder of residuary classes, which the statute fixes at Article 226: if your family's configuration depends on either of those provisions, that is a specific question for a UAE-licensed lawyer with the Arabic text in front of them. The Arabic prevails over every English translation.
The Fixed-Share Map
The Fixed-Share Map condenses the rules into an order-of-operations list and eight worked family configurations. Each row shows the heirs assumed for that illustration, their fractions and whether each amount is a fixed share or residue. It is a way to follow the statutory arithmetic, not a calculator of a reader's own legal outcome.
Part one: the order of operations
- Confirm that the UAE Personal Status Law applies. Then start from the gross UAE estate and deduct funeral and estate administration costs (Article 201; liquidation expenses rank with judicial expenses under the Civil Transactions Law).
- Deduct all debts. Creditors are settled before any heir sees anything.
- Apply any valid wasiyya, capped at one third of what is now left (Article 173), remembering the consent rule for bequests to heirs (Article 184) and the mandatory bequest for orphaned grandchildren (Article 179).
- Identify the complete set of surviving eligible relatives and pick out the fixed-share heirs from the Article 210 list.
- Assign each their fraction from Articles 211 to 222, checking every trigger: does an inheriting descendant exist, how many siblings, how many wives.
- Give any remainder to the residuary heirs, nearest first (Articles 229 to 231), including the Article 228 sister-with-daughters rule.
- If the fractions total more than one, scale them all down proportionally (Article 232). If they total less than one and no residuary heir exists, stop: Article 233 governs, and that case goes to a lawyer.
- Check the sum. A correctly run illustration totals exactly one.
Part two: eight configurations
Every row assumes the UAE Personal Status Law applies, the people named are the complete surviving eligible heir set, and no exclusion, mandatory bequest or other rule changes the calculation.
| \# | Family left behind | The split, worked | Fixed share or residue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wife, one son, one daughter | Wife 1/8 (3/24); son 14/24, which is 7/12; daughter 7/24 | Wife fixed; son and daughter share the residue at 2:1 |
| 2 | Husband, one son, one daughter | Husband 1/4 (3/12); son 6/12; daughter 3/12 | Husband fixed; children residue at 2:1 |
| 3 | Wife, one daughter, both parents | Wife 3/24; daughter 12/24; mother 4/24; father 4/24 plus the leftover 1/24, so 5/24 | Wife, daughter and mother fixed; father fixed plus residue (Article 213(2)) |
| 4 | Two wives, one son | Each wife 1/16, because the co-widows split the single 1/8 block (Article 212(2)); son 7/8 | Wives fixed, one shared block; son residue |
| 5 | Wife, two daughters, the deceased's full sister | Wife 3/24; daughters 8/24 each; sister 5/24 | Wife and daughters fixed; sister takes the remainder as an agnate with the daughters (Article 228) and excludes remoter male relatives |
| 6 | Wife and both parents, no children, no siblings | Wife 1/4; mother 1/4, being one third of the remainder after the wife (Article 215(3)); father 1/2 | Wife fixed; mother fixed, computed on the remainder; father residue |
| 7 | Husband, two daughters, both parents | Promised fractions total 15/12, so all are rescaled: husband 3/15; daughters 4/15 each; mother 2/15; father 2/15 | All fixed, reduced proportionally (awl, Article 232); the father's residuary claim yields nothing |
| 8 | Father only | Father takes the entire estate (Article 213(3)) | Residue |
A row that looks like a family does not settle that family's result. It shows the arithmetic under the assumptions stated above. Grandparents, paternal half-siblings, an underfilled estate with no residuary heir, an excluded heir or a choice-of-law question can change the analysis and should be put to a UAE-licensed lawyer.
The civil track that runs beside it
Two profiles sit at the edge of this rulebook and are handled separately: a non-practising Muslim expat choosing a registry and a mixed-faith couple.
Since 1 February 2023 the UAE has operated a second, parallel system: Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2022 on Civil Personal Status. Article 1(1) applies it to non-Muslim UAE citizens and non-Muslim foreign residents, for marriage, divorce, inheritance, wills and parentage, unless the person opts for the law of their home country. Registration follows the same religious line: Cabinet Resolution 122 of 2023 makes it a condition that the testator be non-Muslim, and the DIFC Courts register non-Muslim wills only. Which registry route fits which profile is its own decision, with its own trade-offs.
What a registered will controls on this track is broad. Article 11(1) gives the testator the right to leave "the entire property he owns in the State in favor of anybody he wants", subject to controls in the Executive Regulations. There is no one-third ceiling and no consent requirement for benefiting an heir. Registration alone moves no title, though: ownership transfers to the beneficiary by court order or judgment (Article 38 of the Regulations).
Without a registered will, Article 11(2) supplies the civil default: half the estate to the surviving spouse, the other half divided equally among the children with no differentiation between male and female. With no children, the estate goes to the parents equally, or half to the surviving parent and half to the siblings; with no parents, everything goes to the siblings in equal shares regardless of gender. An honest gap to flag: the article as drafted never states the spouse's share where there are no children but a parent or sibling survives. That configuration is unresolved on the face of the text, and anyone in it should put the question to a lawyer rather than trust any table found online, including this one.
Some families look at the Sharia rows above and find them close to what they would have chosen anyway; a father of one son and one daughter may see row 1 and shrug. Other configurations produce different results, including the only-daughters and second-marriage illustrations above. Article 11(3) adds a further moving part: absent a registered will, any single heir may ask for the law applicable under the conflict-of-laws rules to govern the estate instead. A registered will is what closes that door. In a family whose members live in different countries with different interests, that sentence is a strong procedural argument for registering.
Debts and expenses rank ahead of every beneficiary on either track: the civil Executive Regulations order funeral expenses, estate administration, the executor's remuneration and debts before the will is executed, mirroring Article 201 on the Islamic side. A DIFC employee savings (DEWS) balance follows the scheme's beneficiary nomination, with a Sharia default where no nomination exists. Employment dues are different. Wages and end-of-service gratuity remain estate assets even though Article 15 of the Labour Law directs the employer to hand them to the family, or to a family member nominated in writing, within ten days. Where the payout actually lands is a separate subject with its own traps.
Both systems have moved repeatedly since 2020, and older articles cite repealed laws by dead article numbers; the dated ledger of rule changes tracks what changed and when. How the default interacts with a specific nationality's home law is covered country by country in UAE inheritance by nationality.
Last updated: 25 July 2026 · Changelog: 2026-07-25: first published.
Frequently asked questions
Does the wife of a Muslim husband always receive one eighth?
One eighth applies where the husband leaves an inheriting descendant: a son, a daughter, or a grandchild through the male line (Articles 207 and 212). Without one, her share is one quarter. Two details follow from those provisions. The trigger includes daughters, so a widow whose only children are girls still takes one eighth. And where there are co-widows, the eighth or the quarter is one block divided among them, so two widows of a father of children receive one sixteenth each (Article 212(2)).
Do daughters always receive half of what sons receive?
The 2:1 ratio operates where a daughter inherits alongside a son: both take the residue, with the male counted at twice the female (Article 217(2)). Where there is no son, one daughter takes one half and two or more share two thirds as fixed shares, with the balance passing to residuary heirs, if any. If none exists, Article 233 governs the return and the outcome should be checked by a UAE-licensed lawyer. The statute contains an exception to the 2:1 pattern: maternal half-siblings divide their collective one third equally, male and female alike (Article 222). On the civil track, children split their half of the estate equally regardless of gender.
Can a Muslim expatriate in Dubai choose a different inheritance law?
The Personal Status Law applies to non-UAE citizens "unless one of them insists on applying his/her law" or another permitted agreed law (Article 1(3) of Federal Decree-Law 41 of 2024), and the Civil Transactions Law points succession to the law of the deceased's nationality, with UAE law governing a foreigner's will over UAE real estate. The federal civil register requires a non-Muslim testator under Cabinet Resolution 122 of 2023, and the DIFC registers non-Muslim wills only. Dubai Courts and ADJD accept wills from Muslims, though practitioners report such wills must comply with Sharia. How the choice-of-law route works for a particular nationality is a question for a UAE-licensed lawyer.
How much can a Muslim leave by will, and to whom?
Up to one third of the net estate, calculated after funeral costs and debts (Article 173). A bequest to someone who is already an heir needs the approval of the other mature heirs, or a court-acknowledged interest (Article 184), judged at the date of death. Article 182 declares a will valid across a difference of religion. Two further rules shape the third: orphaned grandchildren whose parent predeceased hold a mandatory claim on it (Article 179), and heirs can consent to a bequest exceeding one third (Article 193).
Does a non-Muslim wife inherit from a Muslim husband?
On the Sharia track she is barred as an heir: Article 205(1) lists difference of religion among the cases precluding inheritance, and the bar is stated without qualification. Article 182 expressly validates a will despite a difference of religion, so advisers commonly structure provision for her through the one-third bequest. The reasoning is that a person barred as an heir falls outside the Article 184 consent rule, though the statute never spells that chain out in terms. This configuration should be written out by a UAE-licensed lawyer before anyone relies on it.
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