*Educational guide, not legal advice. Every row below lists its source and a last-verified date.*
How to read this page
The Reform Ledger lists six reforms in date order. Each row uses the issue or in-force date, identifies the scope, names its source and carries a last-verified stamp. Primary and verified sources support settled rows; lawyer-reviewed research supports the rows marked as such; pending detail stays labelled. The page is checked quarterly and when a reform lands. It answers what changed and when, while document-specific questions belong in the separate review guide.
The Reform Ledger
The table is the product. Six rows, in date order. Where a commencement date is pending confirmation on a primary source, the row says so.
| Date | Instrument | What changed | Who it touches | Source (last verified 2026-07-23) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Federal Decree-Law 30/2020 (Civil Code amendment) | art. 17.1 as amended points inheritance to the law of the deceased's nationality at the time of death. UAE real estate stays governed by UAE law. Without a registered will, practice applies the defaults. | Non-Muslim expats and anyone holding UAE assets without a registered will. | Horizons & Co, text of art. 17.1 as amended in 2020. |
| 1 February 2023 (in force) | Federal Decree-Law 41/2022, Civil Personal Status for non-Muslims | A civil framework applies to non-Muslim residents for marriage, divorce, succession and wills, unless a party invokes the application of their own law. This is the base for the registered-will opt-in. | Non-Muslim residents; the foundation of the civil opt-in route. | Chambers and Lexis Middle East (in-force date); conflictoflaws.net (art. 1 text). |
| 2025, in force 1 June 2026 | Federal Decree-Law 25/2025 (new Civil Transactions Law, repealing Federal Law 5/1985) | UAE assets of a foreigner who leaves no heir become a charitable endowment (waqf) under the competent authority, art. 17(2). The nationality pointer for succession survives at art. 17(1), and UAE law still governs a foreigner's will over immovable property in the State. | Anyone whose estate could end up heirless, and every reader relying on a citation to the 1985 civil code. | UAE legislation portal; confirmed by two independent firm briefings. |
| 14 March 2025 | Dubai Law No. 2 of 2025 | DIFC Courts hold exclusive jurisdiction over enforcement of DIFC non-Muslim wills (art. 31(5)), with a direct enforcement writ. Dubai Courts are excluded from probate of DIFC wills. | Anyone with a DIFC-registered will. | difccourts.ae official PDF; James Berry, CMS. |
| April 2025 (in force) | New federal personal status law | A new general federal personal status law entered into force. | General population; expats where it interacts with the civil framework. | conflictoflaws.net (academic). |
| 2025 (counsel review pending) | ADJD opening to non-GCC Muslim expats | The ADJD will route opened to non-GCC Muslim expats. | Muslim expats from outside the GCC. | Lawyer-reviewed legal research; dedicated guidance pending counsel review. |
Source labels mark evidential status. Primary means the official instrument or schedule itself, such as the DIFC Courts PDF behind the March enforcement row. Verified means a named professional resource or database confirmed by another source; Chambers and Lexis Middle East agree on the February 2023 in-force date. Academic sources can establish provision text, while contentious interpretation receives cautious wording. Lawyer-reviewed identifies research that passed compliance review while public primary text remains pending. Last verified means the named source was reopened on 23 July 2026 and the row was checked against it. When a source changes, the row updates and the changelog line records the edit.
The date column uses the legal commencement or issue date. The page's publication date serves a different purpose, and the last-verified stamp records the latest source check. This distinction matters for a 2024 instrument whose precise commencement remains under review.
Two source boundaries matter. The commencement date of 1 June 2026 is confirmed in Article 3 of the decree-law itself. The ADJD row remains generic pending counsel review.
These rows layer on top of each other. The 2020 amendment set the default pointer for inheritance. The 2023 civil framework gave non-Muslims a statutory route to opt into a civil system through a registered will or an election. The 2025 DIFC enforcement rule strengthened the position after a registered DIFC will exists by giving its enforcement a direct path through the DIFC Courts. Read in order, the ledger shows a system moving from a home-country-law default toward registered instruments that an expat can put in place while alive.
One substantive point buried in the 2020 row deserves to be surfaced. Even where inheritance is pointed to the law of the deceased's nationality, UAE real estate stays governed by UAE law under art. 17 of the Civil Transactions Law. A foreign will or nationality-law election leaves Dubai property in the UAE system. That carve-out predates the 2020 amendment and survives it, so it applies to wills on both sides of the line.
Registry fee changes get a row here when they are confirmed on the official schedule.
What each wave means if you already have a will
A changelog answers "what changed". The question most readers actually have is narrower: does this row touch the will sitting in my drawer? Here is the short version, two lines per wave.
2020, Civil Code amendment. If your will predates 2020, it was written before the default rule pointed to your nationality law. The amendment changed the intestacy default, so an older document now sits against a different rule from the one it assumed.
February 2023, civil framework. A will signed before February 2023 predates the civil opt-in in its current form. The registered-will route it relies on is now well established, which works in your favour, and its wording should match the framework as it stands today.
2024, heirless estates. This row reaches estates where no recognised heir exists. If a beneficiary list has gaps, the default now sends an heirless estate to the State Waqf, which merits a second look.
March 2025, DIFC enforcement. If you hold a DIFC will, this row strengthens your position because enforcement now runs directly through the DIFC Courts. A pre-2025 will benefits from the same direct path, although its original wording assumed a different enforcement route.
April 2025, new federal personal status law. A will written before April 2025 predates a law that now applies across the personal status field. A review checks how the two interact.
2025, ADJD opening. If you are a Muslim expat from outside the GCC, the ADJD route became available in 2025. The detail is pending counsel review.
A recent will may already fit every listed reform exactly as drafted. Checking its date against the ledger confirms that position. The full clause-by-clause check lives in the twin guide: whether your existing will still fits the current rules.
What we are watching
The open items below determine the next updates.
The endowment rule commencement date: resolved, and the earlier citation corrected. Earlier versions of this ledger followed the widely repeated reference to a "Federal Decree-Law 51/2024" on heirless estates, with a commencement date said to fall in January 2026. Checking the legislation portal directly, no such succession instrument exists: Federal Decree-Law 51/2023 is the bankruptcy law. The endowment rule is article 17(2) of Federal Decree-Law 25/2025, the new Civil Transactions Law, which repeals Federal Law 5/1985 and comes into effect on 1 June 2026. The ledger row above now carries that citation.
The ADJD opening to non-GCC Muslim expats. The opening is confirmed in legal research, which is why it holds a row. Detailed guidance on eligibility and the route in practice is pending counsel review.
The Dubai Courts Notary fee. Figures between AED 2,167 and AED 3,000 circulate for single-will notarisation on this route. The number is due for re-verification at the next quarterly fee check.
Registry fee schedule changes. The DIFC and ADJD fee schedules change from time to time. A confirmed change gets a dated row here, with the official schedule named as the source.
Any 2026 reform. The ledger adds a reform after confirmation on a primary or verified source. As of the last verification, it records Federal Decree-Law 25/2025 as the confirmed 2026 reform, in force 1 June 2026.
When any of these confirms, it moves up into the ledger with a source and a date.
Last updated: 25 July 2026 · Changelog: 2026-07-23: first published. · Changelog: 2026-07-25: corrected the heirless-estate row. The rule is article 17(2) of Federal Decree-Law 25/2025, in force 1 June 2026; the previously cited "Federal Decree-Law 51/2024" does not exist as a succession law.
Frequently asked questions
Did the UAE abolish Sharia inheritance for expats?
No. The reforms create a civil route that non-Muslims can opt into, typically through a registered will or an election of their own law. The civil personal status framework for non-Muslims (Federal Decree-Law 41/2022) applies to non-Muslim residents unless a party invokes the application of their own law, and the 2020 Civil Code amendment points inheritance to the law of the deceased's nationality. Without a registered will or an election, the default rules still apply. For UAE real estate in particular, art. 17 of the Civil Transactions Law keeps the property under UAE law regardless of any nationality election. The route requires an opt-in.
Is a new law coming in 2026?
As of the last verification, the confirmed 2026 reform in this ledger is Federal Decree-Law 25/2025, in force 1 June 2026. A confirmed reform gets a dated row with its source attached.
Do the 2025 changes affect ADJD wills?
The March 2025 change (Dubai Law No. 2 of 2025) concerns DIFC will enforcement specifically: it gives the DIFC Courts exclusive jurisdiction over enforcement of DIFC non-Muslim wills, with a direct enforcement writ. ADJD is a separate registry. The 2025 row that touches ADJD is the opening to non-GCC Muslim expats, logged separately with the detail pending counsel review.
Where do these dates come from?
Each row carries its source. The in-force date for the civil framework comes from Chambers and Lexis Middle East, and the article text from conflictoflaws.net. The DIFC enforcement details come from the official difccourts.ae PDF and from CMS. The text of the 2020 amendment comes from Horizons & Co. The heirless-estate rule and the ADJD opening come from lawyer-reviewed legal research. Every row was last verified on 2026-07-23.
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