United Arab Emirates

Visas and entry

There are two routes and which one you take depends on what else is in your passport.

Visa on arrival is available to Indian passport holders who also hold a valid visa or residence permit for the United States, the United Kingdom or the Schengen area — including a US green card. It runs 14 days and can be extended once. Your passport needs at least six months of validity.

Everyone else needs a visa before flying, arranged through an airline, hotel or tour operator rather than applied for directly. Tourist visas come in 14, 30 and 60-day versions, single or multiple entry. We arrange this as part of the booking and tell you exactly which one you are getting.

Two things that catch people out: immigration can ask for a return ticket, a hotel booking and evidence of funds, so keep all three on your phone; and a visa refused or overstayed anywhere in the GCC will follow you here.

Money

The dirham, written AED or Dh, and pegged to the US dollar at a fixed 3.6725 — which is why the rate barely moves and why a price quoted here in dirhams six months ahead means something. One dirham is roughly ₹26, so a Dh 100 lunch is about ₹2,600. Treat that as indicative and check the week you travel.

Cards work everywhere, including in taxis and at most souq stalls. Carry a little cash for the abra across Dubai Creek, which costs a dirham, and for tipping. Indian rupees are not accepted anywhere and UPI is accepted at a growing but still small handful of merchants — do not plan around it.

Tourists can reclaim the 5% VAT on shopping at the airport, which is worth doing if you have bought gold or electronics. Keep the tagged receipts and allow an extra thirty minutes before your flight.

The country in brief

Size

83,600 km², a little larger than Andhra Pradesh

Made of

7 emirates — Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah

People

About 11 million, of whom roughly one in ten is an Emirati citizen

Indians here

Around 3.5 million — the largest nationality in the country

Highest point

Jebel Jais, 1,934 m, in Ras Al Khaimah

Founded

2 December 1971

Clock

UTC+4 — an hour and a half behind IST

Traffic

Drives on the right, unlike home

Two worth carrying. Abu Dhabi is about 87% of the country’s land area, which means the emirate everyone talks about is a small corner of the map. And the working week runs Monday to Friday with a half-day Friday — the UAE moved off the Gulf weekend in 2022 and is the only country in the region that did.

Plugs and power

Sockets are the British three-pin type G, at 230 volts and 50 hertz. Your Indian round-pin plugs will not fit, so pack one universal adapter — the same one you would take to the UK — and everything else in your bag works unchanged.

Most hotels keep a box of adapters at reception and will lend you one, but not on a busy check-in evening.

230 volts, 50 hertz — the same as home, so nothing needs a converter.

Language

Arabic is the official language and English is the working one. Every sign, menu, ticket machine and government form is bilingual, and you can complete an entire trip without learning a word of Arabic.

The more useful fact for an Indian traveller: Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu are spoken in most shops, taxis and hotels, because the people in them are from home. Ordering in your own language is normal here, not a lucky break.

How the country is run

A federation of seven emirates, each with its own hereditary ruler, governed together through a Federal Supreme Council. The ruler of Abu Dhabi is the president and the ruler of Dubai is the prime minister, by long-standing convention rather than by election.

What matters to a visitor is that the emirates set many of their own rules. Alcohol, dress codes, licensing and public behaviour are decided locally, which is why Sharjah is dry and Dubai is not, and why the answer to “is this allowed here” genuinely changes across a thirty-kilometre drive.

Worth knowing before you go

The laws that catch visitors out are mostly about behaviour in public, and they are enforced. Drinking or being drunk outside a licensed venue, public displays of affection beyond holding hands, rude gestures in traffic, and swearing at someone — including in a WhatsApp message — are all offences here. So is photographing people, and especially women and children, without asking.

Drugs carry severe penalties and the definition is broader than you expect: several prescription and over-the-counter medicines that are ordinary in India are controlled substances here, codeine and tramadol among them. If you take anything regularly, carry the prescription and check the list before you pack.

During Ramadan, eating, drinking and smoking in public during daylight is not done, visitor or not. Restaurants stay open behind screens and hotels serve normally. The dates move about eleven days earlier each year; we confirm them when we quote.

Beyond that it is one of the safest countries you will travel in. Solo women travel comfortably, the tap water is drinkable, and leaving a phone on a café table is a risk in the sense that it might rain.