Is a bounced cheque still a criminal offence in the UAE or a civil matter?

For ordinary insufficient-funds cases, a bounced cheque stopped being a crime in 2022 — it is now primarily a civil debt matter. The reform that took effect that year decriminalised the standard scenario and instead made the dishonoured cheque an executive document: your supplier can take it straight to the execution court and enforce payment against you, with measures such as account freezes and asset attachment, but that is debt enforcement, not arrest. Criminal liability survives only for fraud-type conduct around the cheque — for example deliberately closing the account, emptying it before the cheque could be presented, or instructing the bank to refuse payment without a valid reason. If your cheque simply bounced because funds were short, the police threat is mostly leverage; what the supplier can realistically do is enforce civilly, and a court process about the debt is still serious for your accounts and assets. The constructive move is to engage now: contact the supplier, acknowledge the amount, and negotiate settlement or a written payment schedule before an execution file is opened, because terms agreed early are always better than terms imposed. A UAE lawyer can review the circumstances of your specific cheque and confirm which side of the line it falls on.