The Naturalization & Residency Prosecution in Dubai: What It Handles and What Happens After a Referral

Direct answer. The Naturalization & Residency Prosecution is the specialised branch of the Dubai Public Prosecution that investigates crimes under the UAE's entry and residence law, Federal Decree-Law No. 29 of 2021. The Dubai Government Media Office calls it the Dubai Citizenship and Residency Prosecution. In a 2025 case reported by the Media Office, the prosecution referred the defendants to the Dubai Citizenship and Residency Court. It deals with crimes, not routine overstay fines. A daily overstay fine is administrative, not criminal: GDRFA Dubai collects it and can reduce it. Forging residence papers, employing or harbouring people without valid status, misusing a visa or leaving residency fines unpaid can instead lead to an investigation, a court sentence and deportation. This guide explains what the office handles, how a file reaches it, the possible outcomes, and how to follow a case.

What the Naturalization & Residency Prosecution is

It is a prosecution office in Dubai that deals only with nationality and residency offences.

Public prosecutions in the UAE are divided into offices. Some handle crime in general; others handle one type of crime. Abu Dhabi's Judicial Department describes these specialised offices as prosecutions that investigate and decide on a particular type of crime. It lists a Nationality and Residency Prosecution among them (ADJD). Dubai has its own office of this kind inside the Dubai Public Prosecution.

You will see several English names for the Dubai office. They are all translations of one Arabic name.

The office belongs to the criminal process, not the visa process. To renew, cancel or correct a visa, you deal with GDRFA Dubai or with the federal authority, ICP. GDRFA Dubai is now called the General Directorate of Identity and Foreigners Affairs; its older name was the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs. ICP is the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security. The prosecution becomes involved only when conduct may be a crime.

For how prosecutors work in general, from complaint to trial, see our guide to how the UAE Public Prosecution works. The public prosecution entry in our dictionary gives a short definition.

Administrative fine or criminal case: the line that matters

The same overstay can be an administrative fine or, if ignored, a criminal case.

Federal Decree-Law No. 29 of 2021 runs on two tracks. One is administrative and belongs to the residency authorities. The other is criminal and belongs to the prosecution and the courts.

On the administrative side, Article 11 imposes a fine for each day a person stays after a visa or permit is cancelled or expires. The fine starts once the periods set in the Executive Regulation have run out. A Cabinet resolution sets the amount. Article 13 lets the ICP chairman or his authorised representative exempt a person from all or part of that fine. GDRFA Dubai runs two matching services:

• Fine collection for violators of the residency law. It works online at any hour and at Amer centres, with no service fee beyond the fines themselves (GDRFA).
• Fine exemption, a request to waive or reduce the fine. It asks for a passport copy, a letter explaining the violation and the inability to pay, and any document the Fines Committee requests (GDRFA).

Amounts and grace periods change, so this guide does not quote them. Our guide to checking and paying overstay fines explains how to see what you owe today.

The two tracks meet at Article 29. A person who fails to pay the Article 11 or Article 12 fines can be punished with imprisonment of up to three months or a fine of up to AED 4,000. The court may also order deportation. An unpaid overstay fine is therefore not just a debt. Left alone, it can become a criminal file for the Naturalization & Residency Prosecution.

Offences the prosecution handles under the entry and residence law

The crimes it deals with are in Articles 21 to 31 of Federal Decree-Law No. 29 of 2021. Article 33 sends the smuggling and forgery crimes (Articles 22 and 24) to the Federal Supreme Court.

The table summarises the penalties as they appear in the published text of the law. Article 20 adds that a harsher penalty in another law still applies. Check the current text before relying on a figure, because laws are amended.

Several rules make these offences hard to soften:

• Fines under Article 25 multiply with the number of people involved, up to AED 5 million.
• The general rules on mitigating circumstances do not apply to Article 25 crimes.
• Article 32 rules out suspended sentences, replacement penalties and judicial pardon for all of these crimes.
• Article 31 punishes an attempt, or helping someone else, with the same penalty as the main offender.
• Article 33 sends the smuggling and forgery crimes in Articles 22 and 24 to the Federal Supreme Court. Other courts hear the rest.

Article 25 also contains the employer's exemption. A sponsor who reports, under the Executive Regulation, that a recruited worker has left work is exempt from the Article 25 penalty. This is the legal root of the absconding report. Our guide to absconding reports explains how they are filed, checked and removed, so we do not repeat it here.

A real case from 2025

In June 2025 the Dubai Government Media Office reported one of the office's largest cases (Media Office). GDRFA Dubai had flagged 21 suspects and their companies through monitoring and inspections. The prosecution investigated and referred them to the Dubai Citizenship and Residency Court, which convicted all 21.

• The case covered 33 commercial establishments and 385 residence visas.
• Most trade licences used fictitious addresses, and the offices did not exist.
• The companies closed without regularising the status of the workers they had recruited.
• The court imposed fines totalling AED 25.21 million.

The release links the case to the misuse of both residency and labour rules. The prosecution said it would keep tackling breaches of the entry and residence law and the labour relations law, Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021. One set of facts can break both laws at once.

How a case reaches the prosecution

Most files start with GDRFA Dubai or the police, then move to a prosecutor for investigation.

A file usually opens in one of these ways:

• An inspection by GDRFA Dubai of a company, home or worksite, as in the 2025 case.
• An arrest by the police of a person found without valid status.
• A report by an employer, a sponsor or a member of the public.

Once the file reaches the prosecution, the Criminal Procedure Law, Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2022, governs the investigation. Four of its rules matter at this stage:

1. The charge is put to you. At your first questioning, the prosecutor records your identity, tells you the charge and records your answers (Article 97).
2. Your lawyer may attend. A lawyer may attend the questioning and review the papers, unless the prosecutor decides otherwise for the investigation (Article 98).
3. The prosecutor can secure your presence. The prosecutor may issue a notice to appear, an arrest warrant or a travel ban. A travel ban is circulated to every port in the UAE (Article 99).
4. Proceedings are in Arabic. If you do not speak Arabic, the prosecutor may use an approved interpreter (Article 8).

Administrative deportation is a separate power, outside any criminal case. Under Article 15 of the entry and residence law, the Federal Public Prosecutor or the ICP chairman may order an administrative deportation on grounds such as public interest or public security. A person whose deportation has been ordered can be held for up to 30 days, extendable for a similar period, with the Federal Public Prosecutor's approval. Our guide to deportation in the UAE compares judicial and administrative deportation and the routes to challenge each.

If you are held during a criminal case, ask whether release on a guarantee is possible. Our guide to release on bail explains how it works.

If you receive a summons

• Go on the date given, to the address on the summons, with your passport or Emirates ID.
• Bring copies of the visa, labour or company documents that relate to the allegation.
• Ask for the case number and the exact charge, and write both down.
• Say at the start if you need an interpreter.
• Ask for your statement to be read back to you in a language you understand before you sign it.

What happens after a referral: four possible outcomes

After investigating, the prosecutor can close the file, decide it by criminal order, or send it to court.

Article 336 of the Criminal Procedure Law describes these three paths. Deportation can attach to the last two. In practice a residency file ends in one of four ways.

1. The file is closed

If the evidence does not support a charge, the prosecutor can decide not to take the case further. Closing the criminal file does not erase an administrative fine. Any overstay fine still stands and is paid or waived through GDRFA Dubai.

2. A criminal order: a fine without a trial

For some misdemeanours, the prosecutor can decide the case alone by a criminal order, often called a penal order. Articles 336 to 343 set the rules:

• The fine cannot exceed half of the maximum the law sets for the offence (Article 339).
• You can object within seven days. An objection cancels the order and the case continues in the normal way (Article 342).
• Paying the fine makes the order final (Article 343).

Not every residency offence qualifies. The Attorney General decides which misdemeanours are eligible (Article 337). The law also excludes two groups outright (Article 338). The first is offences whose penalty the law does not allow to be reduced. The second is offences for which the law requires deportation. That rules out, for example, harbouring or visa misuse by a foreigner (Articles 25 and 27). Whether a lesser charge can end by criminal order depends on the Attorney General's list, so ask the prosecutor or your lawyer.

3. Trial in court

Serious or contested cases go to court. In the 2025 case, the prosecution referred the defendants to the Dubai Citizenship and Residency Court. Forgery and smuggling cases under Articles 24 and 22 fall to the Federal Supreme Court under Article 33. The court sets the sentence within the limits in the table above. A Dubai court's judgment can be appealed; Federal Supreme Court judgments generally cannot. Our public prosecution guide covers the appeal stage.

4. Deportation, with or without a sentence

Deportation can follow from several rules at once:

• The entry and residence law makes deportation mandatory for some crimes (Articles 21, 22, 24, 25 and 27). It leaves it to the court for others (Articles 23 and 29). Under Article 25, it is mandatory for the foreigner employed or harboured illegally. The court must also deport a foreign employer or harbourer, but only on a repeat offence.
• The Crimes and Penalties Law, Federal Decree-Law No. 31 of 2021, deports a foreigner sentenced to a custodial penalty for a felony. If the sentence for a misdemeanour is custodial, the court may order deportation as well, or instead of that penalty, unless the law says otherwise (Article 126). Article 126 then adds an exception to that misdemeanour rule and to any other law. A foreigner who was a UAE citizen's spouse or first-degree blood relative when the crime was committed cannot be sentenced to deportation, except for State-security crimes. The article does not list the felony rule among the rules this exception overrides.
• A person who has been deported cannot return without the ICP chairman's permission (Article 18 of the entry and residence law).

For re-entry bans and how to ask for one to be lifted, see our guide to immigration bans and blacklist removal and the deportation entry in our dictionary.

What about a settlement?

The entry and residence law contains no private settlement route for these crimes. When people talk about "settling" a residency case, they usually mean one of three things:

• Paying a criminal-order fine, which makes the order final (Article 343 of the Criminal Procedure Law).
• Paying, or getting a waiver of, the administrative fines through GDRFA Dubai (Article 13).
• Using a status-settlement or amnesty window. Article 35 lets the Cabinet settle violators' situations and organise exemptions. Each window has its own scope and dates. Our guide to past amnesty windows explains how the last one worked.

How to check or follow a case

Use official channels only; the right one depends on where the file sits.

• At the prosecution stage. The Dubai Public Prosecution website has offered a case inquiry in which nationality and residency is one of the case types. The site did not load when we checked on 5 November 2026. Use the current Dubai Public Prosecution website or app, or ask at the office named on your summons.
• Once the case is in court. Use the Dubai Courts case inquiry with the court case number. Our guide to Dubai court case inquiry walks through it.
• For a travel ban. A prosecution travel ban is circulated to the ports. See checking a travel ban by passport and the travel ban dictionary entry.
• For the administrative side. GDRFA Dubai shows and collects residency fines online and at Amer centres. It lists 8005111 as its toll-free number (GDRFA). Our guide to checking visa fines covers both the ICP and GDRFA lookups.
• Through a lawyer. A lawyer may review the investigation papers under Article 98. That shows what the file actually contains, not just its status.

Dubai and the other emirates

The offences are federal, so the same articles apply everywhere in the UAE.

Who prosecutes depends on the emirate. Dubai's cases go through its own Public Prosecution and courts, as described above. Abu Dhabi's Judicial Department lists its own Nationality and Residency Prosecution. In other emirates, the summons or the court file names the prosecution handling the case. For which court system covers which emirate, see which court handles your case.

Practical steps for workers, sponsors and companies

A few habits keep a residency problem administrative rather than criminal.

If you are an employee or a visitor:

• Check your status and any fines before a visa expires, not after.
• Pay overstay fines, or apply for a waiver, instead of leaving them unpaid (Article 29).
• Never use a "fixer" who offers documents outside official channels. Forging residence papers carries up to 10 years, and knowingly using forged papers carries the same penalty (Article 24).

If you sponsor or employ people:

• Employ only people whose visa lets them work for you (Articles 25 and 27).
• If a worker stops coming to work, report it through the official channel. A report made under the Executive Regulation exempts you from the Article 25 penalty.
• Before closing a company, regularise the status of every sponsored worker. The 2025 case turned on companies that closed without doing so.
• Do not house or hire people who entered illegally. The minimum is two months in prison and AED 100,000 (Article 25).

When to get legal help

Get advice as soon as you receive a summons, learn of a travel ban, or hear that a file has gone to court. A lawyer can attend questioning, read the file, ask for a criminal order where the law allows one, and challenge a deportation order. Our guide to your rights when arrested or charged covers the wider criminal process. If you need advice on your own facts, you can find a criminal lawyer on LEXAI and contact them directly.

This guide is general information about UAE law as published, not legal advice. Law texts, fines and procedures change, and your own facts may change the answer.