Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP): licence renewal, CME and federal standards

The Ministry of Health and Prevention is the federal health regulator. The federal profession laws give licensing powers to a "Health Authority", defined in Federal Law No. 5 of 2019 as "the Ministry or any governmental federal or local authority in charge of health affairs in the State, each within its respective area of competence". MOHAP is "the Ministry" in that definition. Three federal laws decide which professions it licenses:

• Physicians and dentists: Federal Law No. 5 of 2019 Regulating the Practice of the Human Medicine Profession, with its Executive Regulations in Cabinet Resolution No. 67 of 2020.
• Nurses, midwives and allied health professionals: Federal Law No. 6 of 2023, which replaced Federal Law No. 5 of 1984. Its Executive Regulations, Cabinet Resolution No. 176 of 2025, were issued on 18 November 2025.
• Pharmacists: Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2024, Article 71, makes MOHAP responsible for licensing pharmacists in establishments licensed by the Emirates Drug Establishment, while each health authority licenses pharmacists in the establishments it licenses.

In practice, MOHAP licenses professionals in federal government facilities and in private facilities across the Northern Emirates. Its "Licensing of a Doctor" service, which facilities use to license doctors, nurses and technicians, lists representative offices in Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al Quwain and Abu Dhabi. Dubai's Executive Council Resolution No. 49 of 2024 expressly leaves federal entities and their facilities outside the Dubai Health Authority's framework.

Emirates Health Services is your employer, not your regulator

Emirates Health Services (EHS) was established as a federal entity by Cabinet Resolution No. 9 of 2016 to deliver healthcare services and manage federal hospitals and clinics. It runs the hospitals; it does not license professionals. If you work in an EHS facility, licensing questions go to MOHAP, and government-sector licences are renewed automatically on their expiry date.

Getting a MOHAP licence in the first place

MOHAP applies the national Unified Healthcare Professional Qualification Requirements (PQR, 3rd version, April 2025), which it issues jointly with the DHA, the DOH and the SHA. Its Healthcare Professional Evaluation service requires primary source verification through DataFlow with "positive results", and MOHAP allows three exam attempts per category. Under the PQR, UAE nationals and Children of Emirati Women are exempt from the authority's examination.

MOHAP does not publish one CPD table for every profession. Each renewal service lists its own condition, and the figures below are taken from those pages and the MOHAP Services Guide as they read in October 2026.

What the pages leave open

• Per year or per renewal? None of the MOHAP pages says whether the hours apply to each year of the licence or to the whole renewal period. Ask MOHAP or your facility's licensing officer before you plan around either reading.
• No published figure for doctors. Numbers you may see online, such as a fixed annual total for every MOHAP physician, do not appear on MOHAP's own doctor renewal page. The only official condition there is CME in the same licensing field.
• Relevance counts. The general renewal service says the professional "must have Continuous Medical Education (CME) in the same specialty domain". Hours in an unrelated field may not help.

The federal rule underneath

For nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, Article 5 of Cabinet Resolution No. 176 of 2025 makes renewal conditional on the minimum continuing professional development set under Cabinet Resolution No. 20 of 2017, the resolution that adopted the PQR nationally. Federal Law No. 6 of 2023, Article 8(12), also makes it a professional duty to "develop his self-skills and keep up with updates in the area of his specialty". The PQR itself sets minimum annual CME by category and says CME/CPD "must be relevant to the field of the specialty".

Other authorities count differently: Dubai sets yearly CPD points, Abu Dhabi counts credits over a two-year cycle. The UAE CPD requirements guide sets the authorities side by side.

MOHAP's renewal pages ask for CME documents but do not list the providers or accreditation bodies they accept. Two official facts help you judge what is likely to be accepted:

• MOHAP is a recognised accreditor. The Department of Health – Abu Dhabi lists MOHAP among the accreditation bodies it recognises, alongside the DHA and international bodies such as ACCME and ANCC.
• EHS accredits events. Emirates Health Services runs a "Request for Accreditation of Continuous Professional Development" service for UAE health facilities licensed by any health authority, colleges approved by the Ministry of Education, and medical associations or education centres with a commercial licence. Fees are AED 200 to 400 for events under two hours and AED 500 to 1,500 for longer events, and EHS entities pay nothing.

Because MOHAP does not publish its acceptance rules online, the safest approach is to keep every certificate, choose accredited activity in your own specialty for the bulk of your hours, and ask your facility's education or licensing team what MOHAP accepted at the last renewal cycle.

1. Start early. Cabinet Resolution No. 67 of 2020 (Article 3.4) asks physicians to apply "at least one month prior to its expiry date", and Cabinet Resolution No. 176 of 2025 (Article 5) sets at least 30 days for nurses, midwives and allied professions. Renewal is for not less than one year, in line with the PQR.
2. Collect the documents. Recent CME certificates, valid Insurance Against Medical Faults, Emirates ID, visa and labour card. Doctors aged 60 and above also need a physical and mental fitness report from EHS.
3. Check the conditions. MOHAP requires a clean professional track record for past work in the UAE and a valid licence for the facility applying. For clinics (not hospitals) it also checks staffing: one registered nurse for every two doctors, or two dental assistants for every two dentists.
4. Your facility applies. Renewal is filed by the facility that holds your licence, through the MOHAP website or smart app, and paid electronically.
5. Outcome. MOHAP lists the service time as instant, or one working day on its general renewal page.

Late renewal and lapsed licences

• Grace period: 30 days after expiry, then a late fee of 25% of the licence fee for each month, for up to six months. The maximum is AED 4,500 for a doctor and AED 1,500 for a technician.
• No practice while expired: Cabinet Resolution No. 176 of 2025 says a professional may not practise after expiry until the licence is renewed.
• Automatic revocation: a nursing or allied health licence is revoked if no renewal is filed within six months of expiry, or after six consecutive months of unjustified inactivity (Article 10). For physicians, Cabinet Resolution No. 67 of 2020 (Article 6) revokes the licence after six consecutive months of not practising without acceptable cause.

The national Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct for Health Professionals was adopted by Ministerial Resolution No. 1448 of 2017. It remains the federal reference point: the Dubai Health Authority's 2025 standards cite it, and the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi describes its 2024 bioethics guidelines as building on "the existing Code of Ethics issued by MOHAP in 2017". We do not quote the Code's wording here; read the copy your facility issues, or ask MOHAP for the current text.

What can be stated with confidence is the set of duties written into federal law, because they bind every MOHAP licensee whatever the Code says:

The Patient's Rights and Responsibilities Charter

MOHAP issued the national Patient's Rights and Responsibilities Charter as Ministerial Resolution No. 14 of 2021. It gives patients rights to dignity, privacy and confidentiality, non-discrimination, knowing who is treating them, informed consent with full treatment information, refusing treatment, access to their medical reports and cost information before surgery. The charter is displayed in clinics and hospitals, so patients often quote it back to the professionals treating them.

In August 2024 MOHAP also co-developed the Healthcare Workforce Bioethics Guidelines with the DOH and the SHA, covering topics such as mental healthcare, organ donation, clinical research, artificial intelligence and genomics.

• Health advertising: MOHAP's Monitoring of Health Advertisements service, based on Cabinet Resolution No. 7 of 2007, requires a MOHAP licence for health advertisements, with the licence number and expiry date displayed. Published fines are AED 4,000 for an unlicensed advertisement, AED 8,000 for breaching its conditions and AED 2,000 for changing an approved format, doubled if the breach continues beyond five working days.
• Riayati: MOHAP's national unified medical record links Dubai's NABIDH, Abu Dhabi's Malaffi and the EHS record system. A ministerial decision of 16 November 2021 gave MOHAP licensees one year to join.
• Health data stays in the UAE: Federal Law No. 2 of 2019 on ICT in health fields (Article 13) bars storing, processing or transferring health data about services provided in the UAE outside the country, except where a health authority resolution allows it.

These rules matter for individual professionals as much as for facilities: a promotional post about your clinic, or patient data uploaded to a service hosted outside the UAE, can breach them.

MOHAP good standing certificate

• Available after at least three months of MOHAP licensure; not issued to trainees, visitors or holders of only an initial licence.
• Not issued if the professional has been "sentenced for a medical offense".
• Valid for six months. The fee is AED 500 (AED 300 for pharmacists) and the service takes three working days.
• The PQR requires any good standing certificate used for a new licence to be no older than six months, so time the request to your application.

Two years or three? The gap-in-practice rule

Official sources disagree on when a break from clinical practice triggers retraining. The PQR 3rd version (2025) applies its requirements to "discontinuity in clinical practice exceeding three (3) years". For a gap of three to under four years it asks physicians and dentists for 80 CME/CPD credits, nurses for 40 and allied professionals, pharmacists and TCIM practitioners for 20, each with six months of training in an approved practice setting. The MOHAP Services Guide, however, mentions a gap of "more than 2 years" in one entry and "more than three years" in another.

The PQR is the newer document and invalidates earlier versions, but if you have been away from practice for between two and three years, confirm MOHAP's current requirement before you apply.

Each Healthcare Practise course page names the federal articles and standards it supports. For MOHAP-licensed professionals the most direct matches are:

Nurses, pharmacists and allied professionals can start with the ethics course for their profession: nursing, pharmacy or allied health.

This page covers licensing, renewal and standards only. If a complaint has been made against you or a MOHAP committee is reviewing your practice, the MOHAP complaints and remediation page explains the process and the courses that fit each concern.