Extradition To and From the UAE After the 2023 Reforms

The 2023 reforms to the UAE's extradition framework have fundamentally re-shaped how surrender requests are processed, how multi-offence cases are handled, and what defensive options remain available. Executives, HNWIs and institutions with cross-border exposure must understand the current law — not the repealed version most commentary still cites.

The Governing Framework: Federal Law 39/2006 as Amended by FDL 38/2023

The primary legislation governing extradition to and from the UAE is Federal Law No. 39 of 2006 on International Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters, as fundamentally amended by Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2023 ("the 2023 Amendment"), which entered into force in late 2023. FL 39/2006 covers both extradition of persons and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters (MLAT). The 2023 Amendment introduced material changes to timelines, dual-criminality analysis, multi-offence request handling, and the categories of offence subject to mandatory cooperation, reflecting the UAE's post-FATF grey-listing reform programme and its removal from the FATF grey list in February 2024 and from the EU high-risk list in 2025.

FL 39/2006 operates alongside the substantive criminal law framework. The operative penal code is Federal Decree-Law No. 31 of 2021 (in force 2 January 2022), as amended by FDL 36/2022 — not the repealed Federal Law No. 3 of 1987 that much competing commentary continues to cite. Criminal procedure is governed by Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2022 (in force 1 March 2023), as amended by FDL 45/2023. These instruments determine which offences are cognisable, what procedural rights attach during surrender proceedings, and how evidence gathered through MLAT channels is admissible in UAE courts.

AML/CFT law, critically relevant to most extradition requests involving financial crime, is now governed by Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025 (in force 14 October 2025) and its Executive Regulations under Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025 (effective 14 December 2025), which repealed FDL 20/2018. FDL 10/2025 adds proliferation financing and tax evasion as standalone predicate offences for money laundering, removes any limitation period for ML offences, and imposes fines up to AED 100 million — all of which materially expand the dual-criminality analysis for inbound requests from jurisdictions characterising conduct as tax fraud or sanctions evasion.

In practice, the legislative architecture means that a single extradition request may engage FL 39/2006 (procedure and grounds), FDL 31/2021 (whether the conduct is criminal in the UAE), FDL 38/2022 (procedural rights of the person sought), and FDL 10/2025 (whether an AML predicate exists). Competent counsel must map each layer before advising on defensive strategy or the prospects of a challenge.

Treaty Network, Dual Criminality and the Absence of a Treaty

FL 39/2006 operates on two distinct tracks. Where a bilateral extradition treaty exists, its terms govern; FL 39/2006 fills procedural gaps. Where no treaty exists, the UAE may still cooperate on the basis of reciprocity under Article 3 of FL 39/2006 as amended, subject to the political discretion of the Ministry of Justice. This dual-track structure is frequently misunderstood: the absence of a treaty does not preclude extradition, it simply makes it discretionary rather than obligatory and introduces a diplomatic dimension absent from treaty cases.

The UAE has concluded extradition treaties with a broad and growing roster of states, including France, Italy, the United Kingdom (UAET-UK Treaty, 2006), India, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, China, Russia, and a large number of Arab League states under the 1983 Riyadh Convention. Notably, there is no treaty with the United States or most Western European states outside the UK and France; US requests therefore proceed via the reciprocity track or through MLAT cooperation limited to asset recovery and evidence gathering.

Dual criminality remains a foundational requirement under Article 6 of FL 39/2006. The 2023 Amendment clarified the applicable test: the conduct alleged must be criminal under UAE law at the time the extradition request is received, not at the time the conduct allegedly occurred. This prospective framing has practical significance for conduct that has been criminalised by subsequent UAE legislation — most notably, tax evasion following FDL 10/2025, market manipulation under Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2025 (codifying insider-dealing and manipulation offences with penalties up to AED 200 million, operative from 1 January 2026 under the CMA framework established by FDL 32/2025), and cryptocurrency-related fraud under VARA Rulebooks 2.0 (May 2025). Conduct previously falling outside UAE criminal law may now satisfy dual criminality, narrowing what was once a broad defensive ground.

For persons sought by states with whom the UAE has no treaty, the discretionary reciprocity track means that political, diplomatic and commercial relationships between the UAE and the requesting state are live factors. GCs and advisers should monitor bilateral relationship developments, particularly in respect of the 2024-25 surge in European cooperation requests discussed below, which has tested the reciprocity mechanism in novel ways.

Procedure, Timelines and Provisional Arrest: The 2023 Reforms in Practice

Under FL 39/2006 as amended by FDL 38/2023, the extradition process follows a structured sequence. A requesting state transmits its formal extradition request through diplomatic channels to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which forwards it to the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice reviews admissibility — treaty basis or reciprocity, dual criminality, completeness of documentation — before referring the matter to the Public Prosecution. The Public Prosecution may order the provisional arrest of the person sought pending full request processing; FL 39/2006 Article 17 (as amended) sets a provisional arrest ceiling of 45 days, extendable by judicial order, after which the person must be released if the formal request has not arrived. The 2023 Amendment reduced the administrative processing window from 60 to 45 days at the pre-referral stage, reflecting international pressure for faster throughput following the FATF grey-listing period.

Once the formal request arrives at the Public Prosecution with complete documentation — a certified warrant or conviction, a statement of the offences with applicable law, supporting evidence, translations into Arabic, and undertakings on specialty (discussed below) — the file is referred to the competent Court of Appeal. Under Article 22 of FL 39/2006, the Court of Appeal reviews: (i) dual criminality; (ii) whether any mandatory bars apply; (iii) adequacy of procedural guarantees in the requesting state; and (iv) proportionality where the person is a UAE national. The court issues a reasoned ruling. If extradition is approved, the Minister of Justice retains final executive discretion to authorise or refuse surrender. This bifurcated judicial-executive structure means that a favourable court ruling does not guarantee release from custody, and an adverse ruling does not automatically defeat a politically sensitive request — though in practice ministerial override of a judicial refusal is extremely rare.

For multi-offence requests — a significant area of reform under FDL 38/2023 — the court must assess each offence individually for dual criminality but may grant extradition in respect of some offences and refuse it in respect of others. The 2023 Amendment introduced explicit provisions permitting partial extradition where the requesting state provides an express undertaking to prosecute only for the approved offences. This replaced the previous all-or-nothing approach that had caused requests covering mixed fraud/tax schedules to fail entirely. Practitioners advising requesting states should ensure each count is pleaded with specificity; those advising persons sought should scrutinise whether ancillary counts satisfy dual criminality independently.

The specialty rule is codified at Article 29 of FL 39/2006: the requesting state undertakes not to prosecute the extradited person for offences other than those for which extradition was granted, and not to re-extradite them to a third state, without UAE consent. Breach of specialty is grounds for UAE demand of return and diplomatic protest. Advisers negotiating the terms of voluntary surrender or cooperation should ensure specialty undertakings are documented at ministerial level, not merely in the extradition request letter.

Mandatory Bars, Discretionary Grounds and the UAE-National Shield

FL 39/2006 sets out both mandatory bars to extradition and discretionary grounds for refusal. The mandatory bars, unchanged in substance by the 2023 Amendment, are: (i) the person is a UAE national (Article 9); (ii) the offence is of a political or military character (Articles 10-11, with terrorism and serious violence expressly carved out); (iii) the person has already been tried and acquitted or convicted in the UAE or a third state for the same conduct (double jeopardy, Article 12); (iv) the UAE limitation period has expired under FDL 31/2021 — noting that FDL 10/2025 now provides no limitation period for money laundering offences; (v) the prosecution or punishment in the requesting state would be time-barred under that state's own law; and (vi) there is a real risk of persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality or political opinion (Article 14).

The UAE-national bar (Article 9) is the most frequently invoked and is absolute: the UAE does not extradite its nationals. However, Article 9(2) requires the Public Prosecution to consider prosecution in the UAE for the underlying conduct if the requesting state makes a formal request for domestic prosecution. This substituted-prosecution mechanism — effectively a "try-or-extradite" obligation mirroring aut dedere aut judicare principles — has been invoked with increasing frequency as European states have learned to frame their requests to trigger it. The UAE court applying FDL 31/2021 would apply UAE law, and the requesting state's evidence is admissible through MLAT channels under FL 39/2006 Chapter IV. Executives holding or acquiring UAE nationality as a protective measure must therefore understand that the national bar provides geographic protection, not immunity from prosecution.

Discretionary grounds under Article 15 include: (i) the offence was committed wholly or partly in the UAE; (ii) pending UAE criminal proceedings against the same person; (iii) serious concerns about the fairness of the requesting state's proceedings; and (iv) humanitarian considerations including the person's health, age or family circumstances. The 2023 Amendment added an explicit proportionality assessment as a discretionary factor for minor offences — a recognition that the surrender machinery should not be deployed for conduct attracting minor penalties.

Financial crime cases involving market abuse now require particular attention following the enactment of FDL 33/2025, which codified insider-dealing and market manipulation as express criminal offences in the UAE. Prior to FDL 33/2025, the dual-criminality bar was potentially available for requests from states prosecuting market manipulation as a criminal (rather than merely regulatory) offence. That defence has narrowed materially from 1 January 2026. Institutions and executives should reassess their cross-border risk profiles accordingly.

MLAT Cooperation, Asset Freezing and Cross-Border Recovery

Mutual legal assistance — the formal mechanism by which states exchange evidence, freeze assets and enforce judgments — is governed by FL 39/2006, Chapter IV as amended by FDL 38/2023. The UAE's MLAT regime is distinct from extradition but frequently runs in parallel: an MLAT request for asset freezing may precede or accompany a formal extradition request, and assets frozen under MLAT may be confiscated even where extradition is refused (e.g., because the person is a UAE national). Post-FATF reform has dramatically accelerated UAE MLAT processing times, from a historical average exceeding 18 months to a target of 90 days for urgent freezing requests following the 2023 amendments.

For cross-border asset freezing, the UAE now has two additional mechanisms that operate alongside FL 39/2006. First, the DIFC Court Law No. 2 of 2025 expressly empowers the DIFC Court to grant worldwide freezing orders (WFOs) in support of foreign proceedings without requiring a nexus to Dubai or any DIFC-seated assets — following and codifying the approach in ADGM case A17 v B17 [2025], where the ADGM Court similarly granted a WFO in support of foreign proceedings. Second, the onshore courts retain jurisdiction under FL 39/2006 to freeze assets in support of MLAT requests from treaty partners. The practical effect is that a foreign plaintiff or prosecuting authority now has three potential routes to freeze UAE-held assets: MLAT via the Ministry of Justice, DIFC Court WFO application (no asset nexus required), or ADGM Court application. Selecting the correct forum and mechanism requires careful analysis of where assets are held, the identity of asset holders (DIFC/ADGM-registered entities versus onshore), and the evidentiary threshold applicable in each jurisdiction.

The AML framework under FDL 10/2025 and Cabinet Resolution 134/2025 strengthens the MLAT pipeline for financial crime. FDL 10/2025 provides that financial institutions must comply with production orders issued pursuant to MLAT requests within specified timeframes, and introduces personal criminal liability for senior managers who obstruct or delay compliance. The Travel Rule threshold of AED 3,500 (Cabinet Resolution 134/2025) now applies to virtual asset transfers, making crypto asset flows traceable and seizeable through the MLAT mechanism in a way not previously available. For cases involving virtual assets, the DIFC Digital Assets Law No. 2 of 2024 — which characterises crypto assets as property — is relevant to the proprietary basis for freezing orders in DIFC-seated proceedings.

Beneficial ownership records under Cabinet Decision No. 109 of 2023 (25% threshold) are now routinely produced in response to MLAT requests. The registries maintained under CD 109/2023 have significantly reduced the ability of persons sought to place assets behind nominee or layered corporate structures. Institutions receiving MLAT-driven production requests should immediately engage counsel: disclosure of beneficial ownership data can crystallise the evidentiary basis for both extradition and domestic prosecution, and the window for privilege-based objections is short.

The 2024-25 European Cooperation Surge: Patterns and Strategic Implications

The period 2024-2025 has seen a marked increase in European states — particularly France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland — deploying both the extradition and MLAT machinery against individuals and entities with UAE connections. Several structural factors explain this surge. First, the UAE's removal from the FATF grey list in February 2024 and from the EU high-risk list in 2025 has made UAE cooperation more reliable and legally robust from a European evidentiary standpoint; evidence gathered through UAE MLAT is now more readily admissible in European courts without the caveats previously attached to grey-listed-jurisdiction material. Second, European AML directives and the establishment of the EU's Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) have intensified cross-border financial crime prosecution. Third, the 2023 expansion of UAE predicate offences under what became FDL 10/2025 has narrowed dual-criminality objections.

In practical terms, the 2024-25 surge has produced several identifiable patterns. Parallel proceedings — simultaneous criminal prosecution in the European jurisdiction and MLAT-driven asset freezing in the UAE — are now the standard enforcement template rather than the exception. European prosecutors have learned to file MLAT requests for UAE asset freezing before or simultaneously with arrest warrants, preventing dissipation during the surrender process. Multi-jurisdictional corporate structures involving UAE free zone entities (DIFC, ADGM, JAFZA) have been targeted through both the MLAT channel and, increasingly, through direct DIFC/ADGM Court proceedings using the WFO jurisdiction confirmed in ADGM A17 v B17 [2025] and codified in DIFC Court Law 2/2025.

A second pattern involves European states without bilateral extradition treaties with the UAE — Germany and the Netherlands most prominently — using MLAT-only strategies to achieve de facto enforcement: freeze assets, disrupt business operations, and apply diplomatic pressure to induce voluntary return or plea resolution, without ever filing a formal extradition request that would trigger the mandatory bars and procedural protections of FL 39/2006. Persons targeted by this approach are in a structurally different position to those facing formal extradition requests: they have fewer procedural protections under UAE law, but more strategic optionality in terms of negotiated resolution.

For financial institutions, the surge has particular significance. Banks and payment service providers regulated by the CBUAE under Law No. 6 of 2025 — which provides for administrative fines up to AED 1 billion — face dual exposure: regulatory sanction in the UAE for failing to file suspicious transaction reports (STRs) in respect of customers who are subsequently the subject of European extradition or MLAT requests, and potential complicity liability in European proceedings if correspondent banking relationships are found to have facilitated the underlying conduct. Compliance functions should be reviewing their monitoring frameworks against the expanded predicate list under FDL 10/2025 now, not when the first request arrives.

Strategic Considerations and Defensive Options for Persons Sought

For HNWIs, executives and board members who are or may become the subject of extradition requests or parallel MLAT proceedings, early legal engagement is decisive. The procedural window between provisional arrest and formal extradition request presentation — up to 45 days under FL 39/2006 Article 17 as amended — is the most operationally critical period. During this window, counsel can: challenge the legality of provisional detention before the competent court; engage with the Public Prosecution on the adequacy of the requesting state's documentation; and prepare the dual-criminality analysis that will be placed before the Court of Appeal. Evidence and arguments not raised at the Court of Appeal stage are difficult to introduce at the ministerial discretion phase.

Dual-criminality challenges remain viable but require granular analysis against current UAE law — FDL 31/2021 as amended by FDL 36/2022, and the expanded AML predicate catalogue in FDL 10/2025. Arguments that were sound before FDL 10/2025 entered force (14 October 2025) — for example, that tax evasion is not a criminal offence in the UAE — are no longer available. Market abuse dual-criminality challenges similarly narrow from 1 January 2026 under FDL 33/2025. Counsel must advise on the state of UAE law at the date the extradition request is received, per the 2023 Amendment's temporal rule.

Where the person sought is a UAE national, the strategy shifts to the substituted-prosecution mechanism under Article 9(2) of FL 39/2006. Engaging proactively with the UAE Public Prosecution to accept domestic prosecution — on conduct that may attract lower UAE penalties than those applicable in the requesting state — can produce a materially better outcome than passively relying on the national bar. FDL 31/2021 penalties and FDL 10/2025 AML penalties must be mapped against the requesting state's tariff. In some cases, particularly those involving conduct for which the UAE sentencing range is lower, this trade-off is clearly advantageous.

For corporations, the exposure profile is different. UAE law does not extradite legal persons, but MLAT-driven asset freezing, dissolution proceedings under FDL 51/2023 (the Bankruptcy Law, in force 1 May 2024), regulatory suspension by the CBUAE under Law 6/2025, or licence revocation by VARA under its Rulebooks 2.0 (May 2025) can be operationally equivalent to surrender. Corporate clients should map their exposure across the full enforcement toolkit — not merely the extradition channel — and maintain crisis-response protocols that can be activated within 24 hours of a freezing order application or MLAT production request.

Practical checklist

• Obtain certified translations of all extradition request documents into Arabic immediately upon service.
• Challenge provisional arrest legality within the 45-day window under FL 39/2006 Article 17 as amended.
• Commission a current dual-criminality opinion against FDL 31/2021 and FDL 10/2025 — not repealed law.
• For UAE nationals, assess substituted-prosecution viability under Article 9(2) and compare UAE vs requesting-state penalty exposure.
• Map all UAE-held assets across onshore, DIFC and ADGM structures before MLAT freezing requests arrive.
• Review whether any offence in a multi-count request fails dual criminality independently to seek partial refusal.
• Ensure specialty-rule undertakings are documented at UAE Ministry of Justice level, not just in the request letter.
• Brief the board and compliance function on expanded FDL 10/2025 AML predicates and CBUAE Law 6/2025 fine exposure.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• INTERPOL Red Notices and the UAE: Removal, Provisional Arrest and Defence
• Tried in Your Absence: In-Absentia Convictions in the UAE and How to Reopen Them
• Worldwide Freezing Orders in the DIFC and ADGM: Recovering Assets in Dubai
• White-Collar & Financial Crime — full guide

Published 15 July 2026. General information only — not legal advice. Contact us for matter-specific advice.