As per the rules and regulations of the country, all residents in the United Arab Emirates must get an identity card by the end of the year. A senior official of the Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA) said that there will be no change to the December 31 deadline and fines will be imposed on the residents who haven’t registered for their cards yet. The expatriates re worried about their missing the ID deadline, however, they are relieved a bit when it was told that even after the deadline, government services including healthcare would still be accessible to them, which means that the professional expats will have a grace period until 2010 during which no fine will be charged against them and their bank accounts will not be frozen.
It is estimated that around 500,000 professional expatriates are yet to register for their cards, however, as far as the UAE nationals are concerned, they will not be given any kind of leverage and those who failed to register for their ID’s in time would be refrained from using UAE government services. If we talk about the fine, Dh1000 fine will be levied to those who fail to get there ID cards registered.
The federal government has decided the December 31 deadline and the fine amount as per the existing law. Moreover, the EIDA doesn’t have the authority to make any changes in this context for that matter. For the Emiratis those who don’t have access to the passports or family books for some genuine reasons, they can submit their authenticated copies for the registration of the ID card.
Some of the expats are still under panicky situation as to get themselves and their families get registered for the ID cards, however, just follow the norms and regular deadlines for avoiding any confusions.
