UAE health insurance calculator

Health insurance is mandatory for every resident of the UAE, so the question is not whether to buy it but which tier, and what it costs for your household. Premiums span a huge range — from the federal Basic package at a fixed AED 320 a year in the Northern Emirates, through Dubai’s Essential Benefits Plan at around AED 650, to a Comprehensive international plan several times either, and more again once you cover a family and add maternity or dental. The first question is not which plan but which emirate: the legal floor is set by a different authority, at a different price, in each of the three regulatory zones, so a premium quoted without naming its zone is close to meaningless. This calculator asks where you live first, then compares real UAE plans across the three tiers, scales the premium to your family size, filters to plans that include the cover you need, and shows you the cheapest and most complete options side by side. UAE-focused throughout, in dirhams, aligned to DHA, DOH and MOHRE requirements.

Health insurance is mandatory in the UAE

Before comparing premiums, it helps to know why you are buying at all: health cover is a legal requirement for UAE residents, tied to your visa. The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) requires every Dubai resident to hold a valid policy, and the Department of Health Abu Dhabi (DOH) mandates it across Abu Dhabi. The five Northern Emirates — Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah — are no longer the exception they once were: a Federal Cabinet decision made employer-provided cover mandatory for private-sector employees and domestic workers there from 1 January 2025, administered by MOHRE. Employers must cover their employees, and sponsors must cover their dependents — spouse, children, and in some cases domestic staff. Without valid cover, a visa will not issue or renew. That makes the premium a fixed, recurring cost you plan around, not an optional extra.

The law sets a floor, not a ceiling — and there are three different floors, not one. In Dubai it is the Essential Benefits Plan (EBP), roughly AED 550–650 a year per adult on an AED 150,000 annual limit, and only for employees earning AED 4,000 a month or less. In Abu Dhabi it is the DOH Basic Product, on a higher AED 250,000 limit. In the Northern Emirates it is the federal Basic Health Insurance package at a fixed AED 320 a year per person — cheaper than either, with no published annual limit, no waiting period for pre-existing conditions, and no maternity or dental cover at all. Above whichever floor applies to you sits a ladder of richer plans with higher limits, wider hospital access, lower co-pays and optional extras. Which rung you choose is the single biggest driver of your premium — but which floor you start from is what makes the comparison meaningful.

The Basic row is not one product but three, one per regulatory zone, which is why its premium spans more than twice over. Dubai's EBP costs around AED 650 on an AED 150,000 annual limit and carries a mandated maternity benefit (AED 10,000 per delivery, 10% co-payment) but no dental; the Abu Dhabi Basic Plan sits on a higher AED 250,000 limit; and the federal MOHRE package that has been mandatory in Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah since 1 January 2025 is a fixed AED 320 with no published annual limit and neither maternity nor dental. Enhanced and Comprehensive are sold UAE-wide, widen the network, raise limits and include maternity + dental. Premiums are indicative and rise with age, family size and medical history.

The table above sets the three tiers side by side. The calculator works within this ladder: pick a tier and it shows the real plans in it, priced for your family size, cheapest first. Everything that follows — the tiers, how premiums scale with family and age, what each covers, and a worked example — unpacks the comparison this section frames. One point to hold onto: the tier you pick and the number of people you cover move the premium far more than the choice of insurer within a tier.

Basic vs Enhanced vs Comprehensive

UAE health plans sort broadly into three tiers, and understanding them is most of the decision.

Basic plans are the legally-mandated minimums, and there are three of them: the DHA Essential Benefits Plan in Dubai, the DOH Basic Product in Abu Dhabi, and the federal MOHRE package in the five Northern Emirates. They cover essential inpatient and outpatient care and emergencies within a limited network, usually with a shared hospital room and an annual limit of AED 150,000 in Dubai or AED 250,000 per person per policy year on the Abu Dhabi Basic Plan; the federal package publishes no annual limit at all. In Dubai and Abu Dhabi they must also include a bare-minimum maternity benefit — a sub-limited delivery cover of AED 10,000 for a normal birth and AED 10,000 for a medically-necessary C-section, plus 8 antenatal visits and 3 scans, with a 10% co-payment — but the federal package excludes maternity entirely, so a Northern-Emirates family expecting a baby has to buy above the floor. They are the cheapest way to stay legal — from a fixed AED 320 a year in the Northern Emirates to roughly AED 650–700 in Dubai and Abu Dhabi — but they exclude dental and optical, apply higher co-payments, and restrict you to basic clinics. They suit a healthy single resident on a budget who wants compliance and emergency protection, not comfort.

Enhanced plans are the mid-tier most families settle on. They widen the hospital network, raise the annual limit, offer semi-private rooms and lower co-pays, and — crucially — include maternity and dental cover as standard. Individual premiums typically run around AED 2,500–3,500 a year, several times a Basic plan, because you are buying real choice of hospital and the add-ons a Basic plan omits. Comprehensive plans sit at the top: the widest (often international) networks, the highest limits, private rooms, minimal or zero co-pays, and the fullest maternity, dental and optical cover. Individual premiums commonly start around AED 5,500 and climb well beyond for global plans. The calculator lets you jump between the three tiers and instantly see how the premium — and the cover — changes, so you can decide how far up the ladder your budget and needs justify.

How premiums scale with family size and age

Two things move your premium most once you have picked a tier: how many people you cover, and how old they are.

Family size is the input this calculator makes explicit. A policy for a couple is not simply double an individual’s, and a family of four is not four times — insurers price bands (individual, couple, family of three, four, five-plus) with some economy of scale, but the total still climbs steeply with each person added, especially on richer tiers. On an Enhanced plan, an individual premium of around AED 2,500 becomes several thousand more once a spouse and children are added; on a Comprehensive plan the family total can reach the tens of thousands. The calculator scales the premium to your exact household so the number you see is what you would actually pay, not an individual rate you have to multiply in your head.

Age is the other big lever, and it is the one this tool does not take as an input — the plan set uses representative banded premiums rather than an age-rated quote. In reality, premiums rise with the age of the oldest insured, and rise sharply past the older brackets (a policy for someone in their sixties can cost several times a young adult’s). Declared pre-existing conditions add more, and often carry a waiting period before they are covered. Treat the figures here as an indicative middle-of-the-market guide for a typical working-age household; when you get an actual quote, expect it to move up for older members or medical history, and down for the youngest, healthiest applicants. The tier and family-size comparison the calculator gives you holds regardless of age — it is the relative cost of Basic vs Enhanced vs Comprehensive, and of one household size vs another, that it is built to show.

What each tier actually covers

A premium is only meaningful next to what it buys, so the calculator shows the cover behind every plan — and the two add-ons that matter most are exactly the ones you can filter on.

Every tier covers the essentials: inpatient (hospital admission and surgery), outpatient (GP and specialist consultations, diagnostics, prescriptions) and emergency care. What changes up the ladder is the annual limit (from around AED 150,000 on Basic to AED 1,000,000-plus on Comprehensive), the hospital network (a short list of basic clinics on Basic, a wide or international network on Comprehensive), the room type (shared, semi-private, private) and the co-payment you pay per visit (20–30% on Basic down toward zero on the best plans). These are the levers that separate a plan you can technically use from one you actually want to.

Maternity and dental are the decisive add-ons, and the reason the calculator gives each its own toggle. A Basic plan carries only the bare mandated maternity minimum (the sub-limited AED 10,000-per-delivery benefit with a 10% co-payment) and no dental at all; Enhanced and Comprehensive plans include fuller maternity cover and dental as standard, which is what the calculator’s toggles filter to. If you are planning a family, that richer maternity cover — antenatal care, delivery well above the EBP sub-limit, and the newborn’s first cover — is worth thousands of dirhams and often carries its own sub-limit and waiting period, so filtering to plans that include it is essential. Dental (and optical) cover is the same story: a genuine benefit that Basic plans skip and richer plans bundle, usually with an annual sub-limit. Turn on the maternity or dental filter and the calculator shows only the plans that already include that cover, so you are never comparing a cheap Basic premium against a plan that would not actually pay for the care you need. Adding these benefits is a large part of why Enhanced and Comprehensive premiums sit 15–30% above a stripped-down base.

A worked example: an Enhanced plan for a family of four

A concrete case makes the comparison tangible. Take a family of four — two adults, two children — wanting an Enhanced plan with maternity and dental cover included. Run it through the calculator’s own model so the figures tie out.

The Silver Health Plan (Enhanced tier, maternity + dental included) scales sub-linearly with household size — a family rate is less than the individual rate times the number of people. A Basic plan for the same household would cost far less but exclude maternity and dental; a Comprehensive plan more, for a wider network and higher limits.

The table above shows how a representative Enhanced plan scales from an individual to a family of five, so you can see the jump each added person brings. Two things stand out. First, the step from an individual to a couple, and from a couple to a family, is large but sub-linear — the family rate is less than the individual rate times the number of people, reflecting the insurer’s banding. Second, the tier matters more than the insurer: a Basic plan for the same family would be a fraction of the Enhanced figure but would exclude the maternity and dental this family specifically wants, while a Comprehensive plan would cost more again for a wider network and higher limits. The calculator makes all of this a two-click comparison — change the family size or the tier and the whole plan stack, and the cheapest-to-dearest range, updates instantly.

Method, sources (DHA/DOH) & honest limits

The calculator works from a set of representative UAE health plans across the three tiers. For your chosen tier it filters the plans, optionally keeps only those that include maternity or dental cover, prices each for your family size (individual, couple, family of three, four, or five-plus), sorts them cheapest-first and shows the range and the individual plans — each with its network, annual limit, room type and covered benefits. The premium for a household is the plan’s banded rate for that family size; the maternity and dental toggles are filters, not price add-ons.

The framework follows the UAE’s mandatory-insurance regime: the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and the Department of Health Abu Dhabi (DOH) require valid cover for residents and define the Essential Benefits Plan minimum, as published on dha.gov.ae and doh.gov.ae. The tier structure, annual limits, network and co-payment differences reflect how DHA/DOH-regulated plans are actually sold.

Three honest limits. First, the premiums are indicative middle-of-the-market figures, not quotes: your actual price depends on the age of the oldest insured, medical history and declared pre-existing conditions, the exact insurer and network, and the policy year — get a real quote before committing. Second, the tool does not age-rate the premium or price the maternity/dental add-on separately — it compares tiers and family sizes on representative rates, which is what it is built to do; adding maternity or dental typically raises a base premium by 15–30%. Third, this is a UAE-focused planning tool, not insurance advice — for a tailored plan, compare quotes with a licensed broker. Content last verified July 2026.

UAE health insurance — frequently asked questions