Your exact title decides the DHA exam requirement: a computer-based test (CBT), passed before DHA decides your registration application; an oral assessment, scheduled after you submit it; or no exam at all. Either way the assessment is a step inside Sheryan’s Get Registered service, not a separate application. The steps below follow the process in order. The exam itself, with pass marks, topics and exam-day rules, is on our DHA exam page.
1. Run the free self-assessment
Sheryan’s Self Assessment Tool is free and gives an instant result against the PQR for the title you choose. It is a preliminary check: DHA still reviews eligibility when you apply. If the result is “not eligible”, you can ask for a manual decision through the paid Review Registration Eligibility service, which DHA’s 2023 service catalogue lists at AED 200 and ten working days. You attach documents to that request, which you do not do for the self-assessment.
2. Find out which assessment your title takes
Look up your exact title in DHA’s Mode of Exam per Specialty tool. It returns CBT, oral assessment or no exam. The CBT guideline adds that any specialty it does not list is assessed orally, and gives certain consultant titles for physicians and dentists as the example. Check this before you pay for anything: the two routes are booked in different places and at different points.
3. CBT titles: verification and the exam run together
DHA’s licensing manual lists Primary Source Verification and the CBT as prerequisites of Get Registered and allows both to run at the same time. In practice you start your DataFlow application, generate your Eligibility ID in Sheryan and book the CBT with Prometric while verification is in progress. DHA posts the result to Sheryan within two working days. It will not process the registration application until the PSV report is complete and the CBT is passed.
4. Oral titles: schedule after you apply
An oral assessment comes after the registration application, not before. Once DHA approves a Get Registered application that needs one, you apply for the Schedule Oral Assessment service. You pick an available date or, if none suits, a date range for DHA to confirm, and pay the fee: AED 500 for physicians and dentists, AED 250 for other categories, with an urgent option at AED 2,000. DHA aims to schedule within five working days and releases oral results within three to five working days.
- You can reschedule once at no cost if you ask more than five working days before the confirmed date. Inside that window a new fee applies.
- An oral application left pending in your profile for more than three months can be rejected, and the fee is forfeited.
- The session is held online in English with at least two panel members. You sit alone in a closed room, show your passport on camera and turn the camera through 360 degrees when asked.
5. If you do not pass
You can reapply straight away; there is no waiting period. The limit is three attempts in total, counted across all UAE health authorities, and you must declare attempts made elsewhere. A third failure blocks a new DHA application for two years. A cancellation or no-show does not count as an attempt, but the fee is not refunded.
6. Registration, then activation
With the assessment and PSV complete, DHA decides the registration in five working days once the application is complete. A registration issued after an assessment is valid for one year from the result date. It is not permission to practise: a licensed Dubai facility has to activate it into a licence. See licence activation for that step.
Re-assessment of licensed professionals
DHA can also re-assess a professional who already holds a licence. In that case both the CBT and the oral assessment are required, the CBT must be passed first, the total for both is three attempts, and both must be completed within three months of the decision. You cannot practise until you pass and the DHA committee issues its final decision.
Sources, checked 9 October 2026: DHA Manual for Licensing Healthcare Professionals v1.3 (effective 18 July 2025), chapters 3, 5 and 6; DHA Manual for Professional Assessment v1.1 (May 2025), chapters 1 and 4; DHA CBT guideline, September 2026; DHA Sheryan service pages for Get Registered and Schedule Oral Assessment; DHA Health Regulation Sector Service Catalogue (March 2023). Links below.