Special power of attorney at the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi and Consulate General in Dubai

When people need this

Banks and Pag-IBIG come up constantly, and the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi names them: it publishes a special power of attorney "for Banks / Pag-IBIG / Real Estate" as its own item. Alongside those sit an SPA for a minor's passport application, for NBI clearance, for a minor's birth certificate, for PSA-issued documents, and for school and work credentials.

That list is worth reading before you draft anything, because it tells you the missions here already handle these as recognised categories rather than as one-off requests.

Signing at the mission

The two posts run on opposite rhythms, and the difference decides which one suits you. The Consulate General in Dubai works by appointment through its own portal and states the rule for the appointment itself in plain terms: applicants must personally sign the document in front of the officials of the Consulate General.

The Embassy in Abu Dhabi runs walk-in notarials on a tight window - Monday to Thursday 07:30 to 09:30 and Friday 07:30 to 09:00 - and states that late clients will no longer be accepted. Some services there are by email appointment instead. A morning you can get to is worth more here than any other consideration, and the section below sets both journeys side by side.

Source: Philippine Consulate General, Dubai - notarial procedures

Requirements: what each post actually publishes, and what it does not

This is the question people arrive with, and it deserves a straight answer including the part that is unsatisfying. The Consulate General’s own special-power-of-attorney forms-and-requirements pages have refused to serve us on every attempt, most recently on 23 September 2026. There is therefore no itemised consulate checklist we can quote, and the consulate’s general procedures page says as much itself: it publishes the journey rather than a document list. Anyone presenting a tidy consulate checklist has taken it from somewhere other than the consulate.

What the two posts do publish is the shape of the appointment, and that is enough to prepare properly.

• Bring the identification you used to book, and bring the original receipt back for release.
• Draft the document before you attend. You are signing in front of an officer, not drafting in front of one — and in Dubai the form and supporting papers are completed before you are given a queue number.
• Ask the institution in the Philippines that will act on the document what wording it needs, because neither mission publishes an opinion on wording.
• If two of you are granting the same authority, the Embassy publishes a Joint Special Power of Attorney “For two or more applicants” as a separate named form.
• If your document was issued in the UAE rather than signed at the post, the UAE MOFA stage comes first — see UAE MOFA document attestation.

Source: Philippine Consulate General, Dubai — notarial procedures; Philippine Embassy, Abu Dhabi — notarials

The named forms both posts publish

Neither post treats a special power of attorney as one document. The Embassy names eight SPA categories, and the categories are the useful thing to know before you draft: a general SPA, a Joint Special Power of Attorney for two or more applicants, and SPAs written for NBI clearance, a minor’s birth certificate, PSA-issued documents, school and work credentials, and a minor’s passport application — with Banks, Pag-IBIG and Real Estate named as their own item.

Beside them sit the affidavits that often travel with an SPA: an Affidavit (General), a Joint Affidavit (General), an Affidavit of Support and Guarantee, and affidavits for a lost or damaged passport. The Dubai consulate prices the Affidavit of Support and Guarantee at the same AED 100 as an SPA, and charges AED 200 for the two dual-citizenship items, RA 9225 and Renunciation of Citizenship.

Starting from the category the mission already recognises is faster than presenting a document of your own shape and asking whether it fits.

Two routes, and neither is automatically the right one

The missions publish two distinct things. One is notarisation of the SPA at the post, where you sign in front of a consular officer. The other is authentication of a document already issued in the UAE, where the Abu Dhabi embassy names UAE MOFA attestation as the input.

They are not interchangeable, and which one you need depends on the institution in the Philippines that will act on the document. A bank asking for an SPA in a particular form is the party to ask; the missions publish the process, not a recommendation. Nothing we read says that either route is generally preferable, and we will not say it either.

Whose fee is whose

The Dubai consulate publishes AED 100 each for an SPA, an affidavit of support and guarantee, an affidavit, a certification, an acknowledgement, an attestation and NBI, and AED 200 for RA 9225 and renunciation of citizenship. An expedite fee of AED 40 is available. Payment is cash only.

The Embassy in Abu Dhabi publishes the same figure for the same act, on its own page: “Notarization of SPA: AED100”, alongside “Notarization of NBI: AED100”. So the consular fee is not a reason to choose one post over the other; the appointment rhythm is.

Those are Philippine consular fees. They are not the whole cost of the route, and the other stages belong to other bodies. The UAE fees guide sets this figure beside what every other authority in the chain publishes.

• UAE government fee - UAE MOFA attestation where the route needs it, priced in a guide we have not read. We quote no figure.
• Mission fee - AED 100 for an SPA at either post, AED 40 to expedite in Dubai, cash only in Dubai.
• Philippine-side costs after arrival - whatever the receiving bank, agency or registry charges. Not published in anything we read.
• Our own professional fee for preparing the document is separate again, and is never bundled into any of the above.

Where UAE MOFA fits

For a document that was issued in the UAE rather than signed at the post, the Embassy in Abu Dhabi describes the input as a document attested by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and gives examples such as a trade licence, school records, a salary certificate or an employment certificate.

So the two routes are distinct. Sign at the mission, and the consular officer is witnessing your signature. Bring a UAE-issued document, and the mission is authenticating something UAE MOFA has already attested.

The apostille wrinkle, stated as we found it

This corridor has a genuine inconsistency in the published sources, and it is better to show it than to smooth it over. The UAE Embassy in Manila states that all documents submitted to it for authentication must bear the DFA Apostille, and prices a band of personal documents at PHP 2,350 each. Meanwhile the Philippine DFA's own apostille service tells applicants bound for a country that is not a Convention party to go instead to that country's embassy in the Philippines.

Both are first-party and they do not read alike. The way to understand the Manila requirement is that the Apostille there is functioning as the Philippine domestic authentication certificate, and the UAE leg is still consular attestation on top of it. That matters mostly for documents travelling the other way - from the Philippines into the UAE - rather than for a document you are signing here.

Language

Neither Philippine mission in the UAE publishes a translation requirement for an SPA, and these documents are normally drafted in English, which is an official language on both sides of this corridor.

UAE MOFA states generally that a document should be in English or Arabic, or accompanied by an official translation. For this corridor that is rarely the binding constraint.

Where this page stops

No page we read states the legal consequence of consularisation - that is, that an SPA signed in front of a consular officer here is thereby good for a particular transaction in the Philippines. The missions publish the process, not the effect.

The Dubai consulate also carries a blunt warning worth repeating: spurious or tampered documents will be seized and the matter pursued. Whatever you bring should be genuine and complete before you attend.

Questions

If you already know what you need

• Property Power of Attorney for UAE real estate
• General Power of Attorney in the UAE
• POAs

Related guides

• Using a UAE power of attorney abroad
• Power of attorney for India at the Indian Consulate in Dubai or Embassy in Abu Dhabi
• Mukhtarnama / power of attorney from the UAE for Pakistan
• Power of attorney from the UAE for use in Egypt
• Power of attorney from the UAE for use in Germany
• Power of attorney from the UAE for use in China