an organization · United Arab EmiratesDubai Health Authority

The health regulator of one emirate. In its own words, "Dubai Health Authority (DHA) is the regulatory body responsible for overseeing and governing the healthcare sector in the Emirate of Dubai", with a mandate covering "regulating, licensing, and monitoring the delivery of healthcare services across both the public and private sectors", and which "also regulates, governs and manages health insurance, health investments and health tourism to enhance the sector's contribution to Dubai's economy". Formed in 2007 under Law No. (13) and now constituted by Law No. (6) of 2018, it is one of four licensing regimes in the country: Abu Dhabi has its own authority, the northern emirates answer to the federal ministry, and Dubai Healthcare City licenses inside its own free-zone boundary.

The licence first, because it is the part a patient can check. DHA licenses both facilities and professionals, and Sheryan, its licensing system, carries a public search across Facilities, Professionals and the Dubai Medical Registry. A clinic in Jumeirah either appears there or it does not.

The count is the part that needs reading. In a release of 19 August 2024 the Authority reported "more than 691,000 health tourists" in 2023, spending AED 1.03 billion directly, against 674,000 and AED 992 million in 2022, with a further AED 2.3 billion claimed as indirect revenue. It gave the breakdown by specialty: dentistry 29 per cent, dermatology 27 per cent, gynaecology 13 per cent. Fifty-eight per cent were women. A third came from Asia, 28 per cent from the Gulf states and 23 per cent from Europe and the CIS.

Inference — that specialty split is the most useful thing in the release, because it says what the number counts. A tally led by teeth and skin is a tally of short outpatient visits: a filling and a skin consultation are cheap, quick, repeated, and frequently bought by someone already living in the emirate. A flown-in tertiary admission is none of those things. The arithmetic confirms the shape. AED 1.03 billion across 691,000 gives about AED 1,490 a head, roughly 405 US dollars at the pegged rate — a morning at a dentist, not a hospital stay. That division is done here; the Authority publishes no per-visitor figure.

And the release does not publish the rule that separates a visiting patient from a resident one, which is the rule the whole number turns on. Inference — set it beside Korea, where attracting foreign patients is a registered activity and the national report states in terms that it counts unique patients and excludes repeat visits. Both figures are around the same order of magnitude. Only one of them says what it is counting.

The outbound side of the same authority is documented far better than the inbound side. Administrative Resolution No. (14) of 2017 sets out whom DHA will send abroad for treatment and what it will pay — the care, the medicines and devices, interpreting, air ambulance where needed, repatriation of the body if the patient dies, one escort for an adult and two for a child or a patient who is elderly, paralysed, comatose or disabled — with a daily allowance schedule by destination at the back.

A facility or a professional applies for a licence through Sheryan and appears on the public register once granted; the register is the check a reader can actually perform. Insurance is mandatory for residents under the emirate's own scheme, which DHA administers. The inbound figure is compiled by the Authority and released through the Dubai Media Office rather than as a statistical publication with a method note. The outbound programme runs administratively: a medical report, a committee recommendation, then an approval that carries the flights, the escort and the per-diem with it.

As of 17 September 2026 the most recent published inbound figure is the 2023 one, released in August 2024, and no newer annual count was found on this pass. The Authority's overview page carried a last-modified date of 16 September 2026.

The 691,000 figure is one emirate's, not the federation's, and this record does not extend it. Its counting rule is not published.