Filming in Abu Dhabi a different authority, a separate permit set, and content approval that covers any production
The hotel opens in Abu Dhabi, the campaign is signed off, and somebody assumes the production partner who has shot four properties in Dubai will handle it the same way. That assumption is the expensive one. Getting a filming permit in Abu Dhabi means going to a different authority, under a different permit set, with a content approval that lands earlier and reaches wider than the Dubai equivalent. None of the Dubai paperwork travels. This guide is for the UAE hotel group, developer, clinic or restaurant operator with an Abu Dhabi property, and for the agency producers working for them. It covers which authority issues, what the permissions are, why the treatment has to be finished sooner than anyone expects, which locations the venue controls rather than the government, what the permit costs and which instrument sets that, and the timing figure the Commission publishes.
The one line to hold onto
The published wording is that all scripts, treatments, storyboards and series synopses need to be approved by the Creative Media Authority in advance of any production in Abu Dhabi. Not only features, not only documentaries. Any production. A brand film sits inside that on the plain reading, which means the creative locks before the permit rather than alongside it. Feature film script approval is the one thing routed elsewhere, to the federal regulator.
A filming permit in Abu Dhabi comes from a different authority than a Dubai one
Start with the thing that trips people up, which is a naming problem rather than a rules problem.
The body most people find first is the Abu Dhabi Film Commission, and it is the right place to read. But the Commission's own footer states that it is a division of the Creative Media Authority, and it is the Creative Media Authority that actually issues. So the site you research on and the body you apply to are not the same name, and a client asking who approved the shoot deserves the accurate answer.
The Commission's permits page sets out five permissions: content approval, a ground filming permit, an aerial filming NOC, a marine filming permit and a media equipment entry permit. Its frequently asked questions name a sixth, the private location permit, which is dealt with in its own section below because it works differently from the rest.
Nothing carries over from a Dubai production. Different authority, different permit set, different position on content. A team that has produced in Dubai has useful instincts about how a permitted shoot feels, and almost no transferable paperwork.
There is a layer above all of this, and it is worth naming early because it explains why the emirate boundary matters so much. Federal Decree by Law No. 55 of 2023 concerning media regulation defines the Competent Authority as the local government body concerned with licensing or permitting media activities, or the federal Council for those emirates where there is no competent local body. Article 13 then provides that the Competent Authority issues permits for practising land, aerial or marine photography activities, including approval of texts and content, after coordination with the concerned authorities. Abu Dhabi has a competent local body, so Abu Dhabi's permits are issued locally. That is the statutory reason a Dubai permit and an Abu Dhabi permit are different documents rather than two copies of one.
Content approval covers any production, and that is the sentence to read twice
Here is the published wording, and it rewards slow reading. All scripts, treatments, storyboards and series synopses need to be approved by the Creative Media Authority in advance of any production in Abu Dhabi.
Compare that with what the Journal found in Saudi Arabia, where the equivalent rule is scoped to films and documentaries, leaving a genuine question about whether a commercial brand film falls inside it. That question had to be left open, and it was. Abu Dhabi leaves no such gap. There is no format scoping in the sentence at all. A brand film is a production. A launch film is a production. A set of social assets shot over an afternoon is a production. On the plain reading, each falls inside.
Two consequences follow, and both change how a campaign is run rather than what it costs.
The first is sequencing. Content approval is part of the application for the ground, aerial and marine permits, not a parallel process running beside them. A treatment still in revision is therefore not a complete application, and the permit clock has not started. UAE marketing teams are used to locking a concept close to the shoot, with the creative still moving while locations and crew are secured. That order does not work here.
The second is storyboards, and it is the one that surprises people. They are named explicitly in the requirement. For a scripted commercial that changes nothing, because boards exist anyway. For brand work they are often an internal tool at best, sketched to align a client and then abandoned. In Abu Dhabi they become a deliverable to an authority, which means somebody has to draw them properly, and that is a line in the budget and a week in the schedule that nobody costed.
There is a genuinely useful published offer alongside the requirement. The Commission states that it is available to advise on what content is, and is not, likely to be deemed appropriate in terms of meeting the cultural, social and religious sensitivities of the United Arab Emirates. Take that up early. An authority willing to tell you in advance what will not clear is worth more than any amount of guessing after the fact.
The Commission also instructs that all content must adhere to the Creative Media Authority content code. That code was retrieved for this article. It runs to nineteen pages and its ten rules cover protection of children, harm and offence, crime, religion, accuracy and impartiality, fairness, privacy, interactivity, arrangements for funding content including sponsorship and product placement, and advertising. Its own stated scope is licensees operating from the Creative Zone, which may or may not describe a visiting production, so this article carries the Commission's instruction to adhere to it and makes no claim about how it binds you legally.
Watch out
The order of work changes in Abu Dhabi. Lock the treatment and the boards, then apply. Applying with a moving creative does not start the clock, it just uses up calendar.
The permit set, and which of them your campaign actually touches
Content approval
Needed as part of the application for ground, aerial and marine filming permits. Chargeable.
Ground filming permit
Applied for from the Creative Media Authority once content approval has been granted, to film in public areas. One detail in the published wording deserves attention: the filming permission will be granted for the specific public locations listed in your application. So a location that is not on the list is not covered by the permit. The page does not say what adding one later involves, and this article does not guess, but anyone who has watched a director find a better corner two streets away on the recce should build the location list wider than the shot list.
Aerial filming permit
Aerial footage intended for television, cinema or digital content requires a No-Objection Certificate from the Creative Media Authority first. The published page adds that additional approvals may also be required from relevant authorities and site owners as applicable, without enumerating them, so treat the NOC as the first permission rather than the whole of it. The Commission recommends hiring an Abu Dhabi-registered drone company for any aerial work and publishes an industry directory of them. That is a recommendation in its own wording, not a stated requirement, and this article does not upgrade it into one.
Marine filming permit
Required for filming in ocean or coastal environments, for content in television, cinema and digital. The Journal's article on filming on the water covers the Dubai maritime position in detail, and none of it applies here. Different emirate, different authority, separate permit.
Media equipment entry permit
Visiting media teams bringing cameras and film equipment into Abu Dhabi on a temporary basis must obtain one. Note where the Commission files this: it is the whole of its customs clearance section, and the answer to its own question about the procedures for bringing equipment in. The Journal's article on filming in Dubai as an international brand covers carnets and the inbound customs process for Dubai, which is adjacent reading rather than the same requirement.
Public or private, and why the venue is usually your gatekeeper
This is the section to screenshot, because the published definitions cut against instinct.
A Private Location Permit, which the Commission also calls a location agreement, covers locations owned or managed by private entities. The published examples are hotels, leisure facilities, mosques, shopping malls and restaurants. You obtain it by contacting the private entity directly.
A Public Ground Permit covers all other types of location. The published examples are deserts, roads, islands, bridges and government buildings. That one comes from the Creative Media Authority.
Read those two lists against a hotel campaign and the shape of the problem appears. The lobby, the suite, the spa and the restaurant are private, and the hotel is your gatekeeper. The corniche road the car drives along and the bridge sitting behind your talent in the wide shot are both on the public list, and the Authority is your gatekeeper. A campaign that mixes both needs both.
Beaches are the interesting case, because they appear on neither published list. The private definition turns on locations owned or managed by private entities, so a hotel's own managed beach follows that definition on its face, while an open public stretch does not. That is reasoning from the published wording rather than a classification the Commission publishes, so it is exactly the sort of thing to confirm rather than assume.
The permits page also specifies a signed location agreement for each private location. That word matters when a campaign covers a hotel, a mall activation and a restaurant in the same week. Three locations, three agreements, three sets of terms and three legal reviews.
One thing is not published and should not be assumed either way: whether a private location agreement has to be filed with the Authority or is purely a contract between the production and the venue. Ask, because the answer changes whether the venue's slow legal department sits on your critical path for the permit as well as for the access.
Good to know
Start with the private locations. They are the ones with their own marketing calendar, their own brand standards and their own reasons to say no, and unlike an authority they are not obliged to answer at all.
Up to fifteen working days, and when that clock actually starts
Watch out
Three working weeks is the published ceiling for one step in the process. It is not the lead time for a shoot, and treating it as one is how a campaign misses an opening date.
Abu Dhabi publishes a number, which is rarer than it should be. Creative Media Authority review and issuance usually require up to 15 working days once complete documents are provided.
Both qualifiers do real work.
Up to is a ceiling, not a promise of speed, and a ceiling that the word usually already softens. Plan against it, do not celebrate it.
Once complete documents are provided is the more important half. The clock starts when the Authority has a set it accepts as complete, not when you press send. And since content approval forms part of that set, a treatment still being argued over with the client means the fifteen days have not begun. The most common way to lose three weeks here is to believe you started three weeks ago.
It is also worth saying plainly what the figure is not. It covers Authority review and issuance for the permit. It is not an end-to-end lead time for a shoot. Private location agreements run on the venue's clock, aerial approvals may involve authorities the page does not name, and the equipment permit is its own process.
Do not confuse this fifteen with the other one. The federal service records for the equivalent permits state a service delivery time of five working days and require the application to be filed fifteen working days before filming starts. Those are the federal route's published terms, and they measure different things: one is a filing deadline, the other is a turnaround. The Commission's figure is the one that governs an Abu Dhabi filing, and treating either fifteen as the whole lead time would be a mistake.
For context, the Journal has now looked at published filming requirements in Dubai, at Dubai's airports, on Dubai's water and in Saudi Arabia, and in most of those cases no processing time was published at all.
What a filming permit costs, and where that number comes from
The Commission does not publish a fee. It states that script approval and filming permits are chargeable services of the Creative Media Authority, that the charge is the same for photographic and film permits, and directs enquirers to the Authority by phone and email. Read only its pages and you would conclude no figure exists.
It does exist, and it is set at federal level. Cabinet Resolution No. 41 of 2025 on media services fees carries two schedules, one for services provided by the federal Council and one for services provided by the Competent Authority. In the Competent Authority schedule, three consecutive items are the ground filming permit within the country, the aerial filming permit within the country and the marine filming permit within the country, each at 500 dirhams per single day.
The federal regulator's own service records publish the same number from the other direction, giving service fees of AED 500 per day for the ground, aerial and marine filming permits, with a service delivery time of five working days and a requirement that the application be submitted fifteen working days before the date set for the start of filming.
So the working figure is AED 500 per day, per permit, and the arithmetic that follows from it matters more than the number. A three-day shoot needing ground and aerial permissions is six permit-days rather than three. And the resolution settles the question a producer always asks next: for the purposes of charging these fees, part of a day counts as a full day. Six half-days is six days, not three.
Content approval is chargeable too, and the resolution prices one kind of it: a series script clearance at 500 dirhams per script. That is a series script specifically. Nothing identified in the resolution prices the treatment and storyboard clearance a brand film would actually file, so no figure for that appears here.
Three honest qualifications, and the last is the one to raise with your applicant. The Commission's own pages publish none of this, so confirm the current figures with the Authority before they go in a budget. The resolution was issued on 16 April 2025 and takes effect thirty days after publication, replacing an earlier 2023 instrument, so check you are reading the current one. And the resolution expressly disapplies its own schedules to media services provided in the free zones, which are governed by a separate 2016 resolution instead. The Creative Media Authority runs a creative free zone. Whether a filming permit for a shoot in the emirate counts as a service provided in a free zone, or whether that carve-out is aimed at the licensing of companies established there, is not something this article can settle from the instrument, and it is worth asking before you rely on the figure.
Good to know
AED 500 per day is a permit fee, not a production cost. It is small against a campaign budget and almost never the thing that decides a schedule. The lead times are.
The federal layer, and which authority you are actually dealing with
The relationship between the emirate and the federal regulator confuses people, partly because both publish filming permits under near-identical names. The statute settles it.
Federal Decree by Law No. 55 of 2023 defines the Competent Authority as the local government body concerned with licensing or permitting media activities, or the Council for those emirates where there is no competent local body. Article 13 gives that Competent Authority the job of issuing permits for land, aerial and marine photography activities, including approval of texts and content, after coordination with the concerned authorities.
That is one permit issued by whichever authority is competent for the place, not a federal layer stacked on top of an emirate one. Abu Dhabi has a competent local body in the Creative Media Authority, so an Abu Dhabi shoot is an Abu Dhabi filing. The federal service records exist for the emirates that do not have one, and their terms and conditions say as much when they refer to obtaining the filming permit from the Council or the competent authority.
The federal regulator's name is worth a paragraph of its own, because it is in transition and you will see both versions. The Commission's filming FAQ names the UAE Media Council as responsible for feature film script approval. Its rebate FAQ names the National Media Authority. Its rebate guidelines document says Media Council throughout and never uses the newer name. The regulator's own website, still served from the Media Council's domain, titles itself the National Media Authority and publishes a contact address on an nma.gov.ae domain. The regulator's own site is the best evidence available. The practical consequence is small but real: check the name on the form in front of you, and do not assume a document naming the Media Council is out of date or invalid, because the Commission's own current paperwork still uses it.
Drones, and the regulation that does not travel either
The Commission's position on aerial work is the NOC, plus its recommendation to use an Abu Dhabi-registered operator, plus its note that additional approvals may be required. Above that sits civil aviation, and this is where a Dubai-experienced producer is most likely to carry across something that does not apply.
The unmanned aircraft regulation the Journal cited in its article on filming at Dubai's airports is a Dubai Civil Aviation Authority instrument, and it says so in its own applicability clause: it applies to unmanned aircraft organisations and operations within the Emirate of Dubai. It is not federal, and it does not reach Abu Dhabi.
The federal instrument is the General Civil Aviation Authority's civil aviation regulation for unmanned aircraft systems, which is scoped by activity rather than by emirate. It prescribes requirements for persons or organisations operating unmanned aircraft for commercial and non-commercial activities, and its guidance names photography and aerial survey as exactly the special operations it covers. It sets out an operator authorisation, airspace approval, insurance and security clearance.
What this article does not establish is how the Commission's media NOC and the civil aviation authorisation interlock in practice: which comes first, whether one is evidence for the other, and what the combined lead time is. That is a question for your aerial operator, and the useful version of it is to ask which authorisations they already hold rather than which ones they can get.
Crew, visas and the international director
All non-UAE nationals require a valid visa to work in Abu Dhabi. Each international cast and crew member requires a visa granting permission to work for up to 90 days, with the ability to extend, and the Commission notes that costs vary depending on the agency provider.
For most readers of this Journal that is reassurance rather than a problem. A crew of UAE residents driving down from Dubai is not an international crew for this purpose, and the requirement does not bite.
It bites when a client wants a specific director, a specific director of photography or specific on-camera talent flown in for the shoot. That is a visa per person, on a timeline nobody has published, running in parallel with the permit. If a named individual is part of the pitch, start that conversation at the same time as the permit conversation, not after it. The same visiting-team scenario is what triggers the media equipment entry permit, so the two tend to arrive together.
Common questions
Do I need a filming permit in Abu Dhabi if I already have a Dubai permit?
Yes. They are separate emirates with separate authorities. Dubai permits are issued under Dubai's own regime, and Abu Dhabi filming permits come from the Creative Media Authority, with the Abu Dhabi Film Commission as its division and public face. Nothing transfers, including content approval. Budget for a fresh application and a fresh content clearance.
Does a brand film need content approval in Abu Dhabi?
The published wording says all scripts, treatments, storyboards and series synopses need approval in advance of any production in Abu Dhabi, with no scoping by format. On the plain reading a brand film falls inside it. This is a real difference from Saudi Arabia, where the equivalent rule names films and documentaries and leaves commercial work genuinely unclear.
How long does an Abu Dhabi filming permit take?
The published figure is that Creative Media Authority review and issuance usually require up to 15 working days once complete documents are provided. Read both qualifiers. It is a ceiling rather than a norm, and the clock starts when the Authority accepts your documents as complete, which cannot happen while the treatment is still moving.
What does an Abu Dhabi filming permit cost?
The Commission publishes no figure and directs enquirers to the Creative Media Authority, but the fee is set federally. Cabinet Resolution No. 41 of 2025 on media services fees puts the Competent Authority's ground, aerial and marine filming permits at 500 dirhams per single day each, and the federal regulator's own service records give the same AED 500 per day. Note it is per day and per permit, so a three-day shoot needing ground and aerial is six permit-days. Part of a day counts as a full day for charging. Content approval is chargeable too, and the resolution prices a series script clearance at 500 dirhams per script, though nothing identified in it prices the treatment and storyboard clearance a brand film would file. Confirm before budgeting.
Do I need a permit to film inside an Abu Dhabi hotel or shopping mall?
Those are private locations under the published definitions, along with leisure facilities, mosques and restaurants. Permission comes from the entity directly, through a signed location agreement for each location, rather than from the Authority. Whether that agreement is also filed with the Authority is not published, so ask.
Can my Dubai production company apply for the permit itself?
Not established. The permits pages do not address applicant eligibility, so put it in writing before you plan around it. Note that Abu Dhabi's rebate scheme separately requires an Abu Dhabi-based applicant company, but that is a condition of the rebate and should not be assumed to apply to permits.
What to hold onto, in one pass
Abu Dhabi filming permits come from the Creative Media Authority, of which the Abu Dhabi Film Commission is a division, and nothing from a Dubai permit carries across. The permits page sets out five permissions, being content approval, ground, aerial NOC, marine and media equipment entry, and the frequently asked questions name a sixth, the private location permit. Content approval covers all scripts, treatments, storyboards and series synopses in advance of any production, with no scoping by format, which puts the creative lock before the application rather than beside it. Private locations, including hotels, leisure facilities, mosques, shopping malls and restaurants, are permitted by the venue through a signed agreement for each location. Public locations, including deserts, roads, islands, bridges and government buildings, are permitted by the Authority. Review and issuance usually require up to 15 working days once complete documents are provided, and that covers one step rather than the whole shoot. Aerial work needs an NOC first, with further approvals possibly required, and the civil aviation regulation that applies UAE-wide is the federal one rather than the Dubai instrument. Non-UAE nationals need a work visa, published as up to 90 days and extendable. The Commission publishes no fee, but Cabinet Resolution No. 41 of 2025 sets the Competent Authority's ground, aerial and marine filming permits at 500 dirhams per single day each. Federal Decree by Law No. 55 of 2023 gives the permit to the local competent authority, which in Abu Dhabi is the Creative Media Authority. What is genuinely not addressed anywhere reached is whether a company licensed outside the emirate can hold the permit itself.
Grolez Films: cross the boundary on purpose, not by accident
The pattern worth avoiding is the one this article opened with. A campaign is approved on a Dubai timeline, the Abu Dhabi property is added late as an obvious extension, and the permit turns out to sit behind a content approval that needs boards nobody has drawn.
The version that works is unremarkable. Decide the Abu Dhabi element while the creative is still being written. Lock the treatment and the boards early, because here they are paperwork as well as craft. Split the location list into private and public on day one and start the venue conversations first, since those are the ones that can simply refuse. Then batch properly, because a single cleared shoot day that carries as much of the campaign as it sensibly can is worth more here than in Dubai. Batching several videos into one shoot day saves more than 30 per cent against shooting them separately, and in a market where every private location is separately agreed the saving compounds.
If the conversation is turning to money rather than paperwork, the companion piece to this one covers Abu Dhabi's cashback rebate, including the one category that a commercial can actually reach and the several conditions that decide whether it is worth reaching for.
Luis Grolez, the founder, pitches this personally, founder to founder.
See the work. Then get in touch about a specific property and a specific quarter.
Sources and methodology
This article is built from primary sources retrieved on 17 August 2026: the Abu Dhabi Film Commission's permits page and filming frequently asked questions; the Creative Media Authority's media services page and the Content Code it publishes; Federal Decree by Law No. 55 of 2023 concerning media regulation and Cabinet Resolution No. 41 of 2025 on media services fees, both served from the Authority's own site; the federal regulator's service records for the ground, aerial and marine filming permits; the General Civil Aviation Authority's regulation for unmanned aircraft systems; and the Commission's rebate pages, which are cited only where this article distinguishes a rebate condition from a permit condition.
One page did not render: the Authority's deep service record for the ground filming permit returns a server error, and its equivalent content sits on the media services page instead. Everything else named above was retrieved and read.
On the fee, the reading offered here is that Cabinet Resolution No. 41 of 2025 sets a schedule for services provided by the Competent Authority, that Federal Decree by Law No. 55 of 2023 defines the Competent Authority as the local body where one exists, and that the local body in Abu Dhabi is the Creative Media Authority. That chain is stated from the instruments themselves, but the Commission does not publish the figure on its own pages, so confirm it before it reaches a budget. Two qualifications are carried in the body rather than buried here: the resolution disapplies its own schedules to media services provided in the free zones, and the Authority runs a creative free zone, which this article names as an open question rather than resolving; and the resolution prices a series script clearance but nothing identified in it prices the treatment and storyboard clearance a brand film would file.
The Content Code is described rather than quoted. Its stated scope is the editorial standards to be maintained by licensees operating from the Creative Zone, and this article does not establish whether a visiting production falls inside that, so the Commission's instruction that all content must adhere to it is carried as an instruction rather than as a legal scope claim.
On the federal regulator's name, four sources were compared: the Commission's filming FAQ says UAE Media Council, its rebate FAQ says National Media Authority, its rebate guidelines say Media Council throughout, and the regulator's own website titles itself the National Media Authority. The regulator's own site is treated as the best available evidence and the inconsistency is reported rather than smoothed over.
Questions left open and marked as such in the text: whether a company licensed outside Abu Dhabi can hold a permit directly, which the permits pages do not address; whether a private location agreement is filed with the Authority; whether the aerial NOC is the whole aerial permission, given the page's reference to additional approvals; how the Commission's media NOC and civil aviation authorisation interlock in sequence and lead time; and what content approval costs. The rebate scheme's requirement for an Abu Dhabi-based applicant is a condition of that scheme and is not read across to permits anywhere in this article.
No claim is made anywhere that Grolez Films has produced in Abu Dhabi. The figure describing Grolez Films' own work is an approximation from our own quoting, confirmed internally on 16 August 2026, and is not a published rate. This article is informational and is not legal advice. Confirm your position with the relevant authority or with counsel before relying on it. Prepared 17 August 2026.
- Abu Dhabi Film Commission, permits, for content approval as part of the application, the ground filming permit and its location-specific scope, the aerial NOC and the recommendation to use a registered drone company, the marine filming permit, the media equipment entry permit, and the statement that the Commission is a division of the Creative Media Authority: film.gov.ae
- Abu Dhabi Film Commission, filming frequently asked questions, for the content approval scope covering any production, the routing of feature film script approval to the federal regulator, the public and private location definitions, the private location permit, the 15 working days figure and its qualifiers, the chargeable status of permits and the equal charge for photographic and film permits, the visa position, the offer of content advice, the instruction to adhere to the content code, and the filing of the equipment permit under customs clearance: film.gov.ae
- Federal Decree by Law No. 55 of 2023 concerning media regulation, for the definition of the Competent Authority and for Article 13, which gives that authority the issuing of land, aerial and marine photography permits including approval of texts and content: cma.gov.ae
- Cabinet Resolution No. 41 of 2025 on media services fees, for the schedule of services provided by the Competent Authority, in which the ground, aerial and marine filming permits within the country are each set at 500 dirhams per single day: cma.gov.ae
- National Media Authority, ground filming permit service record, for the AED 500 per day fee, the five working day service delivery time, the requirement to file fifteen working days before filming, and the reference to obtaining the permit from the Council or the competent authority: uaemc.gov.ae
- National Media Authority, e-services catalogue, for the federal filming licence and the ground, aerial and marine permissions, and for the regulator's own current naming: uaemc.gov.ae
- General Civil Aviation Authority, civil aviation regulation for unmanned aircraft systems and operations, for the UAE-wide scope by activity, its coverage of commercial photography and aerial survey, and the operator authorisation and airspace approval it requires: gcaa.gov.ae
- Creative Media Authority Content Code, for the nineteen pages, the ten rules and the stated scope covering licensees operating from the Creative Zone: cma.gov.ae
- Abu Dhabi Film Commission, rebate frequently asked questions and rebate guidelines, cited only for the rebate's Abu Dhabi applicant condition, which this article keeps separate from permits, and for the regulator naming comparison: film.gov.ae