How to Change the Mobile Number in Your Emirates ID: The Fee Is Small, the Order of the Steps Is Not

I keep a short list of every place that sends me a one-time password: more than one bank, the telecom account, UAE Pass, a couple of government apps. When I reconcile statements at month end, each login is a code arriving on one phone. If that phone number changed tomorrow, none of those systems would know unless I told each one, and the government ones start from the number on my Emirates ID.

That is why the number on the ID is not just a contact detail. A law firm’s note on Mondaq puts it plainly: “The number registered against an Emirates ID is the means by which identity is confirmed and the address at which a person is reachable by the UAE authorities.” The same note lists what runs through it: “The opening of an account, the reset of a password and the registration of a new line.”

How to change the mobile number in your Emirates ID online

ICP calls the service Data Update and describes it as “a service whereby non-essential data, namely phone number, email and address is updated.” Non-essential here means the card itself does not change, and ICP lists no required documents. The steps:

1. Open ICP Smart Services (smartservices.icp.gov.ae) or the UAEICP app.
2. Log in with UAE Pass. ICP’s service page states: “This service requires you to login using UAE Pass.”
3. Open the Data Update (Update Personal Information) service.
4. Enter the new number and request the one-time password. It goes to the new number, so the new SIM must already be active.
5. Review, pay, and keep the reference number.

A few conditions on ICP’s page catch people. The update happens “through the customer’s personal account”, and the service “is not available in public services except for visitors holding a visa”. For a family, “their personal information must be updated through the sponsor’s/head of family’s personal account”, so a sponsor changing a spouse’s or child’s number does it from the sponsor’s own login. And per InsuranceMarket.ae, “you cannot register a foreign number on your Emirates ID.”

Gulf Today, reporting ICP guidance in 2022, added one more: updating mobile and address data requires the card holder “to be present in the country.” Do it before a long trip, not from the airport lounge abroad.

How much does it cost to change the mobile number on an Emirates ID?

This is where the published answers disagree, and I would rather show the disagreement than pick a number.

ICP’s own Data Update page, as I read it on 22 October 2026, lists the terms, but the text I could retrieve showed no fee amount. The only figure that counts is the itemised breakdown on the payment screen before confirming. Whatever it reads, it sits somewhere between a mobile top-up and a dinner out. The fee is not the expensive part.

The fee is the cheap part. The expensive part is a number on file that cannot receive the codes.

On timing, ICP says “the data is updated in the systems automatically” after payment, while InsuranceMarket.ae says it “usually takes 2 to 7 days.” I would allow the week before relying on it for anything else.

What if your Emirates ID is linked to the wrong number?

For many salaried residents, the first Emirates ID application was not filed by them. An employer’s PRO or a typing centre filled in the form. The Mondaq note describes what often happens next: “The form asks for a mobile number, and the agent enters its own so that the application can be completed without calling the client each time a code arrives.”

The fix is the same Data Update, but the order of operations matters, and this is the part the step-by-step guides skip. ICP’s service needs a UAE Pass login, and UAE Pass sends its own codes to whatever number it holds. So the sequence is:

1. SIM first. Have the new line active and registered in the card holder’s name.
2. UAE Pass second. Make sure your UAE Pass account works on the new number; if the account is still tied to the old phone, UAE Pass has its own recovery route for registering a new device.
3. ICP third. Run Data Update and confirm the OTP on the new line.
4. Banks and telecom last. Update each bank, card issuer and insurer, then test one login and one card alert from each.

The Mondaq note suggests reviewing the records tied to the number “after any change of number and at the conclusion of any engagement with an agent.” That is a two-minute check worth doing even if nothing has changed.

Why a stale number can cost real dirhams

Two ICP fines sit next to this service. The first is for late renewal: AED 20 a day, capped at AED 1,000, once the month after expiry has passed. ICP can only reach you on the number on file, which is how a stale number quietly turns into a late fine; I walked through that math in what an Emirates ID renewal costs when it’s late.

The second is for “delay in reporting any change or modification in the prescribed personal or civil data”, also AED 20 a day after 30 days, capped at AED 1,000. ICP calls phone, email and address “non-essential”, and I could not find ICP stating whether those count as prescribed data. I treat the 30 days as the window anyway. Even the highest quoted fee equals under eight days of either fine, against a AED 1,000 ceiling, so the uncertainty is not worth testing.

The Mondaq note also points out that under the federal Civil Procedure Law a defendant “may be notified of proceedings by text message”, with objection and appeal periods running from that date. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. It is just the clearest reason I know to keep the number on the ID one you actually carry.