Culture & emergencies · All travellers
Emergency numbers in Dubai, and the consulate lines that matter
The short answer
In the UAE, call 999 for police, 998 for an ambulance and 997 for the fire service, from anywhere in the country. Dubai has a tourism police line on +971 50 453 8107. The Consulate General of India in Dubai runs four separate 24-hour hotlines, including +971 50 943 3111 for detention and legal trouble.
On this page
Most pages like this are a list of numbers copied from another list of numbers, which is how wrong digits travel. Everything below is from the UAE government portal or the Indian Consulate’s own site, and where the sources disagree with each other this page says so instead of picking one.
The three numbers that work anywhere
Not Dubai numbers. UAE numbers, callable from any emirate.
By the numbers
- 999 for police
- 998 for an ambulance
- 997 for fire and Civil Defence
- Dubai Tourism Police, +971 50 453 8107
- Dubai Police non-emergency, 901
- Directory enquiries, 181 or 199
- UAE government information, 171
The Indian consulate hotlines
This is the part almost nobody writing for Indian travellers gets right, because there is not one consulate number. There are four, they are staffed around the clock, and calling the wrong one wastes the time you do not have.
- Pravasi Bharatiya Sahayata Kendra, 800 46342
- Detention and legal, +971 50 943 3111
- Death registration, +971 50 734 7676
- Women in distress, +971 50 455 9594
Save the detention line before you need it
Of the four, the one worth having in your phone is +971 50 943 3111. It is the only situation on this page where you may not be the person making the call, and where the people who need the number are relatives in India trying to help from six hours away. The general helpline will route you eventually. The direct line does not have to.
If you lose your passport
The sequence matters, and getting it backwards costs a day you may not have before a flight.
Search properly before you report
The hotel safe, the last taxi, the bag you already checked twice. A report filed and then withdrawn is its own small mess.
File a police report
Report the loss to Dubai Police. This is the document the consulate works from, and it comes first.
Go to the Consulate General of India
Take the police report, whatever identity documents you still hold, and copies of the lost passport if you have them. Photographs of the passport on your phone are genuinely useful here.
Ask about an emergency certificate if the flight is close
An emergency certificate is a one-way travel document back to India rather than a replacement passport. It is the route when there is no time for a reissue.
The five minutes that make this survivable
Before you fly, photograph your passport’s first and last pages and your visa, and email them to yourself rather than only storing them on the phone that may be lost with the passport. It changes this from a week into an afternoon, and it costs nothing.
Numbers we will not print
Two numbers commonly appear on pages like this one and neither is on ours, deliberately.
Al Ameen, Dubai Police’s confidential reporting service, is published with different numbers by different sources, and we could not settle it on a primary source. A wrong number on an emergency page is worse than no number, so ask Dubai Police on 901 for the current one.
996 for the coastguard is widely repeated and does not appear on the UAE government’s own list of tourist helplines, which names 999, 998 and 997. In trouble at sea, call 999.
That is a smaller list than most pages give you. It is the list we can stand behind.
What to do next
Put 999 and +971 50 943 3111 in your phone now, and email yourself photographs of your passport and visa. Those two things cover the large majority of what actually goes wrong.
One thing to know before you need it: WhatsApp voice and video calls do not work in the UAE, so the app you would reach for by reflex will fail. Ordinary dialled calls work normally on roaming, which is why every number on this page is a number to dial rather than an app to open.
Common questions
What is the emergency number in Dubai?
999 for police, 998 for an ambulance and 997 for the fire service, and all three work from anywhere in the UAE rather than only in Dubai. The UAE government portal publishes these three as the helplines for tourists. Dubai also runs a tourism police line on +971 50 453 8107 for matters that are not an active emergency but do need police help.
Which Indian Consulate number do I call from Dubai in an emergency?
It depends on the emergency, because the Consulate General of India in Dubai runs four separate 24-hour lines rather than one. General help is the Pravasi Bharatiya Sahayata Kendra on 800 46342, free to call. Detention, jail and legal matters go to +971 50 943 3111. A death is +971 50 734 7676. A woman in distress is +971 50 455 9594.
What do I do if I lose my passport in Dubai?
File a police report first, then go to the Consulate General of India with it. The report is what the consulate needs before it can act, so the order matters and doing it the other way round costs a day. If your flight is close, ask the consulate about an emergency certificate, which is a one-way travel document to India rather than a replacement passport.
Is there a tourist police in Dubai?
Yes. The UAE government portal lists a Dubai tourism police number on +971 50 453 8107, and Abu Dhabi has its own on +971 2 800 2626 and +971 2 512 7777. Use it for the situations that are not a 999 emergency but still need police involvement, such as a theft you need documented for insurance or a dispute with a business.
How do I call an Indian number from Dubai in an emergency?
Ordinary cellular calls work normally on international roaming, because they are carrier calls rather than internet calls. That matters here: WhatsApp voice and video are blocked in the UAE, so the app you would instinctively reach for will not connect. In a genuine emergency, dial rather than open an app.
Related guides
Before you fly
The rules are the easy part. The visa is the file.
We file UAE visit visas from India every week, and we will tell you plainly if your case is one we would not take. Licence R710507 is Canadian and does not cover the UAE, so nothing on these pages is UAE legal advice.
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