The Ministry of Interior (MoI) has announced that its smart-phone application—which tens of thousands of residents and companies use every day to pay traffic fines, renew vehicle registrations, apply for entry-permits and follow up visa-status inquiries—will be taken offline for three hours, from 02:00 to 05:00 on Monday, 27 September 2026. According to the ministry’s social-media alert, the temporary suspension is required to roll out “critical security and performance updates” designed to improve speed and add new digital ID features. Although the outage is short, the MoI app sits at the centre of the UAE’s single-window ecosystem for immigration and public-security services. Companies use it to pay overstaying fines, request emergency visa extensions for visiting executives and track the status of work-permit conversions. HR managers have therefore been advised to submit any time-sensitive applications either before 23:59 on Sunday or after service resumes at 05:01 Monday. Airport immigration e-gates and the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs & Port Security’s ICP Smart Services portal will not be affected, the MoI clarified. The maintenance comes as the UAE accelerates its “Services 2.0” programme—an initiative that is consolidating more than 1,500 federal procedures into fully mobile journeys. Last week the Cabinet said digital transactions already account for 99.5 per cent of visa-related services nationwide, saving an estimated AED 1.2 billion in administrative costs since 2023. For business-traveller stakeholders the main risk is transactional: fines for late visa renewals accrue daily and missed payment windows can trigger automatic travel bans. Multinational mobility teams should therefore add a three-hour buffer to their compliance calendars this week and remind employees travelling on visit visas to finalise extensions outside the downtime window. In practical terms, users who do attempt to log in during the outage will receive an on-screen “service under maintenance” message. The MoI says all data will remain secure and no further user action is required once the upgrade is complete.
Source: Gulf News
