By Abdelaziz Tawfiq Founder, TalenDir Limited - Talent Acquisition Leader
Over the years I have watched a lot of healthcare licensing files move through Abu Dhabi. Most of them succeed. The ones that stall almost never stall on qualifications.
They stall on a two-page form.
It is called different things depending on who you ask — the Staff Data Form, the CID form, the DOH Staff Data Form, the HAAD form, the security clearance form, or in Arabic وثيقة تعارف أبوظبي. It is the same document. Two pages, no fancy formatting, and it decides whether your file moves forward this month or next quarter.
This guide walks through every field on it. There is a video below that covers the same ground in six minutes if you prefer to watch, and the written version underneath goes further, because there are details that are easier to read than to hear.
What the CID form actually is
The Staff Data Form is required by the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DOH) for healthcare professionals who want to practise in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) uses it to run a background and identity check on every applicant before a licence is issued.
That is the whole purpose. It is not a CV, it is not an application form, and nothing on it is scored. It exists so that a security reviewer can confirm that you are who you say you are, and that the people and places connected to you check out.
Understanding that changes how you fill it in. Every question on the form is an identity question. The reviewer is not judging whether your father has an impressive job. They are checking whether the name you wrote matches the name on a passport somewhere in their records.
DOH or HAAD — which is it?
Both, depending on how old the document in front of you is.
The regulator was called the Health Authority – Abu Dhabi (HAAD) until it was restructured and renamed the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DOH). A lot of recruiters, hospitals, and candidates still say "HAAD licence" and "HAAD exam" out of habit, and plenty of circulated copies of this form still carry the old branding.
If someone asks you for a HAAD Staff Data Form and someone else asks for a DOH CID form, they want the same two pages.
Watch the walkthrough
The video above is our complete walkthrough of the form, recorded with a worked example. Everything in it is written out below, so use whichever format suits you.
The golden rule: the passport wins
Before any individual field, there is one principle that prevents most rejections:
Every name, place, and date on this form must match a passport exactly.
Not your CV. Not your degree certificate. Not how you normally write your name. The passport.
That means:
- No initials. If the passport says Ahmed Ali Mousa Hamdan, do not write Ahmed A. Hamdan.
- No shortened forms. Mohammed does not become Mohd.
- No corrected spellings. If the passport has an unusual transliteration of your name, keep the unusual transliteration.
- No helpful additions. Do not add a title, a degree, or a maiden name that is not printed on the passport.
The reviewer is doing name matching. A mismatch does not read as a typo to them; it reads as a discrepancy, and discrepancies get held for clarification.
The same applies to dates. Pick one format — DD/MM/YYYY — and use it in every single date field on both pages. Mixing 05/03/2026 and March 5, 2026 on the same form creates ambiguity that someone has to resolve manually.
Throughout the rest of this guide I will use one applicant as a worked example: Ahmed Hamdan, a Jordanian nurse applying from Amman who has never worked in the UAE. He is the most common profile we see, and his answers show you what to do when a section simply does not apply to you.
Personal details
The first block covers who you are.
Full Name — exactly as printed in the passport, in full. For Ahmed: Ahmed Ali Mousa Hamdan.
Family Name — the surname only. For Ahmed: Hamdan.
Name — the given name. For Ahmed: Ahmed.
Place of Birth — city and country, as shown in the passport. Amman, Jordan. If your passport shows only a country, write only the country; do not add a city from memory.
Date of Birth — from the passport, in DD/MM/YYYY.
Current Nationality — as per your current passport. Jordanian.
Previous Nationality — only if you have genuinely held another nationality. If not, write N/A.
Religion and Religious Section — the second field trips people up. If you write Muslim under Religion, you are expected to complete the Religious Section with Sunni or Shia. Leaving it blank when Religion is Muslim is one of the most common reasons a form comes back for completion. For other religions, complete the section field if it applies to you and write N/A if it does not.
Entrance Date and Place of Entrance — the date and port of your most recent entry into the UAE, on any visa type, including a tourist visa. Ahmed visited on holiday in December 2024, so he writes 21/12/2024 and Dubai Airport (DXB). If you have never entered the UAE at all, write N/A in both.
Sponsor and employment
This is the block that generates the most confusion for applicants outside the UAE, because the word "sponsor" does not mean what people assume.
In the UAE, your sponsor is your UAE employer — the entity that holds your residence visa. It is not your recruiter, not your agency, not the hospital you are hoping to join, and not a family member.
If you have never worked in the UAE, you have never had a sponsor. Ahmed writes N/A in Current Sponsor.
Profession and Present Work are different: these ask about your job right now, wherever in the world that is. Ahmed writes Nurse for Profession and Jordan Hospital for Present Work.
Office No., Bank, and Salary all refer to UAE employment. For an applicant outside the country, all three are N/A.
You will see copies of this form annotated with "leave blank if you did not work in the UAE." Blank works, but I recommend writing N/A instead. A blank field is ambiguous — a reviewer cannot tell whether you considered the question or skipped it. N/A is an answer.
Passport and visa
Check your passport validity before you start. As a practical rule we ask candidates for at least seven months of remaining validity at the point of application. A passport that expires mid-process forces a restart of steps you have already paid for.
Passport No. — exactly as printed, including any letter prefix.
Date of Issue, Place of Issue, Expiry Date — straight from the passport. Place of Issue is city and country: Amman, Jordan.
The residence visa section
Residence Visa No., Date of Issue, Place of Issue, Expiry Date.
Here is the rule people get wrong, and it matters more than any other line on the form:
If you have ever held a UAE residence visa, you must declare it — no matter how long ago.
Twenty-five years ago still counts. A visa you held for three months before leaving still counts. A visa under a previous employer, a spouse, or a parent still counts.
The CID has these records. Omitting an old visa does not hide it; it creates a contradiction between your form and their file, and that is a far worse problem than the visa itself would ever have been. There is nothing in an old residence visa that harms your application. There is a great deal of harm in appearing to have concealed one.
Ahmed has never held one, so all four fields are N/A.
Education and languages
Education — your highest qualification only, by its proper title. Ahmed writes Bachelor of Nursing. Not "BSN", not "Nursing degree" — the title as it appears on the certificate.
School / University — the awarding institution: University of Jordan.
Country — where that institution is located: Jordan. This is the institution's country, not your nationality and not where you studied remotely from.
Date of Graduation — from your certificate, in DD/MM/YYYY. Ahmed graduated on 19/01/2022.
Languages Spoken — list them plainly: Arabic, English.
Marital status and family
The family section is where forms most often come back, because people fill it in from memory rather than from documents.
Spouse — if you are married, complete the full block: name exactly as it appears on their passport, nationality, date of birth, present work, and profession. Ahmed's wife is Sarah Jad Ahmed Hamdan, Jordanian, born 23/07/2001, working at Arab Bank as a Teller.
If you are single, write N/A across the block rather than leaving it empty.
Children — first names only, in the numbered slots. Ahmed has one daughter, so slot 1 reads Diana and the rest stay empty.
Parents — full details for both, and this is the part that must mirror their passports precisely:
- Father Name — full name as per passport:
Ali Mousa Ali Hamdan - Nationality:
Jordanian - Date of Birth:
10/04/1971 - Place of Birth:
Amman, Jordan - Present Work:
Orange Telecom - Profession:
Project Manager
And the same six fields for your mother. Ahmed's mother is Anna Johns, British, born 19/06/1975 in London, UK. She is not currently working, so both Present Work and Profession read House Wife.
Two notes on parents. First, if a parent has passed away, write Deceased under Present Work and Profession rather than leaving the block blank — and still complete the name, nationality, and birth details. Second, if a parent holds a different nationality from you, that is completely normal and expected; Ahmed's mother is British and it changes nothing about his application. What matters is that the details are accurate.
Relatives and friends in the UAE
Three slots for relatives, three for friends. Each needs a name, a nationality, and a business address.
Prioritise contacts who are actually in the UAE. The point of this section is to give the reviewer people they can place. A cousin in Abu Dhabi is far more useful here than a friend in another country.
Ahmed lists two relatives:
Michael Johns | British | ADHQ, Abu DhabiSaleem Ahmed Hamdan | Jordanian | M42, Abu Dhabi
And two friends:
Ahmed Saleh | Syrian | Burjeel HospitalSami Anwar Jibawi | Palestinian | Cleveland Clinic
"Business address" means where they work, not where they live. If you genuinely have nobody in the UAE, write N/A — it is a normal answer for a first-time applicant and it is far better than inventing a contact.
Accommodation particulars
Fill in where you live now. If you are applying from outside the UAE, that is your home address abroad — not a hotel you are planning to stay in, and not your future employer's address.
Ahmed is in Jordan:
- District:
Abdoun, Amman - Street:
Salam Street - Flat / Bldg. No.:
Building 12 - Floor:
2nd Floor - Flat No.:
210 - Owner: optional — leave it blank if you do not know it
- Tel. No. and Mobile Phone: your own contact details, with the international dialling code
Use your own phone number here, not your agency's. If the CID needs a clarification, this is the number they call, and a number that reaches someone else adds days.
Travel and work history
Job Practiced within the State — roles you have held inside the UAE. Ahmed has never worked in the UAE, so this stays blank.
Countries Visited — the countries you have travelled to. Ahmed lists UK, USA, Canada, Turkey, Saudi Arabia.
Countries Previously Worked in — where you have actually been employed: Jordan, Saudi Arabia.
Be honest and be reasonably complete. These lists are cross-checked against passport stamps.
Vehicle Particulars — a UAE vehicle only. Ahmed does not own one, so the whole block stays blank.
Have you served in the Military Field? — if you have not, leave the country, rank, type of service, and term of service fields blank. If you have, complete them accurately; military service is not a problem, but an undeclared one is.
Date of Appointment — optional. Leave it blank unless you have a confirmed appointment date.
Final steps: how to submit without losing a week
The form is correct. Now do not undo that at the last step.
- Fill it in electronically, on a desktop computer. Filling PDF forms on a phone regularly breaks the field layout, truncates long entries, and produces a file that prints wrong. This is a genuinely common cause of resubmission.
- Print it.
- Review every field against the source documents — passport in one hand, form in the other. Check your name, your parents' names, every date, and every place name. This takes ten minutes and saves weeks.
- Sign it and add the current date.
- Attach the required documents. The form itself specifies: four passport-size photographs, a copy of your passport with the visa, a copy of your qualification, and the recommendation letter from the medical institute. Photographs should be recent, passport-size, and taken against a white background.
The mistakes we see most often
If you read nothing else, read this list. In our experience these account for the overwhelming majority of returned forms:
- A name that does not match the passport — initials, shortened forms, or a "corrected" spelling.
- A blank Religious Section when Religion is filled in as Muslim.
- An undeclared old UAE residence visa, usually because the applicant assumed something from years ago no longer mattered.
- Mixed date formats across the two pages.
- Treating a recruiter or hospital as the "sponsor" when the applicant has never held a UAE visa.
- Guessed parent details — an approximate date of birth or a place of birth from memory instead of from a passport.
- Blank fields instead of
N/A, leaving the reviewer unable to tell what was answered. - Filling the PDF on a phone and submitting a form with broken formatting.
- A passport with less than seven months of validity at submission.
- An agency's phone number where the applicant's should be.
None of these are difficult problems. They are all avoidable in a single careful pass.
Where this fits in the licensing journey
The CID check is one step. A full Abu Dhabi healthcare licensing file also involves primary source verification of your credentials, the DOH assessment or exam pathway for your profession, and the employer-side paperwork. The Staff Data Form runs alongside those, and because it is the least technical piece, it is the one people rush.
Do not rush it. It is the cheapest step to get right and one of the more expensive ones to get wrong.
At TalenDir we have spent more than a decade on healthcare licensing and placement into the UAE, and we handle these files end to end — verification, documentation, interview preparation, and cultural coaching. If you want a second pair of eyes on your form before it goes in, or help with the wider licensing process, get in touch.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Staff Data Form the same as the CID form? Yes. Staff Data Form, CID form, DOH Staff Data Form, HAAD form, security clearance form, and وثيقة تعارف are all names for the same two-page document.
Can I leave fields blank?
You can, but write N/A instead wherever a field genuinely does not apply to you. It removes the ambiguity between "not applicable" and "not answered".
I visited the UAE as a tourist. Does that count as entering the country? Yes. Complete the Entrance Date and Place of Entrance with your most recent entry, on any visa type.
I held a UAE residence visa many years ago. Do I have to declare it? Yes, always, regardless of how long ago it was or how briefly you held it.
My parents' details are not on any document I have. What do I do? Get copies of their passports. Approximating these details is one of the most common causes of a returned form.
Do I need a UAE contact to complete the relatives and friends section?
No. If you have nobody in the UAE, N/A is a normal and acceptable answer for a first-time applicant.
Can I fill the form on my phone? We strongly recommend against it. Use a desktop computer — mobile PDF editors frequently break the form's layout.
What documents go with the form? Four passport photographs, a passport copy with the visa, a copy of your qualification, and the recommendation letter from the medical institute.
References
- Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DOH) — the regulator responsible for healthcare licensing in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the authority for current requirements.
- Complete Guide to Abu Dhabi DOH/HAAD CID Staff Data Form — TalenDir on YouTube — the video walkthrough embedded above.
- Staff Data Form (CID form), Department of Health – Abu Dhabi — the source document this guide follows field by field.
- TalenDir — healthcare licensing and recruitment support for the UAE.
This guide reflects TalenDir's practical experience preparing healthcare licensing files for Abu Dhabi. Requirements are set by the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi and can change; always confirm current requirements with the DOH or your sponsoring facility before submitting.
