As any UAE resident would know, a valid Emirates ID is crucial for accessing most services in the country. Whether you want to rent a property, take a telephone connection, open a bank account or secure your child’s admission in a school, having a valid Emirates ID is important.
The Emirates ID is valid for a one or two years, or even five or 10 years depending on the type of residence visa.
Emirates ID number
The Emirates ID number comprises 15 digits divided into four parts. Most of us remember our ID number and the general month of expiry, and some of us are also able to identify a pattern in it.
For instance, we know that the ID number begins with 784, and is generally followed by the year of birth, though that’s not always the case.
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Why are the numbers divided into segments?
The general format of the Emirates ID number is 784-1234-1234567-1.
The first part, 784, is the UAE’s ISO country code. The second part, 1234, is usually the ID card holder’s year of birth. The third part, 1234567, is a random seven-digit number. The fourth part, 1, is a verification number.
So, as you would have noticed, while the second, third and fourth segments of the number can vary from person to person, the first segment remains unchanged.
What is an ISO code?
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an independent, non-governmental international organization that brings together international experts from member countries to set standards.
The ISO sets standards for almost everything, from internationally accepted date and time formats to camera film speeds, and medical devices to country codes.
ISO 3166 country codes
Country codes are maintained in the ISO 3166 standard. The purpose of the code is to define internationally recognized codes of letters and/or numbers that we can use when we refer to countries and their subdivisions.
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Using codes saves time and avoids errors as instead of using a country’s name (which will change depending on the language being used), we can use a combination of letters and/or numbers that are understood all over the world.
For example, internet domain name systems use the codes to define domain names such as “.ae” for United Arab Emirates, “.au” for Australia. In addition, in machine-readable passports, the codes are used to determine the nationality of the user. Moreover, when we send money from one bank to another, the country codes are a way to identify where the bank is based.
What is the UAE’s code?
According to the ISO 3166 standard, the UAE’s Alpha-2 code is AE, while it’s Alpha-3 code is ARE. The country’s numeric code is 784.
Country codes can be represented either as a two-letter code (Alpha-2), which is a general-purpose code, a three-letter code (Alpha-3), which is more closely related to the country name.
The numeric code is useful for people and systems using non-Latin scripts.
The standard also provides codes for subdivisions. These are represented as the Alpha-2 code for the country, followed by up to three characters. For example, the code for Abu Dhabi is AE-AZ*, while the code for Dubai is AE-DU*.
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