Detail
Black points in the UAE
The points are the part of a violation notice that compounds. This page sets out the cumulative limit, the window it is measured over, the two clocks that decide when points count and when they are deleted, and what happens each time the limit is reached.
The numbers
The three figures that define the system
- 24Points that trigger the precedent regime
- 12Months the counting window runs, from the first violation in it
- 8Points a training course removes, before the limit is reached
Background
What black points actually are
Not a penalty in themselves, and not a second fine. A record — and the record is what triggers everything on this page.
The federal resolution establishes a violations record with the Traffic Control Authority for the violations a driver commits, and assigns each violation a specific number of points by cross-reference to the annexed schedule. The points figure for an offence is therefore not stated in the articles at all; it is a column of the same table that carries the fine, which is why every catalogue row on this site prints the fine and the points together rather than treating the points as a footnote.
Reaching the cumulative limit within the window the definition sets is what the resolution calls a traffic precedent, and the consequence of a precedent is staged: each time a driver reaches the limit, the article prescribes a longer action against the licence than the time before. The points are the counter; the precedent is the event; the licence action is the consequence. Summaries that collapse the three into "you lose your licence at the limit" get the first crossing roughly right and everything after it wrong.
The window is measured from the date of the first violation in it, not from a calendar year or from the date of the licence. That matters for exactly the reason it sounds like it does: a driver who picks up violations in a short burst and then drives cleanly is in a very different position from one who accumulates the same total steadily, even though both totals look identical on paper.
Two clocks, not one
On a probationary licence
The full table
What happens each time the limit is reached
Reaching the limit is a "traffic precedent", and the article stages the consequence by how many precedents are already on the record. The course does different things at different tiers, which is the part most summaries get wrong.
| Precedent | Impound and licence hold | The training course |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 months | Exempts from the hold entirely |
| 2 | 6 months | Mandatory, and does not exempt |
| 3 | 12 months | Mandatory, and does not exempt |
Source: MR 178/2017 art. 3 — 1st: 3mo, 2nd: 6mo, 3rd: 1yr impound+suspend · 2023-05-02 — 2027-08-07
قرار وزاري بشأن قواعد وإجراءات الضبط المروري
يعتبر قائد المركبة مرتكباً سابقة مرورية إذا بلغت مخالفاته الحد التراكمي
ويُعفى المخالف من المدة المقررة لحجز رخصة القيادة في السابقة المرورية الأولى فقط إذا اجتاز دورة تدريبية ... ويكون اجتياز الدورة التدريبية إلزامياً في السابقة المرورية الثانية والثالثة
Two courses, named differently
What to do
The training course is two different mechanisms
The instrument names a course in three places and they do not all do the same job. This is the part most summaries flatten.
The first is a reduction. A driver who passes a training course at a driving institute the Traffic Control Authority accredits, before reaching the cumulative limit, has a stated number of points deleted from the total — and the article allows that benefit only once in the period it names. The condition is explicit and it is one-directional: this is a pre-emptive remedy, available while there is still headroom, and it is not a way back from a precedent already recorded.
The second is an exemption, and it works at only one tier. On the first traffic precedent, passing a training course exempts the driver from the licence-hold period entirely. On the second and third, the article makes the course mandatory — and mandatory is not the same as exempting. On the plain reading of that text the course becomes a required step in addition to serving the hold, not a substitute for it. This site states that distinction because the wording carries it, and it is the single most expensive thing on this page to get wrong.
The third appears in the probationary regime, and it is named differently: a course in driver rehabilitation, rather than the general training course at an accredited driving institute. The instrument never says the two are the same course. This site does not merge them, because merging them would be an assumption presented as a rule.
What the law does not say
What the corpus does not settle about points
It does not provide any mechanism for transferring points from one driver to another. This is worth saying explicitly because it is asked constantly, and in both languages this market searches in: the resolution establishes the record as a record of the violations a driver commits and assigns the points against him, and nothing in the four instruments read for this site provides a route by which they could be moved to somebody else. That is a search result over a named corpus, not a proof that no such route exists anywhere.
It does not provide a route for objecting to the points either, for the same reason there is no route for objecting to the fine: the decree-law defers the whole grievance mechanism for administrative penalties to a Cabinet resolution that has not been issued. Until it is, there is no procedure and no deadline to describe, and this site describes none.
And it does not say how the licence action a criminal court imposes interacts with the administrative hold the traffic-control resolution imposes for the same conduct. Two suspension regimes, in two different instruments, keyed to two different events — the corpus does not state which runs first or whether they run together. That open question is stated on the alcohol and drugs page in the terms the research states it.
What the law does not say
4 schedule rows state no fine amount at all
This row prices the fine as "تقررها المحكمة" (court-determined) — not a number stated in the annex. It is never treated as a zero.
On this site those rows read "court-determined". They are not blanks waiting to be filled in and they are not zero: the annex prices them by referring the amount to a court, and that is the fact the row carries.
MR 178/2017 annex row 2 — annex row 2
الجدول المرفق
Next step
Black points and precedent calculator
Black points run on two clocks that are easy to confuse — one for counting towards the limit, one for deletion — and reaching the limit triggers a tiered consequence that escalates with each precedent. This works all three out against the articles that set them.
Related violations
Dangerous driving fines
The largest single group in the schedule, and the one where the impound and black-point columns do most of the work. Every row here is shown with all three consequences together.
Speeding fines
The schedule prices speeding in bands of excess over the posted limit. This is that ladder, in full, with the consequences the annex states for each rung and the rows that state them.
Alcohol and drugs at the wheel
This is reference content, not a calculator, and deliberately so: the schedule rows price the fine as court-determined and the decree-law states a range with court discretion. There is no formula to compute and no blood-alcohol threshold in the corpus to compute against.
Notice