UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AE)

Locale Summary

Locale name	United Arab Emirates
ISO code	AE
Region	Middle East & Africa
Mobile country code	424
Dialing code	+971

Guidelines

Two-way SMS supported	No
Twilio concatenated message support	Yes
Message length	160 Characters
Twilio MMS support	Converted to SMS with embedded URL
Sending SMS to landline numbers	You cannot send SMS to a landline destination number: the Twilio REST API will throw a 400 response with error code 21614, the message will not appear in the logs, and the account will not be charged.
Compliance considerations	Carriers in the United Arab Emirates are heavily filtering SMS traffic, so Twilio recommends pre-registering an Alphanumeric Sender ID to improve delivery. Unregistered Sender IDs will be replaced with generic Alphanumeric Sender IDs and may be blocked by carriers. All promotional Alphanumeric Sender IDs must carry an `AD-` prefix, and this counts towards the 11-character limit. Promotional messages to the UAE can not be sent between 09:00pm to 07:00am local time. Messages sent during the restricted time period will be queued outside the Twilio platform and will only be processed for delivery during the allowed time period. Twilio strongly encourages customers to review proposed use cases with qualified legal counsel to make sure that they comply with all applicable laws. The following are some general best practices: Get opt-in consent from each end-user before sending any communication to them, particularly for marketing or other non-essential communications. Only communicate during an end-user’s daytime hours unless it is urgent. SMS campaigns should support HELP/STOP messages, and similar messages, in the end-user’s local language. Do not contact end-users on do-not-call or do-not-disturb registries.

Phone Numbers & Sender ID

	Alphanumeric		Long Code		Short Code
	Pre-registration	Dynamic	Domestic	International
Operator network capability	Required	Not Supported	Not Supported	Not Supported	Not Supported
Twilio supported	Required Learn more	Not Supported	---	Not Supported	---
Sender ID preserved	Yes	No	---	No	---
Provisioning time	2 weeks	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
UCS-2 support	Supported	N/A	N/A	Supported	N/A
Use case restrictions	Messages containing adult, gambling, or religious content are strictly forbidden. All promotional Alphanumeric Sender IDs must carry an `AD-` prefix. Promotional messages to the UAE can not be sent between 09:00pm to 07:00am local time. Messages sent during the restricted time period will be queued outside the Twilio platform and will only be processed for delivery during the allowed time period. Please note that Promotional messaging is only supported for Domestic Entities and Promotional Content is not permitted for International Entities.	Alphanumeric Sender IDs are only supported through pre-registration.	N/A	Numeric Sender IDs will be overwritten with generic Alphanumeric Sender IDs outside the Twilio platform and may be blocked by the operators.	N/A
Best practices	For all health services related Sender ID registration requests, we will require an approval letter from the UAE health authorities. URL shortners should be avoided as the local networks tend to filter messages containing them. Due to limitations related to the local infrastructure we suggest our clients to use UCS2 encoding when submitting messages containing the EURO symbol "€"	N/A	N/A	The UAE Telecoms Regulatory Authority requires the pre-registration of all customers sending to the UAE.	N/A

	Alphanumeric - Pre-registration
Operator network capability	Required
Twilio supported	Required Learn more
Sender ID preserved	Yes
Provisioning time	2 weeks
UCS-2 support	Supported
Use case restrictions	Messages containing adult, gambling, or religious content are strictly forbidden. All promotional Alphanumeric Sender IDs must carry an `AD-` prefix. Promotional messages to the UAE can not be sent between 09:00pm to 07:00am local time. Messages sent during the restricted time period will be queued outside the Twilio platform and will only be processed for delivery during the allowed time period. Please note that Promotional messaging is only supported for Domestic Entities and Promotional Content is not permitted for International Entities.
Best practices	For all health services related Sender ID registration requests, we will require an approval letter from the UAE health authorities. URL shortners should be avoided as the local networks tend to filter messages containing them. Due to limitations related to the local infrastructure we suggest our clients to use UCS2 encoding when submitting messages containing the EURO symbol "€"

	Alphanumeric - Dynamic
Operator network capability	Not Supported
Twilio supported	Not Supported
Sender ID preserved	No
Provisioning time	N/A
UCS-2 support	N/A
Use case restrictions	Alphanumeric Sender IDs are only supported through pre-registration.
Best practices	N/A

	Long Code - Domestic
Operator network capability	Not Supported
Twilio supported	---
Sender ID preserved	---
Provisioning time	N/A
UCS-2 support	N/A
Use case restrictions	N/A
Best practices	N/A

	Long Code - International
Operator network capability	Not Supported
Twilio supported	Not Supported
Sender ID preserved	No
Provisioning time	N/A
UCS-2 support	Supported
Use case restrictions	Numeric Sender IDs will be overwritten with generic Alphanumeric Sender IDs outside the Twilio platform and may be blocked by the operators.
Best practices	The UAE Telecoms Regulatory Authority requires the pre-registration of all customers sending to the UAE.

	Short Code
Operator network capability	Not Supported
Twilio supported	---
Sender ID preserved	---
Provisioning time	N/A
UCS-2 support	N/A
Use case restrictions	N/A
Best practices	N/A

For the benefit of all our customers, these guidelines are provided to help you comply with applicable requirements and to help ensure Twilio's platform remains compliant with global telecommunications ecosystem requirements. These guidelines represent our current understanding of common compliance requirements generally applicable to Twilio and its customers, and do not constitute legal advice. By posting these guidelines, Twilio makes no assurances regarding the legal compliance of your application built using our APIs. You are expected to understand and abide by all compliance obligations applicable to your specific application. You should check these pages regularly for updates as telecommunications ecosystem requirements continue to evolve and change, and the information below may be updated or changed without notice.