The SIRA portal: what businesses use it for, and what your installer handles

The SIRA portal is the e-services portal of Dubai's Security Industry Regulatory Agency, reached from sira.gov.ae. Businesses use it to apply for, renew and change the certificates SIRA issues, and to pay SIRA's fees. Security companies use it too, for their own licences and approvals.

MapleTech isn't part of SIRA and can't sign in to, reset or unlock a SIRA account. For login or payment problems, use the support channels listed on SIRA's website.

If your trade-licence activity or your building type is one that SIRA regulates, the portal is where your premises' security certificate is applied for and renewed. Shops, offices, warehouses, hotels, clinics and schools may all be covered, depending on the activity; private villas and apartments usually aren't.

Not sure about yours? Send us the activity on your trade licence and we'll tell you the category, or read what SIRA approval means.

SIRA calls it the Security System Certification: its confirmation that the premises meets SIRA's security specifications for its type. A business applies for it once, renews it, and modifies it if the business or the system changes. SIRA lists the processing time as two business days once a complete application is in.

The security requirements themselves — cameras, recording, alarms and the rest — depend on the activity or building type, and are set out in SIRA's Preventive Systems Manual.

For a business, SIRA's service page lists: the trade licence (or, for a business not yet licensed, the trade-name reservation and initial-approval documents), the Free Zone licence where that applies, an approved Security Plan Certificate (SPC), and a successful security audit report.

For a building, it lists the affection plan or trade licence, the SPC and a successful audit report.

The SPC must be stamped by both a security consultancy and the security systems installation company — which is where your installer comes in.

The system is designed to the manual's requirements for your category, installed to that design, and audited — and only then is the certificate applied for. SIRA is clear that the business activity must not start until a successful security audit report has been obtained; opening before that risks violations and fines.

So if you're fitting out a new shop or office, bring the security installer in early: the system has to pass its audit before you trade, not after.

We survey, design and install to the manual for your category, stamp the Security Plan Certificate as the installation company, get the system ready for its audit and hand over the documentation. For a regulated establishment we can then maintain it under a SIRA-approved AMC, which the manual requires.

The applications themselves are made from your company's account on the portal, and SIRA's fees are paid there. We're happy to explain what any request is asking for before you submit it.

Renewing the certificate also needs a successful security audit report, so a system that has stopped recording or lost cameras since the last audit is a problem at renewal time — another reason the maintenance contract matters.

SIRA publishes the fee for each service on its service pages and updates them from time to time, so check the current figure there rather than relying on an old one.

This is a plain-language summary of SIRA's published service information, not legal advice, and SIRA updates its services and requirements. Always check the current details on sira.gov.ae — and we'll confirm what applies to your premises on the survey.