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Pricing Blog Best Restaurant POS UAE Cafeteria Licence Cost Dubai Restaurant Loyalty Programs ADAFSA (Abu Dhabi Food Safety) Cafeteria Licence Cost Sharjah Cost to Open a Restaurant Dubai BrixPOS vs Foodics BrixPOS vs DineOpen BrixPOS vs Sapaad BrixPOS vs TajerGo Foodics Alternatives Book Free DemoIf you're searching for the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority, you're looking for ADAFSA — the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority. Here's what changed, what ADAFSA does, and what it means if you run a restaurant, cafe or kitchen in Abu Dhabi.
The Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA) was founded in 2005. It has since been rebranded as ADAFSA — the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority. The name you'll still see on older articles, forum posts and consultancy pages is ADFCA, but the body you actually need to deal with today is ADAFSA, and its official website is adafsa.gov.ae.
That single fact is the most useful thing this page can tell you. A lot of the food-safety information circulating online for Abu Dhabi still uses the old ADFCA name, which makes it hard to tell what is current and what is out of date. If a guide is still routing you to ADFCA as a live authority, treat the rest of its detail with caution and go to ADAFSA directly instead.
ADAFSA is the local authority responsible for agriculture, food safety, food security and biosecurity in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Its remit is wider than restaurants alone.
Oversight of the agricultural sector in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, covering the production side of the food chain rather than only what reaches the plate.
ADAFSA implements the Food Safety law and its executive regulations, and sets the requirements and standards food facilities must meet.
Responsibility for food security in the Emirate — the supply-side question of keeping food available and reliable, alongside keeping it safe.
Biosecurity across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, which is why ADAFSA's scope reaches beyond hospitality into farming, livestock and imports.
Food facilities — restaurants, cafes, hotels, catering companies and factories — need preliminary approvals from ADAFSA. Your premises must meet ADAFSA's requirements and standards in order to obtain permits and approvals. In practice that means the food-safety side of opening is not a formality you handle after you start trading; approvals come before you operate, and the physical fit-out of the premises is part of what is being assessed.
We deliberately don't publish ADAFSA fee amounts, processing times or inspection scoring on this page. Those figures change, and getting them wrong costs you more than not having them. Go to the official source below.
The Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority is the body that sets the requirements and issues the approvals. Start here for anything about food facility requirements, standards, permits and approvals: www.adafsa.gov.ae.
Abu Dhabi government services are also accessed via the TAMM platform at www.tamm.abudhabi. If you're looking for the service or application route rather than the regulation itself, TAMM is usually the practical starting point.
Requirements and procedures change — always confirm the current position with ADAFSA or through TAMM before acting.
BrixPOS is a restaurant POS and management platform. We do not provide licensing, PRO or food-safety consultancy services, and nothing on this page is legal or regulatory advice.
Getting approved is a moment in time. Staying compliant is a habit, and most of it comes down to whether you can show what happened rather than remember it. That part is operational, and it's where your systems either help you or leave you reconstructing things from memory. Here's the honest version of what tends to matter.
Knowing what came in, when, and where it went. If a batch of an ingredient is ever in question, the useful answer is a record, not a guess. Stock movement tracked in inventory & purchasing gives you that history without extra paperwork.
Who you buy from, on what terms, with what documentation attached. Purchase records held against each supplier mean the question "where did this come from?" has a one-screen answer rather than a search through WhatsApp.
Who works in your kitchen, what they're trained on, what documents they hold and when those expire. Keeping this in HR & payroll means it's current rather than a folder someone last updated a year ago.
Checks that actually get done, and wastage that gets recorded instead of quietly disappearing. Logging wastage has a food-safety benefit and a margin benefit at the same time — you find out where product is going.
Separate obligation, same underlying discipline: your billing has to be right. A VAT-compliant POS applies 5% VAT and shows your TRN correctly — see the UAE restaurant VAT guide for the detail.
If you're setting up in the Emirate, our restaurant POS system in Abu Dhabi page covers how the day-to-day side fits together locally, from billing to stock to staff.
No. The Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA), founded in 2005, has been rebranded as ADAFSA — the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority. If you're searching for ADFCA, ADAFSA is the body you're looking for. Its official site is adafsa.gov.ae.
ADAFSA is the local authority responsible for agriculture, food safety, food security and biosecurity in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and it implements the Food Safety law and its executive regulations.
Food facilities in Abu Dhabi — restaurants, cafes, hotels, catering companies and factories — need preliminary approvals from ADAFSA, and the premises must meet its requirements and standards to obtain permits and approvals. Confirm the exact requirements for your facility type with ADAFSA or through TAMM before you commit.
Start with the official ADAFSA website at adafsa.gov.ae. Abu Dhabi government services are also accessed through the TAMM platform at tamm.abudhabi. Because fees and procedures change, check the current position on those official channels rather than relying on third-party summaries.
A cloud kitchen is still a food facility preparing food for the public, so food safety oversight in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi sits with ADAFSA in the same way it does for a dine-in restaurant. Requirements can differ by facility type, so confirm what applies to your specific setup with ADAFSA or through TAMM.
BrixPOS keeps stock movement, supplier purchases, staff records and VAT-correct billing in one platform — so the evidence exists when you need it.