Excavation and Shoring Permit in Abu Dhabi

Issuing authority

DMT — Department of Municipalities and Transport (Abu Dhabi Municipality) · TAMM

The service owner is the Department of Municipalities and Transport; Abu Dhabi Municipality is the name in common use for it. TAMM is the platform that publishes the service and receives the application. TAMM lists it as Issuing Phased Construction Work Permit, code DPM/0393, and publishes its condition: requested by the design consultant only after project registration and site clearance, for development and non-development projects, subject to the business rules stipulated in the relevant manuals and regulations. TAMM describes it in two stages — the phased construction work permit first, then assigning the contractor and issuing the permit. The structural shop drawings for shoring systems and dewatering sit elsewhere: DMT’s guide lists them under its shop drawings approval service, names the contractor as the applicant, and marks that service as still being implemented. TAMM publishes a service of the same Arabic name under code DPM/00185. Two routes, two different capacities.

The steps, in order

1. 01

   Project registration, then site clearance and approval

   Before excavation is discussed at all, the project file is opened in the department’s system, then Site Clearance and Approval (DPM/00137) is applied for. TAMM describes its output as clearance of utilities’ assets within the plot, availability of utility services and clearance of buffer zones. For that service the guide does not name the entities whose approval is required — it refers them to a separate annex — so we establish which entities your plot involves before filing.

2. 02

   Soil investigation report and its review

   Structural calculations for a shoring system rest on soil that has been characterised. The department’s guide lists a soil investigation permit among its works permits, and TAMM publishes a separate service, Review Soil Investigation Report (DPM/00183), which requires the report to be valid and lists the soil inspection report, the soil investigation permit, and the soil examination and geophysical results among its documents.

3. 03

   Shoring walls and excavation works permit

   This is the main filing: Issuing Phased Construction Work Permit (DPM/0393), whose sub-service is the request for shoring walls and excavation works, followed by the request for foundation works. The department’s guide names the design consultant as the only applicant and the phased construction permit as the output; the service then moves to its second stage, assigning the contractor and issuing the permit. In DMT’s published classification-requirements tool the service appears as SPBP-1, separate from foundations, which is SPBP-2.

4. 04

   Shop drawings and on-site works permits

   The contractor’s route runs alongside. Under its shop drawings approval service, DMT’s guide lists two items that belong to this stage — structural shop drawings for shoring walls, and structural shop drawings for dewatering — with the contractor as the applicant for both, and it marks that service as still being implemented. Under its works permit service the guide lists on-site permits including the land levelling permit, filed by the consultant, and the dewatering permit, filed by the consultant or the contractor, each with a named applicant and a published prerequisite. TAMM publishes the building work permit service under code DPM/00106.

5. 05

   Work start notice

   Work does not begin on paper without a notice. Work Start Notice for Building Permit is a service in its own right (DPM/0414), and TAMM’s published condition is that it must be requested by the contractor and approved by the supervising consultant. Its listed documents are the land delivery registration, a photo of the project signboard, and a photo showing the works started.

6. 06

   Site inspection through to completion

   TAMM states that the contractor requests the technical site inspection (DPM/0401) to the requirements of the Abu Dhabi International Building Code and the approved drawings, with an approved work start notice as its mandatory pre-request service. The guide names the inspections at this stage: temporary fence, shoring walls, dewatering, excavation works, pile load testing and foundations. At completion stage the guide lists a completion certificate request for roads and earthworks.

Documents required

• Architectural Layout Plan
• Building plans
• Structural Calculations
• Result of soil examination and geophysical studies
• Location map including site boundaries and dimensions
• Plot Survey Demarcation
• Commercial Licence
• Health and Safety Policy
• Letter of Assignment

Requirements vary by project type and plot. Send us your file and we will confirm what yours needs.

Why applications get rejected

Each service names a specific capacity for the applicant: the phased permit is filed by the design consultant only, and the work start notice is requested by the contractor and approved by the supervising consultant. A file that is complete on the engineering side can still miss that formal condition.

We fix the applicant capacity for each service before a single drawing is prepared, and align the letter of assignment and the commercial licence with the office that will actually file.

TAMM publishes two prerequisites for this service: project registration, and site clearance and approval. Site clearance is itself a separate service, with its own published output.

We close out site clearance and the utility NOCs first, each provider separately, before the phased permit file is opened.

Excavation and shoring is not one route: the phased permit is a TAMM service, approval of the shoring and dewatering shop drawings is a different service in DMT’s guide with a different applicant, and the dewatering permit is a third item under the works permits.

We separate the three files from the outset, with a matrix tying every drawing to its service code, its applicant capacity and its prerequisite.

The soil route has its own published steps: a soil investigation permit, then Review Soil Investigation Report as a separate service requiring a valid report, while the phased permit calls for the examination result and the structural calculations together.

We check the report’s validity and the fit between its results and the shoring calculations before it is attached, not after.

TAMM lists an approved work start notice as the mandatory pre-request service for technical site inspection, and lists shop drawings approval and soil report review among the conditions where applicable.

We book the inspection only once the notice is approved and the conditions attached to it are satisfied, then work the comments with the inspecting party until they are closed.

Common questions