Working in early years in Dubai is rewarding work, and keeping up with the regulations can feel like a balancing act. Two separate things govern health and safety in your setting, and it helps enormously to stop treating them as one thing.
Licensing is the compliance layer. Early childhood centres in Dubai are regulated by KHDA under Executive Council Resolution No. (35) of 2020, as amended by Executive Council Resolution No. (26) of 2023. Under the amended Resolution, KHDA issues permits, audits and monitors centres to verify compliance, conducts an annual assessment of centre performance and publishes the results, and can impose fines — with a written warning and a remedy period first, and the fine doubled if the same violation recurs within a year.
The KHDA Quality Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education, launched in November 2025, is not that. KHDA has been explicit that it offers support and dialogue rather than inspection. Its Health, Safeguarding and Wellbeing domain asks you to reflect on whether your practice is any good, not to prove you passed.
So, you are assessed annually under the Resolution. You are not inspected against the Framework. Those are different instruments doing different jobs, and conflating them is why so many settings respond to the Framework by producing a folder nobody asked for.
This guide is mostly about the licensing layer because that is where the specifics live.
What follows is practitioner to practitioner.
What are the child-to-staff ratios for nurseries in Dubai?
KHDA sets minimum staff-to-child ratios across four age bands, from 1:3 for the youngest children to 1:12 for the oldest. Where a room has mixed age groups, the ratio is based on the youngest child in the room. Curricula may require more staff than the minimum; they may never require fewer.
Source: KHDA, How to open or expand an early childhood centre in Dubai.
The mixed-age rule is the one that catches settings out. A single 16-month-old in a room of two-year-olds pulls that whole room to 1:3, not 1:5. If you flex children between rooms at the start or end of the day, that is where your ratio quietly breaks.
Ratios are a floor, not a target. A room running at a ratio with two staff who cannot see each other is less safe than a room running at a ratio with clear sightlines. Walk your room and check what your team can actually see.
Related: children may be admitted from 45 days to six years, and the age requirements admit no exceptions under Resolution No. (24) of 2021.
What are the indoor and outdoor space requirements for a Dubai nursery?
KHDA sets a minimum space per child for both indoor and outdoor areas. Indoor area is calculated after excluding corridors, bathrooms, offices, stores, staff rooms, kitchen, cabinets and fixtures — only usable floor with desks and learning resources counts.
Source: KHDA, How to open or expand an early childhood centre in Dubai.
The outdoor calculation assumes a fifth of your children are outside at once. For 40 children aged 0–35 months: one fifth is 8, so 8 × 4.5 m² = 36 m² of outdoor space for that group.
What does Dubai Municipality require for food safety in nurseries?
Dubai Municipality's Food Code governs food handling in Dubai, and its scope expressly covers food service operations in institutions. If your centre prepares or serves food, you are a food establishment under the Code. If parents send lunchboxes and your team only stores them, your obligations are narrower — but the food safety logic below doesn't care what the licence says, and neither does a bacterium.
Worth knowing before anything else: the Code defines "vulnerable groups" as those more susceptible to foodborne illness, and names the very young first. The regulator already classifies your children as the population these rules exist to protect.
The PIC on duty
Every food establishment must employ at least one full-time, on-site Person in Charge certified in food safety (clause 3.1.1(a)).
Nurseries are named explicitly, and the requirement is stricter than most operators realise. Under clause 3.1.1(b), establishments preparing food for high-care facilities — "hospitals, schools, nurseries and daycare facilities" — and for vulnerable populations must have one certified PIC present for the entire duration of production and through to the point of delivery and service.
Read that again. Not a PIC on the payroll. A PIC present, from the moment production starts until the food reaches the child. If your caterer's PIC signs off at the kitchen and the food travels unaccompanied, that is the gap.
If your PIC leaves, you have 30 days to designate a replacement, and the proposed PIC must be enrolled in training and certified within 45 days (clause 3.1.1(e)). The PIC must also register in Dubai Municipality's digital food safety system, and credentials must never be shared (clause 3.1.1(f)) — which is worth saying out loud, because sharing a login when the PIC is on leave is exactly the shortcut a short-staffed setting takes.
The danger zone
The temperature danger zone is 5°C to 60°C. High-risk and perishable food must be held at 5°C or colder, or 60°C or hotter. Between those figures, bacteria multiply rapidly. Dubai Municipality notes that the preferred range for most bacteria is 20°C to 50°C — which is ordinary room temperature in Dubai.
Cooling cooked food is a two-stage rule, not a holding rule. You must cool food from 60°C to 20°C within a maximum of two hours, then from 20°C to 5°C within a further maximum of four hours. This is a cooling protocol. It is not permission for food to sit in the danger zone for two or four hours.
This applies to lunchboxes too, which is where most settings quietly slip. A bag on a shelf at room temperature from 7:30am is in the danger zone by snack time.
Allergen tracking
Dubai is a genuinely diverse city, and dietary needs reflect that. The Food Code requires allergen management, including clear allergen information for non-packaged food and controls to prevent cross-contact. Keep allergy information current in every classroom, not only in the office. If your centre operates a nut-free policy, communicate it clearly to parents, ideally in multiple languages, and implement protocols to prevent cross-contact at snack time.
The classroom copy is the point. An allergy list that lives in a file that the room team doesn't open is documentation, not safety.
How do you keep indoor play areas safe in a nursery?
Indoor safety comes down to three things a practitioner can check without a clipboard: supervision, sanitation of mouthed items, and physical hazards at child height. The goal is not to eliminate risk. It is removing hazards so children can take healthy risks safely.
The mouthed toy bin. Toddlers explore with their mouths. Keep a designated, labelled bin out of reach for anything that has been mouthed. Wash and sanitise before it returns to rotation.
Finger guards, socket covers, anchors. Walk your room now, not later:
- Are the finger guards on the doors intact?
- Are your power sockets fitted with tamper-proof covers?
- Are heavy shelving units anchored to the wall?
These checks take four minutes and prevent the injuries that end careers.
One rule worth naming because it gets bent when a room is short: helpers and care assistants should never be left in charge of a group of children unless supervised by a teacher or teaching assistant.
How do you keep outdoor play safe in Dubai's heat?
KHDA sets explicit requirements for outdoor areas, and Dubai's climate adds a heat-management layer on top. Under KHDA's guide, outdoor space must be risk assessed, with safe access and exit points and childproof latches on all gates, which must remain closed when children are present. Arrangements must prevent unauthorised access by unknown adults or children. Where the space is near hazards such as roads, fencing must be at least 1.8 metres high.
The outdoor space must also:
- be shaded to protect children from the elements while allowing access as often as possible;
- have well-maintained flooring, free from trips and hazards;
- be free from hazards — large containers that collect water, manholes and pest control devices must be covered, and storage sheds locked when not in use;
- conform to relevant health and safety protocols.
Source: KHDA, How to open or expand an early childhood centre in Dubai.
That covers the regulator's floor. Here is what the climate adds.
Surface temperature checks
Check the surface temperature of all outdoor equipment before children go out. Plastic and metal slides and EPDM rubber flooring hold heat far longer than they look like they should.
If it feels too hot for your hand, it is too hot for their skin.
Sun protection
Ask parents to apply sun protection before drop-off. My recommendation is a minimum of SPF 50. Daily, not on sunny days, which in Dubai is a distinction without a difference.
No hat, no play
Children need a hat, ideally a legionnaire's hat, worn during outdoor play. Communicate the no-hat-no-play policy to parents and remind them regularly. The policy only works if it is genuinely applied, which means having spares and being willing to be unpopular for ten minutes.
Hydration
Water bottles, preferably with covered mouthpieces, freely available outdoors. Availability is not enough. Team members need to actively prompt drinking, because children in the middle of good play will not stop for water on their own.
Which plants are unsafe for a nursery garden in Dubai?
Nursery gardens in the UAE need active curation, not just planting. The garden must contain zero toxic plants. Oleander (Nerium oleander) is the one to know: it is common across the region and highly poisonous if ingested. Any soil or compost must be verified pesticide-free and chemical-free. Small hands dig, then go in mouths.
There is no single published Dubai Municipality toxic plants list for landscaping — guidance sits inside broader environmental and public health material. Practically: make your landscape contractor confirm every species in writing, and don't accept a plant you can't name.
What are the water safety rules for nurseries in Dubai?
Two separate risks: standing water in play equipment, and Legionella in building water systems.
Water tables must be emptied, sanitised and wiped completely dry after every session. Note that KHDA's outdoor requirements already oblige you to cover large containers that collect water — a water table left full overnight is exactly that.
Building water tanks must be cleaned and disinfected at least twice per year, or more often when monitoring indicates it's needed, and the work must be done by a water tank cleaning company approved by Dubai Municipality (clause 2.11.2(e)–(f)). Tanks must be covered to prevent access by animals, birds and other matter, and kept clean at all times.
The evidence requirement is specific and settings routinely miss it: you must retain a photograph of the clean tank and the water analysis reports as part of your food safety management system (clause 2.11.2(j)). A contractor's invoice is not evidence. If your tank is shared — a mall, a mixed-use building — you must still be able to show documented proof it was cleaned (clause 2.11.2(g)). "The landlord handles it" is not a defence.
This is the one settings forget, because it lives with facilities management rather than with the room team. Ask for the photograph. Check the dates on the analysis.
When should pest control treatment happen in a nursery?
Out of hours only, typically over the weekend. The building needs time to ventilate fully before children return, and every area needs a clean before the rooms are back in use.
Two things are certain from the regulations: the Food Code requires pest management as part of food safety, and KHDA's outdoor requirements state that pest control devices must be covered. The scheduling discipline is professional practice built on top of that, and no reading of either document supports treating an occupied room.
How do you run a dynamic risk assessment in an early years setting?
A risk assessment that lives in a binder in the manager's office is not a risk assessment. It should be live, daily, and owned by every teacher in the room. KHDA requires the outdoor space to be risk assessed; what follows is how to make that mean something. Use a RAG (Red, Amber, Green) evaluation on any activity, from messy play to a field trip:
- Identify the hazard. What here could hurt a child?
- Evaluate the risk. Rate it Red, Amber or Green.
- Implement controls. Change the setup, not the children.
- Review live. Reassess while the activity is running, not afterwards.
Step four is the one that gets skipped and the one that matters. Conditions change: numbers, weather, mood, staffing.
Your daily safety checklist
