The origins of the championship trace to the FIA Single Seater Commission's 2013 announcement of a new global Formula 4 framework, intended to bridge the gap between karting and Formula 3. Over the following two years, the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE (ATCUAE), the country's FIA-affiliated national motorsport body, developed a championship concept suited to the region. The series was governed by the Emirates Motorsport Organisation and promoted by AUH Motorsports, a Dubai-based organisation with prior experience running the regional Radical Sportscars series.
The championship was publicly launched in February 2016 in front of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The unveiling ceremony was attended by HH Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, and Mohammed Ben Sulayem, President of the ATCUAE. The car was subsequently given its first public test at the Dubai Autodrome, driven by Dubai-born Indy Lights driver Ed Jones.
The inaugural 2016–17 season comprised eighteen races across six weekends. Four of those weekends took place at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, with the remaining two at the Dubai Autodrome. From 2019 to 2022, the format expanded to twenty races over five rounds.
Race weekends featured two qualifying sessions, which determined the grids for races one and three. The grid for race two was set by the second fastest lap time recorded during qualifying one, while the top eight finishers from race three had their positions reversed for the grid of race four. A revised three-race format was introduced from the 2023 season, with qualifying again setting grids for races one and three, and the top ten from race one having their positions reversed for race two.
The series used Tatuus-built carbon fibre monocoque cars. From the 2016–17 season through 2021, the car was the F4-T014 model powered by a 1.4-litre turbocharged Abarth engine — the same technical package used concurrently in the Italian F4 Championship, F4 Spanish Championship, ADAC Formula 4, and SMP F4 Championship.
The UAE series served as the global launch venue for the second-generation Tatuus F4-T421 in 2022, making it one of the first championships to debut the updated platform that subsequently spread to multiple other national Formula 4 series.
The series was renamed F4 Middle East Championship in 2025 by promoters Top Speed China, reflecting a broader ambition to expand the championship's reach across the wider Middle East region. The following year, in 2026, the series lost its FIA certification and was rebranded once more as the UAE4 Series.
A subsidiary competition, the Formula Trophy, was introduced in 2024 as a standalone series built around an extended version of the championship's trophy round. The Formula Trophy runs across two rounds at Yas Marina Circuit and one at the Dubai Autodrome. Its inaugural edition was won by Kai Daryanani, driving for Evans GP, with Alp Aksoy of Mumbai Falcons taking the 2025 title.
As the first FIA Formula 4 championship in the Middle East and North Africa, the series opened a new developmental pathway for drivers from the Gulf region and provided an important winter series for international drivers seeking early-season competitive miles. Its combination of high-quality facilities at Yas Marina and the Dubai Autodrome, along with competitive grids drawing talent from Europe and beyond, established the UAE championship as a respected component of the global Formula 4 ecosystem. The series also played a notable role in the rollout of Tatuus's second-generation Formula 4 car, cementing its position as a significant venue for technical development within the junior single-seater category.