In 2013, the FIA Singleseater Commission announced its intention to introduce a new single-seater category to fill the gap between karting and Formula 3. Over the following two years, the Automobile and Touring Club of the United Arab Emirates (ATCUAE) worked to establish a national Formula 4 championship, which would become the first in the Middle Eastern and North African region. Dubai-based AUH Motorsports was appointed to manage the championship based on their regional experience running the Radical Sportscars series.
The championship was officially launched in February 2016 in a ceremony held in front of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. HH Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan and Mohammed Ben Sulayem, President of the ATCUAE, presided over the public unveiling of the car. Following the launch, the car was given its first test at the Dubai Autodrome, driven by Dubai-born Indy Lights driver Ed Jones. The Emirates Motorsport Organisation (EMSO) oversaw governance of the series.
The inaugural 2016–17 season featured eighteen races over six weekends. Four of those weekends took place at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, with the remaining two held at the Dubai Autodrome. Between 2019 and 2022 the format expanded to twenty races over five rounds. Race weekends used two qualifying sessions to set grids for the first and third races, with Race 2 grids determined by the second-fastest lap from Qualifying 1, and Race 4 grids set by reversing the top eight finishers from Race 3.
A revised three-race format was adopted from the 2023 season onwards. The two qualifying sessions continue to set grids for Races 1 and 3, while Race 2 reverses the top ten from Race 1.
From its founding through 2021, the championship used the Tatuus F4-T014 chassis paired with a 1.4-litre turbocharged Abarth engine — the same combination used by the Italian F4 Championship, F4 Spanish Championship, ADAC Formula 4, and SMP F4 Championship. In 2022 the series hosted the global debut of the next-generation Tatuus F4-T421, making it the first championship in the world to race the new car before it spread to other series. Cars are constructed from carbon fibre with a monocoque chassis.
In 2025, China-based promoter Top Speed — which also manages the Formula Regional Middle East Championship and Formula 4 series across the Middle East and South East Asia — assumed promotion and renamed the series the F4 Middle East Championship, reflecting ambitions to expand the brand's footprint across neighbouring countries. In 2026 the series lost its FIA certification and was renamed once more as the UAE4 Series.
The Formula Trophy is an associated series composed of an extended version of the F4 UAE's trophy round. Rather than a single round, the Formula Trophy runs across two rounds at the Yas Marina Circuit and one round at the Dubai Autodrome. The inaugural Formula Trophy season was held in 2024 and was won by Kai Daryanani driving for Evans GP. Alp Aksoy of Mumbai Falcons claimed the title in 2025.
The UAE Formula 4 Championship established the Middle East as a viable winter testing and racing ground for European-based junior single-seater drivers. Its calendar — based at the Yas Marina Circuit and Dubai Autodrome — offered high-quality infrastructure and competitive winter racing that attracted drivers from across Europe and Asia during the off-season. By premiering the Tatuus F4-T421 globally in 2022, the series also played a concrete technical role in the evolution of FIA Formula 4 machinery worldwide.