Largest UAE Companies

Analysis

What this data actually tells you about United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates recorded GDP of AED 1.9 trillion (roughly $517.2 billion) in 2025, real growth of 6.2%, with non-oil GDP reaching AED 1.5 trillion, up 6.8%; the non-oil share of GDP rose from 78.0% in full-year 2025 to 79.4% in Q1 2026. Trade (roughly 17% of GDP), finance and insurance (13.2%), construction (12.9%) and manufacturing (12.8%) were the largest sectors, with construction the fastest-growing at over 11%. Inflation averaged just 1.3% in 2025. The UAE Dirham has been pegged to the US dollar at AED 3.6725 = $1 since 1997, a peg that has held through the 2026 regional conflict discussed below without confirmed devaluation pressure. A federal corporate tax of 9% took effect June 1, 2023 on taxable income above AED 375,000, alongside a 15% Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax on large multinationals from January 1, 2025, aligning with OECD Pillar Two; 100% foreign ownership of mainland companies has been permitted since June 2021 for most sectors. General government debt stood at approximately 31.28% of GDP in 2025 (IMF), with a fiscal surplus of roughly 5% of GDP projected for 2025 and 2026 under pre-conflict IMF estimates.

The UAE’s 2026 economic trajectory has been materially disrupted by a regional conflict that began February 28, 2026: following coordinated US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Iran launched a multi-day missile and drone barrage at the UAE targeting US assets on Emirati soil, and Dubai and Abu Dhabi stock exchanges suspended trading for the first time in the country’s history, with markets losing a combined roughly $120 billion in market capitalisation in early March 2026. The Central Bank of the UAE subsequently cut its 2026 real GDP growth forecast from 5.6% to just 1.7% (June 2026 review), citing trade, tourism and shipping disruption, while projecting a rebound to 9.8% in 2027; the World Bank and IMF issued comparable downward revisions to 2.4% and 3.1% respectively. On August 19, 2026, following renewed missile fire, the UAE imposed an indefinite halt to all trade and financial transactions with Iran, and further large-scale regional strikes were reported as recently as September 1-2, 2026, with no durable ceasefire in place as of this research. Full-year 2025 statistics for tourism, trade, real estate and banking, cited throughout this content, were generated before the conflict began and remain genuine records for that year, but should not be read as describing current 2026 conditions without this context.

Population is estimated at over 11.3 million as of 2024, with no confirmed more recent federal update located; the population is overwhelmingly expatriate, commonly cited at roughly 88.5% non-citizen against 11.5% Emirati nationals, drawing from over 200 nationalities led by Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, though these percentages come from secondary aggregators rather than a primary census table and should be treated as indicative. Non-oil foreign trade exceeded $1 trillion in 2025, up 27% year-on-year, supported by an expanding programme of Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements, with a strategic target of raising non-oil trade to AED 4 trillion and non-oil exports to AED 800 billion by 2031. Dubai anchors trade, logistics, re-exports, tourism, aviation and financial services, while Abu Dhabi anchors hydrocarbons through ADNOC and sovereign wealth management through ADIA, Mubadala and ADQ, whose combined assets are commonly estimated around $1.7 trillion, though ADIA does not publicly disclose its own assets under management and any precise figure for it should be treated as a third-party estimate rather than an official disclosure.