United Arab Emirates — Country Risk Report

United Arab Emirates (Middle East • Gulf). Risk report as of the 19 Jun 2026 FATF plenary.

Moderate country risk, with governance and transparency concerns. United Arab Emirates's country risk score is 4.0/10, placing it in the moderate-risk band. The principal driver is weak voice and accountability. United Arab Emirates is not currently FATF grey- or black-listed. United Arab Emirates is not subject to comprehensive country-wide sanctions. Firms should apply additional scrutiny where exposure involves state-linked entities, restricted sectors, sensitive technology, dual-use goods or politically exposed counterparties.

Recommended treatment

Standard due diligence, with enhanced checks for defined risk triggers.

At a glance

• FATF status: Not currently listed (one indicator only; it does not set the overall country risk rating by itself)
• Comprehensive country sanctions: none identified. Targeted sanctions exposure: possible, screen applicable persons, entities and sectors
• Government effectiveness and rule of law: 3.2/10
• Corruption (CPI 2025): 69/100, rank #21 of 182
• Enforcement: 65 actions from 3 regulators

Country Risk Score: 4.0/10 (Moderate)

Higher score means higher country risk (global average 4.6). Full information available. Some evidence is older. Enforcement activity and CPI are shown for context but do not change the score.

All three parts of the score are available.

How this score was calculated

• Financial crime controls: 6.0/10 — 50% of this score
• Government effectiveness and rule of law: 3.2/10 — 30% of this score
• International sanctions: 0.0/10 — 20% of this score
• The FATF assessment is more than five years old.

International sanctions contributes 0.0 because the complete UN, UK, EU and US review found no direct country-level sanctions programme. People or organisations connected to the country may still appear on sanctions lists.

Principal risk drivers

• Voice & accountability — 5.8/10

Mitigating factors

• Not currently on the FATF grey or black list.
• No comprehensive country-wide sanctions programme.
• Comparatively stronger political stability (2.1/10).
• Risk is concentrated in specific counterparties, sectors and transactions rather than applying uniformly.

Business impact

• Customer onboarding (Medium): Additional ownership and control verification may be required.
• Payments and transactions (Medium): Review transaction purpose, counterparties and geographic routing.
• Trade and export activity (Medium): Screen goods, end users and potential dual-use exposure.
• Corporate clients (Medium): Assess state ownership, government links and political exposure.
• Ongoing monitoring (Medium): Apply alerts for ownership changes, sanctions and geopolitical developments.

Recommended controls

• Verify ultimate beneficial ownership using more than one reliable source.
• Identify state ownership, government influence and politically exposed persons.
• Screen entities, directors and beneficial owners against applicable sanctions lists.
• Apply enhanced review to technology, defence, telecommunications, financial services and dual-use activity.
• Document transaction purpose and source of funds where cross-border structures are complex.
• Escalate unresolved ownership opacity or adverse information to Compliance.

Enhanced due diligence triggers

• State ownership / control
• PEP involvement
• Sensitive / restricted sectors
• Opaque ownership
• Adverse media
• Dual-use goods & technology
• High-risk intermediary routing

FATF status: Not currently listed

United Arab Emirates is not on the FATF grey or black list as of the 19 Jun 2026 plenary.

Source details

International sanctions by issuing body

• UN: No
• EU: No
• UK: No
• US: No

No means the complete UN, UK, EU and US review found no direct country-level programme. People or organisations may still appear on sanctions lists.

Government effectiveness and rule of law (World Bank 2024, percentile)

• Government Effectiveness: 76/100
• Regulatory Quality: 73/100
• Rule of Law: 66/100

Enforcement activity

RegActions tracks 65 enforcement actions from 3 regulators in United Arab Emirates.

• CBUAE — Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (36 actions, 2020-2025)
• DFSA — Dubai Financial Services Authority (19 actions, 2016-2026)
• FSRA — Financial Services Regulatory Authority (10 actions, 2025-2026)

The composite RegActions Country Risk Score does not use enforcement volume.

Regulators and legal framework

FATF network

FATF network via MENAFATF.

• Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force

Last mutual evaluation: 2020 · report

National regulators

• CBUAE — Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (36 actions, 2020-2025)
• DFSA — Dubai Financial Services Authority (19 actions, 2016-2026)
• FSRA — Financial Services Regulatory Authority (10 actions, 2025-2026)

FIU: Egmont Group member (UAE FIU)

Framework signals

• FATF listing: Not currently listed
• International sanctions: no listed programme identified
• Corruption (CPI 2025): 69/100, rank #21 of 182
• Rule of law (WGI): 2.8/10 risk

Sector exposure

• Banking & payments (Low): No FATF listing, rule-of-law governance within normal range
• Trade & export controls (Low): No sanctions programme or FATF black-list constraint identified
• Crypto & virtual assets (Low): No FATF listing, accountability governance within normal range
• Real estate & luxury assets (Low): Corruption indicators within normal range for high-value assets
• State-linked & procurement (Low): Political-stability and corruption governance within normal range

Derived from sanctions tier, FATF listing, World Bank WGI governance and CPI; no per-sector dataset is asserted.

United Arab Emirates: analysis

The UAE's profile is determined by its governance indicators, with no FATF or sanctions overlay. Rule of law (strong), corruption (moderate), and political stability (strong) are the stronger dimensions. Voice and accountability (elevated) is the weakest domain and the primary governance concern. The CPI reading positions the UAE among the cleaner jurisdictions globally. Active enforcement by the CBUAE, DFSA, and FSRA demonstrates regulatory engagement across the financial system, which is a positive indicator for the AML/CFT framework.

Outlook

The UAE's institutional development and active financial regulation underpin a relatively contained risk position. Risks to the outlook include the voice-and-accountability constraint, exposure to high-value real estate and trade-finance flows, and the complexity of the multi-jurisdictional regulatory structure. Continued FATF engagement and supervisory capacity development across all three regulatory bodies will be important determinants of the forward risk profile.

Key watchpoints

• CBUAE, DFSA, and FSRA enforcement activity and supervisory capacity developments.
• High-value real estate, gold, and trade-finance flows with elevated AML/CFT exposure.
• Voice and accountability trends and their implications for beneficial ownership disclosure.
• Any future FATF assessment or engagement affecting UAE's standing.

Assessment currency

• FATF status: Not listed (as of 19 Jun 2026)
• Sanctions exposure: None identified (as of Jul 2026)
• Governance (WGI): Latest dataset incorporated (as of 2024)
• Corruption (CPI): 69/100 (as of 2025)
• RegActions assessment: Reviewed (as of 19 Jun 2026)

Public evidence layer

FATF action: none. No FATF call-for-action or increased-monitoring status was identified at the latest plenary. This does not establish low risk.

Contextual signals (not scored)

• FATF network membership: FATF regional network: MENAFATF (present, as of 2026-07)
• EU non-cooperative tax jurisdictions: Not listed in Annex I (absent, as of 2026-02-17)
• Egmont Group FIU: UAE FIU (present, as of 2026-07-17)
• Beneficial-ownership register: No live register identified in the source (unavailable, as of 2026-07-17)
• Transparency International CPI: 69/100, rank 21 (present, as of 2025)

Evidence freshness

• FATF monitored-jurisdiction status: current; data 2026-06-19
• FATF mutual evaluation and follow-up ratings: current; data 2026-07-31; follow-up 2023-07; base assessment 2020-04
• World Bank governance indicators: current; data 2024
• UN, UK, EU and US sanctions regimes: current; data 2026-08-13

Contextual signals are public evidence only and do not change the immutable v2 score.

Download evidence PDF · CSV · JSON

Regional peer scores

• Iran: 9.0/10 (Very high)
• Syria: 7.0/10 (Very high)
• Yemen: 7.0/10 (Very high)
• Lebanon: 6.1/10 (High)
• Iraq: 6.0/10 (High)
• Kuwait: 6.0/10 (High)

Source: FATF black & grey lists · World Bank WGI (CC BY 4.0 — World Bank WGI) · TI CPI (CC BY-ND 4.0 — Transparency International, display only)