S&P Affirms the UAE at AA/A-1+ With a Stable Outlook: Net Government Assets at 147% of GDP, Growth to Average 6.2% a Year in 2027-2029 After 2.4% in 2026

2026-09-05

On Friday 4 September 2026 S&P Global Ratings affirmed the United Arab Emirates’ long- and short-term sovereign credit ratings at AA/A-1+ with a stable outlook and kept its transfer and convertibility (T&C) assessment for the country at AA+. The decision rests on the government’s balance sheet: consolidated net assets estimated at 147% of GDP in 2026, liquid assets of about 170% of GDP held largely through the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and the Emirates Investment Authority (EIA), and general government debt of about 26% of GDP. S&P expects real GDP to grow 2.4% in 2026 and 6.2% a year on average in 2027-2029 as oil output rises after the country’s exit from OPEC on 1 May 2026, and it expects the consolidated budget to post a deficit of 1.3% of GDP in 2026 before returning to surpluses averaging 3.5% of GDP in 2027-2029. The affirmation follows the previous one of 9 March 2026 and comes with lower buffer estimates: in March S&P put net assets at 184% of GDP and liquid assets at about 210%. The figures below are taken from the Investing.com report of 4 September 2026 on the S&P release and from the March release as published by WAM; the full text of the September release on S&P’s website was not accessible to us at the time of writing, so the agency’s upgrade and downgrade scenarios are not reproduced here.

What S&P decided on 4 September 2026

• Rating. Long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit rating AA and short-term rating A-1+, both affirmed. AA is the third rung of S&P’s scale, below AAA and AA+.
• Outlook. Stable, unchanged since the March 2026 review.
• T&C assessment. AA+, one notch above the sovereign rating. This is S&P’s view of the likelihood that the state would restrict private-sector access to the foreign exchange needed to service debt.
• Main supports. Strong fiscal and external positions, sovereign wealth funds (ADIA and EIA), low government debt and rising oil production capacity.
• Main risk named. The Middle East war and its effect on tourism, aviation and logistics, which sit inside the non-hydrocarbon economy that accounts for about 75% of GDP.

The numbers: March 2026 against September 2026

S&P last affirmed the UAE on 9 March 2026, days after the regional conflict began. The September release keeps the rating and the outlook but revises the buffers the rating relies on. The table compares the two sets of estimates for 2026 as reported by WAM and The National in March and by Investing.com in September.

The wire report does not explain the lower net asset and liquid asset ratios, and this article does not speculate about them. What the two releases share is the logic of the stable outlook. In March S&P wrote that the buffers “should provide space for policy maneuvering during adverse geopolitical developments or unfavorable hydrocarbon sector dynamics, including disruption in oil production or exports”; in September it again names the fiscal and external position as the basis of the rating. In March the agency also noted that oil receipts make up 45% to 50% of general government revenue and that the consolidated balance averaged a surplus of 5.6% of GDP in 2021-2025.

Growth: 2.4% in 2026, then 6.2% a year in 2027-2029

S&P’s growth path is built on oil volumes. On 28 April 2026 the UAE announced that it was leaving OPEC, which it joined in 1967, with effect from 1 May 2026. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the country produced an average of 3.4 million barrels per day of crude in 2025 with an effective capacity of about 4.2 million barrels per day. S&P’s September release records output of about 3.8 million barrels per day in July 2026, expects an average of about 3.5 million barrels per day for 2026 as a whole and projects 5.0 million barrels per day by 2029, against 3.4 million in February 2026.

The non-oil side is where the war shows. S&P’s figures for the first half of 2026: hotel occupancy of 58% against 80% a year earlier; 31.5 million passengers through Dubai’s airport, down 31% year on year; container throughput at Jebel Ali down about 60% to 3.1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Because non-hydrocarbon sectors make up about 75% of GDP, the 2.4% growth figure for 2026 combines rising oil output with a contraction in tourism and logistics. For 2027-2029 S&P expects growth of 6.2% a year on average and a current account surplus that narrows to 6.7% of GDP in 2026 before averaging 13% of GDP in 2027-2029.

Two other readings sit next to S&P’s. The IMF said in July that it expected the economy to rebound in the second half of 2026, which we covered in IMF Sees UAE Economy Rebounding in Second Half of 2026, and the S&P Global UAE PMI, a survey of non-oil private companies, rose to 55.3 in August 2026, a 20-month high, as we reported in UAE Non-Oil Business Activity at a 20-Month High. Both are consistent with a first half that took the blow and a second half that recovers.

Fiscal path: a deficit of 1.3% of GDP in 2026, surpluses of about 3.5% after

S&P’s consolidated fiscal balance adds up the federal government and the individual emirates. For 2026 the agency expects a deficit of 1.3% of GDP, the first in the period it covers, followed by surpluses averaging 3.5% of GDP in 2027-2029; the four-year average is a surplus of 2.3% of GDP. The deficit year coincides with the lower first-half non-oil receipts and with government spending during the conflict; the surpluses that follow rest on the assumed oil volumes and prices in the table above. Government debt stays at about 26% of GDP, and the liquid assets of about 170% of GDP, which in S&P’s March description include funds managed by ADIA and the EIA, government deposits and minority stakes in listed companies, are the reason a one-year deficit does not touch the rating.

Three agencies, three forecasts for 2026

The UAE is rated by all three global agencies, and their 2026 assessments differ more in the growth number than in the rating itself.

Moody’s Aa2 corresponds to AA on the S&P and Fitch scales; Fitch’s AA- is one notch lower. All three keep a stable outlook. The growth forecasts were published at different points of the year: Fitch’s in May assumed, in its own words, a gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz from July 2026; Moody’s in June described the strait as closed since early March; S&P’s in September had the July production figure of about 3.8 million barrels per day in hand. Fitch also put the consolidated budget surplus for 2026 at 4.5% of GDP and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign net foreign assets at 164% of UAE GDP in 2025, and Moody’s put Abu Dhabi’s financial assets at about 300% of GDP in 2025.

What the rating means for a business in the UAE

A sovereign rating is not a rating of your company, but it sets the frame in which banks, lenders and foreign counterparties price the country:

• Bank and corporate funding. The ratings of UAE banks and government-related companies are assessed against the sovereign’s. An affirmed AA with a stable outlook keeps that anchor in place for bond issues, sukuk and syndicated loans, and through them for the cost of corporate credit.
• Moving money in and out. The T&C assessment of AA+ signals a low probability of restrictions on converting AED into foreign currency and transferring it abroad. The AED remains pegged to the US dollar at 3.6725, and the Central Bank of the UAE has held its base rate at 3.65% since the US Federal Reserve’s last move, as we described in UAE Central Bank Holds Rate at 3.65%.
• Counterparty and country limits. Foreign partners, insurers, export credit agencies and correspondent banks use the sovereign rating in their country risk limits. An unchanged rating gives them no rating-driven reason to tighten terms for UAE companies.
• Operating environment. S&P’s own first-half numbers on hotels, the airport and Jebel Ali describe the market that importers, re-exporters and hospitality businesses have been working in since March. The agency’s forecast of 6.2% growth in 2027-2029 is the base case it has priced into the rating, not a guarantee.
• Investment flows. The sovereign wealth funds that S&P counts in the liquid assets are also the investors behind the regional capital expenditure cycle that BlackRock described this month, covered in BlackRock Puts the UAE at the Centre of the GCC’s USD 2.1 Trillion Investment Cycle.

A short checklist for a company that is raising money, signing long-term contracts or entering the UAE in the coming months:

• quote the current rating, outlook and date (AA/A-1+, stable, 4 September 2026) in financing memos and investor materials, and note that Moody’s and Fitch stand at Aa2 and AA-;
• when a bank or lender prices a facility, ask which oil price and growth assumptions it uses, because the three agencies’ 2026 forecasts range from a 2.4% expansion to a contraction of about 7%;
• for logistics and tourism budgets, use the first-half 2026 volumes above as the low point of the year and the PMI and IMF readings as the recovery signal;
• keep the dates of the next scheduled reviews in the calendar: S&P’s two 2026 actions came six months apart, on 9 March and 4 September;
• if your group reports under IFRS, the sovereign rating and outlook feed into expected credit loss models for AED receivables and bank balances, so the affirmation is worth passing to the finance team.

How Atlant Capital can help

Atlant Capital works with founders and companies that use the UAE as a base for the wider region. We handle company formation on the mainland and in the free zones, including the choice of jurisdiction and activities; corporate bank account opening, where a sovereign rating of AA and a T&C assessment of AA+ are part of the argument for keeping treasury operations in the UAE; and work visas and residence permits for owners and staff. Bookkeeping, VAT and corporate tax filings are handled by licensed accounting firms from our partner network.

Conclusion

On 4 September 2026 S&P affirmed the UAE at AA/A-1+ with a stable outlook for the second time this year. The rating held even though the agency’s estimates of the buffers behind it came down from March: net assets of 147% of GDP instead of 184%, liquid assets of about 170% instead of about 210%, and a fiscal deficit of 1.3% of GDP expected for 2026. The reason the rating held is the size of what remains: government debt of about 26% of GDP, oil production heading from 3.8 million barrels per day in July 2026 towards 5.0 million by 2029, and a growth forecast of 6.2% a year for 2027-2029 after 2.4% in 2026. For companies in the UAE the practical message is that the pricing anchor for banks, lenders and foreign counterparties has not moved, while the first-half data on hotels, the airport and Jebel Ali describe the real operating conditions of 2026 that any budget should start from.

FAQ

What rating did S&P give the UAE in September 2026?

On 4 September 2026 S&P Global Ratings affirmed the UAE’s long-term sovereign credit rating at AA and its short-term rating at A-1+, both in foreign and local currency, with a stable outlook. The transfer and convertibility assessment stayed at AA+. AA is the third-highest grade on S&P’s scale after AAA and AA+, and the previous affirmation at the same level came on 9 March 2026.

Why did S&P’s estimate of UAE net assets fall from 184% to 147% of GDP?

Both numbers are S&P’s estimates of the government’s consolidated net asset position for 2026: 184% of GDP in the release of 9 March 2026 and 147% of GDP in the release of 4 September 2026. The estimate of liquid assets moved from about 210% to about 170% of GDP over the same period. The Investing.com report on the September release does not give the agency’s reasons for the revision, and the rating and outlook were not changed by it.

How fast will the UAE economy grow according to S&P?

S&P expects real GDP growth of 2.4% in 2026 and 6.2% a year on average in 2027-2029. The forecast assumes oil production of about 3.5 million barrels per day on average in 2026, rising to 5.0 million by 2029 after the UAE left OPEC on 1 May 2026, and Brent at USD 110 per barrel for the rest of 2026, USD 80 in 2027 and USD 65 in 2028-2029. The non-oil economy, about 75% of GDP, was hit in the first half of 2026: hotel occupancy fell to 58% from 80%, Dubai airport handled 31.5 million passengers, down 31%, and Jebel Ali’s container volume fell about 60% to 3.1 million TEU.

How do Moody’s and Fitch rate the UAE in 2026?

Moody’s rates the UAE Aa2 with a stable outlook, confirmed in its periodic review of 13 June 2026, and Fitch rates it AA- with a stable outlook, affirmed on 22 May 2026. Aa2 corresponds to AA on the S&P and Fitch scales, and AA- is one notch lower. The three agencies differ on 2026 growth: S&P expects an expansion of 2.4%, Fitch a contraction of 4.8% and Moody’s a decline of about 7%, with the differences reflecting when each forecast was made and the oil production and Strait of Hormuz assumptions behind it.