By UAE borrowers are selling bonds faster than at any point on record, and they are doing it in the middle of a regional war. Sovereigns and companies from the UAE have sold a combined $30.3 billion of dollar and euro denominated bonds through July 28, 2026, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, about $3.7 billion above the previous record for this point in the year set six years ago.
- UAE sovereigns and companies have sold $30.3 billion in dollar and euro bonds so far in 2026, roughly a third more than the same point last year and a new record for the period.
- The surge is happening even as the Middle East war drags on, suggesting investors are pricing UAE credit separately from regional conflict risk.
- Fitch expects the UAE’s total debt capital market to top $350 billion in 2026, with sukuk now making up about half of all dollar issuance.
A Record Year for UAE Bond Sales, War and All
The pace is striking mainly because of when it is happening. Bloomberg’s reporting on July 28 framed the record explicitly against the war backdrop, noting that UAE bond sales are up about a third so far in 2026 compared with year earlier levels. That is not a market pausing to wait out geopolitical risk. It is a market accelerating through it.
Abu Dhabi set an early tone for the year when its first sovereign bond sale of 2026 drew roughly $11 billion in orders on a dual tranche mandate, a sign of deep, ready demand from global fixed income investors. The UAE Ministry of Finance has also kept a steady drumbeat of shorter dated treasury bond auctions through the year, with the May 2026 sale marking the third successful issuance since regional tensions escalated.
Why Investors Keep Buying Despite the Conflict
Part of the answer is diversification away from oil dependent revenue. The UAE has spent years building funding channels through banks, corporates and government related entities rather than relying solely on hydrocarbon income, and 2026’s issuance calendar reflects that groundwork. Part of it is also relative comparison. With shipping insurance premiums in the Gulf climbing toward 10 percent and Iran linked disruption hitting refineries and subsea cable routes elsewhere in the region, UAE sovereign and corporate paper still reads as a comparatively stable credit in a volatile neighborhood.
Fitch Ratings has pointed to funding diversification and regulatory reform as structural reasons the UAE’s debt capital market keeps expanding regardless of short term shocks. The agency expects outstanding UAE debt, which had already climbed past $325 billion by the end of 2025, to surpass $350 billion in 2026 and exceed $400 billion in following years. Bashar Al-Natoor, Fitch’s global head of Islamic finance, has noted that over 85 percent of Fitch rated sukuk in the UAE carry investment grade ratings, with every issuer on a stable outlook and no defaults on record.
Sukuk’s Growing Share of the Market
One of the clearer shifts inside this year’s numbers is the growing weight of sukuk. Dollar sukuk issuance in the UAE surged by more than 130 percent last year, while conventional dollar bond issuance actually declined, pushing sukuk’s share of total dollar issuance to roughly half, the highest on record. That has made the UAE the world’s second largest dollar sukuk issuer and put it among the top issuers of environmental, social and governance linked sukuk globally. Across the wider Gulf, bond and sukuk issuance rose 6.5 percent to about $102.7 billion in the first half of 2026 alone, underlining that this is a region wide trend rather than a UAE only story.
Newer instruments are entering the mix too. Fitch has flagged the emergence of digitally native notes alongside retail and fractional sukuk in the UAE, both aimed at improving settlement efficiency and widening the investor base beyond traditional institutional buyers.
What Record UAE Bond Sales Mean for Gulf Business
For companies and banks operating in the UAE, cheap and plentiful debt funding is a green light for expansion even while headlines stay grim. It is one reason projects ranging from AI data centers to hospital networks to clinic chains have kept raising and deploying capital through 2026 rather than pulling back. For investors, the record pace is also a signal worth watching rather than ignoring: strong demand for UAE paper mid conflict says as much about global appetite for Gulf credit as it does about the UAE specifically.
Fitch’s own caveat is worth repeating. The UAE’s debt capital market remains sensitive to oil prices, interest rate swings and geopolitical risk, and a market moving this fast can also unwind quickly if any of those pressures shift. For now, though, the money keeps coming, war or no war.
Related read: how UAE asset tokenization is opening the same capital markets infrastructure to retail investors.
Sources: Bloomberg, Arab News (Fitch Ratings), Economy Middle East, AGBI.