news
Record GDP Sets Stage for Abu Dhabi Policy Choices Ahead
Strong quarterly figures and rising business licenses point to decisions on maintaining non-oil momentum and investor appeal.
How we reported this
Abu Dhabi's real GDP reached AED 325.7 billion in Q3 2025, the highest quarterly value on record and a 7.7 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.
The latest numbers arrive as the emirate's population stood at 4.14 million at the end of 2024, up 7.5 percent from 2023, while full-year GDP for 2024 totaled AED 1.2 trillion. These benchmarks give planners concrete data on how recent expansion has already reshaped labor demand and infrastructure needs.
Non-Oil Sector Role
The non-oil economy grew 7.6 percent in Q3 2025 and contributed AED 175.6 billion, or 54 percent of total GDP. Earlier in the year the share reached 56.8 percent in Q2. This shift shows how activity outside hydrocarbons has become the larger part of quarterly output and now drives most of the recorded growth.
Over the first nine months of 2025 the overall economy expanded 5 percent year-on-year while non-oil sectors rose 6.8 percent, extending a run of 18 consecutive quarters of growth. The figures come from Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi releases that track value added by sector.
License Trends and Credit Standing
New economic licenses across the emirate rose 21 percent in Q1 2026. S&P Global reaffirmed the AA/A-1+ sovereign credit rating in May 2025, and Moody's and Fitch kept stable outlooks. These signals reflect continued external confidence in the emirate's fiscal position.
Officials must now decide how to allocate resources between sectors that posted the strongest gains, how to respond to the surge in new licenses, and how to keep the non-oil share above half of GDP while population and workforce numbers continue to climb. The data from the first half of 2026 will show whether current settings deliver the same pace of expansion.