Income in the United Arab Emirates
The median income in the United Arab Emirates is about $74 a day per person (2021 PPP dollars) — richer than 95% of everyone alive. Half of the United Arab Emirates lives on less than that.
The world's own median person — about $7.73 a day — would stand in the bottom 1% of the United Arab Emirates.
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The curve
Daily income per person, log scale, PPP dollars — the same curve the machine walks you across.
What it takes to stand where
Take-home income per person, in today's AED, at each point on the curve of the United Arab Emirates (the machine's convention: household take-home divided by the people it supports).
| Richer than… | per year, per person | per day (PPP $) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% of the United Arab Emirates | AED 37,926 | $35 |
| 25% of the United Arab Emirates | AED 59,136 | $54 |
| 50% of the United Arab Emirates | AED 81,387 | $74 |
| 75% of the United Arab Emirates | AED 106,105 | $97 |
| 90% of the United Arab Emirates | AED 137,564 | $126 |
| 99% of the United Arab Emirates | AED 237,312 | $217 |
Rounded, never inflated: the machine floors "richer than" claims.
The four levels in the United Arab Emirates
How much of the United Arab Emirates and of the world lives on each of four income levels. The cuts are the World Bank's $3.00 (international poverty line) and $8.30 (upper-middle-income line), both 2021 PPP; the top cut, $33, is the machine's own, four times the $8.30 line. The objects are what an income on each level tends to buy across the world's surveys — not a description of any one country.
| Level | per day (PPP $) | What tends to come with it, worldwide | United Arab Emirates | World |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | under $3.00 | a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot | <1% | 13% |
| Level 2 | $3.00–$8.30 | a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance | 1% | 39% |
| Level 3 | $8.30–$33 | a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account | 8% | 32% |
| Level 4 | $33+ | a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap | 91% | 15% |
- Level 1 · under $3.00 a dayUnited Arab Emirates <1% · World 13%a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot
- Level 2 · $3.00–$8.30 a dayUnited Arab Emirates 1% · World 39%a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance
- Level 3 · $8.30–$33 a dayUnited Arab Emirates 8% · World 32%a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account
- Level 4 · $33+ a dayUnited Arab Emirates 91% · World 15%a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap
About 91% of the United Arab Emirates lives on Level 4, $33 a day or more per person; worldwide, roughly one in seven people do.
The line that moved
Fewer than 1% of the United Arab Emirates lived under the $3.00 line at every survey since 2013 — this is a line that moved long before the data begins.
Share of the United Arab Emirates under $3.00 a day (2021 prices) at each national survey, World Bank PIP via Our World in Data; the faint line is the world's.
Worldwide, the share under the World Bank's $3.00-a-day line fell from about 43% in 1990 to about 10% today (Our World in Data; the latest years are the Bank's nowcast). Where the lift came, it came the unglamorous way: wages, harvests, workshops.
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Where this comes from
The World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform percentile distribution for the United Arab Emirates (survey year 2018), in 2021 PPP dollars; incomes typed in today's money are deflated to 2021 prices with the national CPI and converted with the 2021 consumption-PPP factor. Snapshot fetched September 2026. Full methodology & honesty rules.
Neighbours on the curve
The countries whose median income sits nearest to the United Arab Emirates's — and a few far from it, for scale.