Every consumer credit decision in the UAE — a credit card, a personal loan, a mortgage, increasingly even a tenancy — starts with one file: your record at Al Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB), the federal credit bureau that now brands itself Etihad Credit Bureau (etihadbureau.ae). This guide is for residents who want to know what is in that file, what the 300–900 score actually measures, what it costs to check, and how to fix errors before a bank sees them. The product details and fees below are taken from AECB's own published pages and the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) rulebook, as of August 2026. It sits within the wider personal finance hub.
At a Glance
| Item | Detail (August 2026) |
|---|---|
| Score range | 300–900 — the higher the score, the lower the assessed risk |
| What the score predicts | The likelihood of missing payments in the next 12 months |
| Credit Score fee | AED 10.50 via the AECB app, web portal or TAMM |
| Credit Report fee | AED 84 — includes the score, 36-month payment history and last reported salary |
| Cheque Clearance Indicator | AED 10.50 — a 1–99% indicator of the risk that a cheque bounces within 9 months |
| BNPL data | Tabby and Tamara accounts report to AECB from July 2026, including historical transactions |
| Data correction | Free for any report bought in the last 30 days; corrections reflected within about 10 working days |
| Negative history | Defaults, missed payments and bounced cheques stay visible for up to 5 years |
| Bank affordability cap | Debt Burden Ratio capped at 50% of gross salary plus regular income (CBUAE Regulation 29/2011) |
What AECB Is and Where Your Data Comes From
A federal bureau, not a bank
AECB is a public joint stock company owned by the UAE federal government, mandated to operate the national credit reporting system under Federal Credit Information Law No. 6 of 2010, as amended by Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2020. It issued the country's first credit reports in 2014, with consumer credit scores following. The bureau does not lend and does not decide applications — it collects credit data from lenders and other providers, compiles it into a single report per person, and calculates the score that banks buy when you apply for credit.
What feeds your file
The credit report reflects your credit history over the past 36 months. Per AECB's published description, it draws on banks, finance companies, telecom operators, water and electricity providers, courts and government entities, and includes:
- All credit contracts — credit cards (limits and utilisation), personal loans, car loans, mortgages and overdrafts — with monthly payment patterns.
- Defaults, overdue amounts and returned (bounced) cheques.
- Court-ordered financial obligations.
- Payment history with telecom and water and electricity providers — an unpaid final bill when you move flats can follow you; see setting up utilities on closing accounts cleanly.
- Your last reported salary, and an Income Utilisation Ratio showing how your repayments compare with it.
The file is much wider than "loans": a forgotten telecom instalment plan or an old utility balance sits alongside your mortgage history. Banks and finance companies submit updated data to AECB daily, non-banking providers such as telecoms and utilities monthly, and joint facilities appear on both borrowers' reports. The report can also carry a "Left Country" status when a provider believes you have left the UAE — correctable through the process below if wrong.
BNPL joined the file in July 2026
The long-running question of whether buy-now-pay-later apps report to AECB now has an official answer. On 27 July 2026, AECB announced that BNPL account information from Tabby and Tamara is included in UAE credit reports, effective July 2026. The inclusion applies to both existing and new customers and covers relevant historical transactions — so an instalment history built up before July 2026 can appear in the file, not just new activity. The flip side: missed BNPL instalments are now visible to every bank that pulls your report. No other BNPL provider is named in the announcement, so treat coverage beyond Tabby and Tamara as unconfirmed.
One persistent piece of folk wisdom — that BNPL apps send nothing to the bureau unless you miss a payment — did not survive the announcement: what is reported is account information, including historical transactions, not a delinquency-only feed. The practical impact runs through affordability as much as the score. Because active instalments now sit on the report, an underwriter can count outstanding BNPL commitments alongside loans and cards when working out borrowing room (see the Debt Burden Ratio section below). Paying on time protects your history; it does not make the commitment invisible.
Getting Your Score and Report
Channels and fees
Consumer access runs through an Etihad Credit Bureau account — sign-in supports UAE Pass. As of August 2026, AECB lists these channels and prices:
| Product | Fee | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Credit Score | AED 10.50 | Etihad Credit Bureau app (iOS/Android), web portal, TAMM |
| Credit Report (includes score) | AED 84 | App, web portal, TAMM, DubaiNow; also in person at Al Ansari Exchange branches since April 2026 |
| Cheque Clearance Indicator | AED 10.50 | Etihad Credit Bureau app |
AECB's stated delivery window is within 8 hours of purchase. There is no published free-report entitlement — if you only want the number, the AED 10.50 score is the cheap check; buy the AED 84 report when you need the detail (before a mortgage application, after a rejection, or when you suspect an error).
Practical notes
From outside the UAE, the mobile app works with a valid Emirates ID, and AECB offers virtual appointments through its support centre for anyone who cannot log in. Landlords have their own consent-based tenant screening product since May 2026 — see the FAQ below.
Reading the Report
What the score measures
AECB defines the credit score as a three-digit number from 300 to 900 that predicts the likelihood of missing payments in the next 12 months — the higher the score, the lower the risk. AECB names three main influences: how well you manage your credit limits, whether you pay bills and loans on time, and how many loans and credit cards you currently hold; its FAQ pages add cheque return history, length of credit history and credit mix to the list. Two clarifications come straight from the bureau: pension income does not affect the score, and your last reported salary is not among the listed score inputs — it feeds the banks' affordability sums instead.
There is no official band table
Aggregator sites publish confident tables — "710+ is excellent, below 580 is poor" — but AECB's consumer pages name no official cut-offs: the bureau publishes the range and the direction, nothing more. Each bank maps the score to its own approval tiers and pricing, so the same score can clear one threshold and miss another. Treat movement in your own score as the signal.
Why you might have no score
A report can come back marked score-unavailable. The most common reasons AECB publishes: you are not a borrower yet, less than six months of payment history, not enough information in the last 24 months, no update to the file in the last 12 months, or no use of your credit limits in the last 12 months. New arrivals typically have no score until roughly six months after their first UAE credit product — and opening a bank account alone does not create a credit file.
Beyond the number
Banks that pull the full report see what the score compresses: every active and closed contract, 36 months of payment flags, bounced cheques, court obligations, credit enquiries, salary and the Income Utilisation Ratio. A clean score with a maxed-out card limit still reads badly to an underwriter. Before a major application, read the report the way the bank will: check each contract's status, confirm closed accounts show as closed, and confirm the salary on file is current.
How Banks Use the Score — the 50% DBR Rule
The Debt Burden Ratio
The score tells a bank how you have behaved; the Debt Burden Ratio (DBR) tells it how much room you have. Under CBUAE Regulation 29/2011 (Article 7), deductions for all your credit obligations combined — personal, car and housing loans, overdrafts and credit card facilities — must not exceed 50% of your gross salary plus regular income from a defined source. Where repayments extend into retirement, banks must schedule reductions so deductions fall to 30% of income or pension, and the CBUAE's mortgage regulations require lenders to stress test mortgage DBR at 2–4 percentage points above the current interest rate.
On a gross salary of AED 20,000, all instalments plus assessed card commitments must fit inside AED 10,000 — an existing AED 4,000 car loan and AED 2,000 of card obligations leave AED 4,000 of headroom for any new loan, however good the score.
Treat the score and the DBR as independent axes: the score measures how you have repaid, the DBR whether the next instalment fits. A strong score alongside obligations that fill the 50% cap still fails affordability. Before applying, add up every commitment on your report — BNPL instalments included — before you look at the score at all.
The caps that interact with it
The same regulation sets product-level ceilings that combine with the DBR: personal loans are capped at 20 times salary or total income with a maximum 48-month repayment period, car loans at 80% of the vehicle's value over a maximum 60 months, and credit cards may only be issued to customers with annual income of AED 60,000 or more (or against a pledged deposit of at least AED 60,000) — the rule behind the thresholds covered in the credit card minimum salary guide. A bank's decision therefore stacks three layers — the AECB report and score (behaviour), the DBR (capacity), and its own product policy (appetite). For product-level detail, see the credit cards, personal loans and expat mortgages guides.
Disputing Errors, Step by Step
AECB does not edit data itself — it routes corrections to whichever bank, telecom or other provider reported the entry. The process, per AECB's published Data Correction service:
Step 1 — Buy and review your credit report. Data correction is free for any report purchased in the last 30 days, so start from a fresh report and pin down which entry is wrong and which provider reported it.
Step 2 — File the request. Use the "Correct my data" option against the entry, or the Data Correction form on etihadbureau.ae. Attach your Emirates ID and supporting documents — a clearance letter, settlement receipt or closed-account confirmation. One request per provider: separate errors need separate requests.
Step 3 — Wait for the provider's response. AECB forwards the request to the information provider, which under CBUAE regulations must respond within 7 working days; AECB states your history should update within 10 working days, with an email when the data changes.
Step 4 — Escalate a rejection. If the provider refuses the correction, call AECB on 800-BUREAU (800 287328) to register a formal data correction dispute — this route only opens after a rejected correction request.
Step 5 — Re-check before you apply: buy a fresh AED 10.50 score after the update email to confirm the fix before submitting a bank application.
A card or loan you never applied for
A facility on the report that you never consented to is more than a data error, so run two tracks at once. File a written complaint with the institution that issued it, asking it to close the facility, confirm the absence of consent and correct what it reported to AECB; if the institution rejects the complaint, or 30 calendar days pass without resolution, escalate free of charge to Sanadak (sanadak.gov.ae), the ombudsman established by the Central Bank for complaints against licensed financial institutions. In parallel, file the AECB data correction described above so the entry itself is challenged. Move quickly: fees accruing on a facility you never used can surface as overdue amounts, and unresolved debt can end in court enforcement (see the travel-ban FAQ below).
Improving Your Score
AECB publishes four levers, and they are unglamorous: pay on or before the due date, avoid bounced cheques, reduce the number of credit cards and loans you hold, and reduce outstanding balances and card limit utilisation. Keep telecom and utility accounts current and formally closed when you move, because they report alongside your loans. Treat BNPL instalments as real credit obligations — from July 2026 they are on the record. Space out applications rather than approaching several banks in the same week, since enquiries appear on the report. There is no fast reset — negatives stay visible for up to five years, and the file improves only as new, clean months accumulate on top.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good AECB credit score?
AECB publishes the range — 300 to 900 — and the direction: the higher the score, the lower the assessed risk of missing payments in the next 12 months. It publishes no official band cut-offs, so any table naming "excellent" or "poor" thresholds is unofficial. Each bank applies its own tiers, which is why the same score can be approved at one bank and declined at another.
How much does it cost to check my AECB score and report?
As listed on etihadbureau.ae in August 2026: AED 10.50 for the credit score alone and AED 84 for the full credit report, which includes the score, 36 months of payment history and your last reported salary. Both are bought through the Etihad Credit Bureau app or web portal — AECB also lists TAMM, and DubaiNow for the report — with a stated delivery window of 8 hours.
Do Tabby and Tamara purchases affect my AECB credit report?
Yes — officially, from July 2026. AECB announced on 27 July 2026 that BNPL account information from Tabby and Tamara is included in UAE credit reports, for existing and new customers, including relevant historical transactions. Paid-on-time instalments build a record; missed instalments are visible to any bank that pulls the report.
Do phone and utility bills affect my AECB file?
Yes. AECB states the credit report includes payment history with telecom operators and water and electricity providers. An unpaid final bill on a closed account is a common source of unexpected negative entries — settle and formally close telecom and utility accounts when moving, and dispute anything paid that still shows as overdue.
Why is my AECB credit score not showing?
AECB's published reasons include: not being a borrower yet, less than six months of payment history, insufficient information in the last 24 months, no file update in the last 12 months, or no use of your credit limits in the last 12 months. A missing score is not a bad score — but it does mean banks will lean on salary, DBR and their own policy instead.
How far back does the AECB report go?
The report covers a three-year payment history on each active and closed credit facility and service, plus court-ordered financial obligations. Serious negatives last longer: AECB states that defaults, missed payments and bounced cheques remain on the report for up to five years, and settling the amount does not remove the entry — it updates the status, which lenders read far more kindly than an open default.
How do I fix a mistake on my AECB report, and how long does it take?
File a data correction request — free for any report bought in the last 30 days — with your Emirates ID and supporting documents, one request per information provider. AECB forwards it to the provider, and your history should update within about 10 working days, with an email confirmation. If the provider rejects the correction, call 800-BUREAU (800 287328) to register a formal dispute.
How quickly does my AECB report update after I settle a debt?
Banks and finance companies submit data to AECB daily, non-banking providers monthly — so a settled bank facility should show its new status within days, and telecom or utility items on the next monthly cycle. There is no paid way to force an earlier refresh. What you can accelerate is an error: if a settled item still shows as overdue — a returned cheque paid in cash is a classic example — file a data correction with the settlement receipt, and the history should update within about 10 working days. Before a major application, buy a fresh AED 10.50 score to confirm the file has caught up.
Can a landlord or employer check my AECB credit report?
Not without your consent — credit information is only disclosed to third parties with the consent of the person concerned. Landlords have a dedicated screening service: the landlord raises a request through AECB, you approve or decline it via UAE Pass, and an approved request reveals the credit score only, not the full report; if you decline, the landlord's fee is refunded. There is no equivalent product for employers — an employer who wants to see your credit standing has to ask for your consent or for a report you supply yourself.
Can a gym or debt collector really get me a travel ban?
Not on their own. Debt-related travel bans are imposed only by a court, under Article 324 of the Civil Procedures Law (Federal Decree-Law 42 of 2022): the debt must generally be AED 10,000 or more, established and supported by written evidence, and the creditor must show serious grounds that the debtor intends to leave the country and put up a court-accepted guarantee. A gym or its collection agency must first sue, win and open an execution case before any ban is possible — a threatening phone call imposes nothing. The credit-file angle is separate: merchants do not report membership debts to AECB, though a court judgment over one would appear as a court-ordered obligation.
Does the AECB score alone decide whether my loan is approved?
No. Banks also apply the CBUAE Debt Burden Ratio cap — all credit obligations within 50% of gross salary plus regular income — and their own product policies, such as the 20-times-salary personal loan ceiling and credit card income minimums. A strong score cannot override a breached DBR, and a clean DBR cannot override recent defaults.
