United Arab Emirates policy interest rate
The Base Rate set by the Central Bank of the UAE, applied to the Overnight Deposit Facility (ODF). It signals the general stance of monetary policy and provides an effective floor for overnight money-market interest rates in the UAE. It is NOT an independent policy decision: the AED is pegged to the US dollar at 3.6725, so the Base Rate is anchored to the US Federal Reserve's Interest Rate on Reserve Balances (IORB) and the CBUAE adjusts it on its own initiative immediately after each FOMC move.
| Current value | 3.65 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2025-12-11 |
| Official source | CBUAE press release 'CBUAE Lowers the Base Rate by 25 Basis Points', Abu Dhabi 10 December 2025 — cut the Base Rate applicable to the Overnight Deposit Facility (ODF) from 3.90% to 3.65%, effective from Thursday 11 December 2025, following the US Fed's 25bp cut to the IORB the same day |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
PEG/FED LINK (the reader must understand this tracks the US Fed, not an independent UAE decision): the UAE dirham is pegged to the US dollar at AED 3.6725 = USD 1, a peg in place since 1997. To defend the peg the CBUAE cannot run an independent interest-rate policy, so the Base Rate is anchored to the Fed's IORB and moves in lockstep with FOMC decisions, typically effective the day after the Fed acts. The current 3.65% was set on 10 Dec 2025 (effective 11 Dec 2025), a 25bp cut from 3.90% that mirrored the Fed's 10 Dec 2025 cut of its target range to 3.50%-3.75%. It has since been HELD at 3.65% at every decision as the Fed paused: 18 Mar 2026 (CBUAE 'Maintains the Base Rate at 3.65%'), 29 Apr 2026 (same), and 17 Jun 2026 (same, reported by CBUAE/press; the Fed kept 3.50%-3.75% 'for the third consecutive meeting' per the CBUAE Quarterly Economic Review June 2026). The CBUAE also keeps the rate for borrowing short-term liquidity from all standing credit facilities at 50bp above the Base Rate. Do NOT confuse the Base Rate with EIBOR (the Emirates Interbank Offered Rate) or DONIA (the Dirham Overnight Index Average) — those are market rates and differ. CBUAE PDFs parse cleanly; the 18 Mar 2026 hold is at https://www.centralbank.ae/media/kc0p2tuf/cbuae-maintains-the-base-rate-at-3-65-en.pdf and the 29 Apr 2026 hold at https://www.centralbank.ae/media/qs2gbs13/cbuae-maintains-the-base-rate-at-3-65-en.pdf.
Get it programmatically
curl https://mearef.dev/v1/ae/policy-rate
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://mearef.dev/v1/ae/policy-rate/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://mearef.dev/provenance/ae/policy-rateOther United Arab Emirates series: VAT rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates