Abu Dhabi has climbed eight places in JLL's 2026 Global Real Estate Transparency Index, moving from 41st position in 2024 to 33rd out of 88 countries and 146 city markets assessed worldwide. The emirate earned the title of the index's "leading improver" this year, with its composite transparency score improving to 2.42.
The jump follows a wave of digital initiatives rolled out by the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre, including publicly accessible dashboards tracking real-time property data, interactive maps showing unit-level transaction records and service charges, and open APIs that let developers and analysts plug directly into market data feeds.
JLL's index, which evaluates markets across 260 distinct factors, found that transaction volumes in "Highly Transparent" markets worldwide have surged 64 per cent over the past two years — underscoring how data access correlates with investor confidence and deal flow.
With this year's gain, Abu Dhabi now sits alongside Dubai and Saudi Arabia among the Gulf's most transparent property markets, a shift analysts link to the UAE's broader push for economic diversification and foreign investment. Greater transparency typically lowers perceived risk for overseas buyers, who increasingly weigh regulatory clarity and data availability alongside yield when choosing where to invest.
Industry watchers expect Abu Dhabi to keep climbing the index if it continues expanding open-data initiatives and digitising its property registry, potentially moving closer to the "Transparent" tier in the next reporting cycle.