Before a UAE bank looks at your salary, your deposit or the property you want, it pulls one document. Your AECB report.
Most residents have never read their own. That matters more here than in most countries, for a reason that catches people out: your credit history from home doesn't come with you. A spotless twenty-year record in London, Mumbai or Chicago counts for nothing. From a UAE lender's perspective, your credit life began the day you landed.
It matters again when something on the file is wrong, because corrections take weeks that a live mortgage application doesn't have.
This covers what the bureau is, how to read each section of the report, how long entries survive, and the two-stage correction process — which is where most people go wrong, because they try to start at stage two.
What the AECB is
The Al Etihad Credit Bureau is the UAE's single federal credit bureau. It collects credit data from regulated providers across the country and compiles it into reports and scores that lenders use to assess you.
It now brands itself Etihad Credit Bureau, though the legal entity and the abbreviation most people use are unchanged. Both names mean the same organisation.
The legal framework
It operates under Federal Law No. 6 of 2010 on Credit Information, with its Implementing Regulation in Cabinet Decision No. 115/2021, and Central Bank Decision No. 67/5/2015 governing its work regulations.
That framework isn't decoration. It's what gives you a statutory right to see your own data and to have inaccurate information corrected, and it's why the correction process has a defined timetable rather than depending on a bank's goodwill.
What it can and can't do
The bureau doesn't lend, doesn't approve or decline anything, and doesn't set your interest rate. It reports what providers tell it.
That limitation shapes everything about fixing an error. The bureau cannot edit your file directly. It can only ask the provider who supplied the data to correct it at source, which is precisely why disputes work the way they do.
What feeds your file
Providers report monthly:
- Banks and finance companies: loans, credit cards, mortgages, overdrafts
- Telecom providers: postpaid mobile and internet accounts
- Utilities, including DEWA
- Courts: judgments and registered cases
The reach has widened. Since 2018, du, e& and the federal utilities have fed the bureau, so a late postpaid mobile bill is now a credit signal sitting in the same file as your mortgage. Buy-now-pay-later providers are progressively reporting instalment activity too, which means a missed payment on a AED 400 purchase can register on the file a bank reads when you ask for AED 2 million.
The report and the score are different products
People use the words interchangeably. The bureau sells them separately.
| Individual | Company | |
|---|---|---|
| Credit report, score included | AED 84 incl. VAT | AED 157.50 incl. VAT |
| Credit score only | AED 10.50 incl. VAT | AED 10.50 incl. VAT |
Both are bought through the Etihad Credit Bureau app or website using UAE PASS.
Which you need depends on why you're looking. The score is a single number that tells you whether there's a problem. The report is the document showing every account, every payment and every event that produced it, which tells you what the problem is. If you're heading towards a mortgage application, buy the report. AED 84 is a rounding error against what a declined application costs you in time.
Our guide to checking your credit score in the UAE covers the process of obtaining it.
Reading the report, section by section
Personal information
Read this first. Name, Emirates ID, passport details, employer, contact details.
Errors here are common and disproportionately damaging, because a mismatch between your report and your application documents slows a file down, and in the worst case attaches somebody else's history to yours.
Credit facilities
Every account you hold or have held: the lender, the account type, the credit limit or original loan amount, the outstanding balance, and the status — active, closed or delinquent.
Check the limits carefully, not just the balances. A closed card still showing as open is among the most frequent errors on UAE files, and it costs you directly: banks count roughly 5% of every card limit as a monthly commitment, so a phantom AED 50,000 limit removes AED 2,500 a month from what you can borrow.
Payment history
Up to 36 months per account, showing whether each month was paid on time and, if not, by how far — the standard buckets are 30, 60 and 90 days.
This is the section underwriters read most closely, and recency matters more than volume. A single 30-day delay two years ago is noise. A 60-day delay four months ago is a conversation.
Bounced cheques
Recorded separately from ordinary late payments and treated far more seriously. More on why below, because the legal position changed and the credit position didn't.
Court cases and judgments
Registered judgments appear here. Active court cases or unresolved disputes can stop an approval outright, independently of your score.
Enquiries
A record of who pulled your file and when, visible to lenders.
This is why a run of applications hurts you even when the score holds. Six card applications in one month reads as distress. Checking your own report, by contrast, is a soft enquiry and doesn't register against you.
What the score actually measures
The AECB score is a three-digit number from 300 to 900 that predicts the likelihood of missing payments in the next twelve months. Higher is lower risk. Banks know it as the Consumer Retail Banking Score, and Emirates NBD was the first UAE bank to underwrite on it, back in 2017.
The bands
| Band | Range |
|---|---|
| Excellent | 746–900 |
| Very good | 711–745 |
| Good | 651–710 |
| Fair | 541–650 |
| Poor | 300–540 |
You'll see slightly different cut-offs quoted elsewhere, so treat the boundaries as approximate. Emirates NBD puts it plainly enough: above 700 is good, and below 400 most banks won't entertain an application at all.
For mortgages specifically, the band that matters is 580 to 700, where individual bank policies diverge most sharply. Our guide to the minimum credit score you need covers where those thresholds sit.
What moves it
Drawing on how lenders describe their own reading of the file:
- Payment history, weighted towards recent behaviour
- Credit utilisation — how much of your available limit you're actually using. High utilisation reads as financial stress even when you clear the balance monthly
- Account status across your facilities
- Cheque history, where returned cheques carry disproportionate weight
- Legal issues, including active cases
- Application trends, meaning the enquiries section above
- Length of credit history and the mix of credit types
The empty file problem
Here's the situation nobody warns new arrivals about. Without reportable activity in the past twelve months, a score won't generate at all.
An empty file isn't a bad file. It's an absent one, and lenders read absence as unquantified risk. Someone arriving with a 780 score and twelve clean years abroad can still be declined for a premium card in month three — not because anything is wrong, but because there's nothing to assess.
How long entries survive
The question everyone asks after a bad year, and the one where published information is thinnest.
Bounced cheques stay for up to five years, which the bureau states on its own website and is the most reliably documented retention period.
Defaults and written-off facilities persist for a defined period commonly cited as around five years from write-off, though published figures vary and some sources put late payments, defaults and settlements in a five-to-seven year range.
Enquiries are generally described as visible for one to two years.
Two things are more certain than the exact durations.
Settling doesn't erase the entry. Clearing a default changes the status code from "default" to "settled". The line stays. That's still worth doing, because lenders read a settled default very differently from a live one, but nobody should expect a payment to clean the file.
Impact decays with time. A five-year-old late payment weighs far less than a six-month-old one, because the scoring model is predicting the next twelve months and recent behaviour is the better predictor.
Where a specific date matters to you, confirm it against the bureau directly rather than relying on any secondary source, this one included.
Bounced cheques: decriminalised, not erased
Worth its own section, because the 2022 reform is widely misunderstood.
Federal Decree-Law No. 14 of 2020, in force from January 2022, largely decriminalised dishonoured cheques and obliged banks to honour partial payment against available funds rather than rejecting a cheque outright.
What survived is narrower but real. Criminal liability continues for account closure, deliberate stop payments, intentionally withdrawing funds, fraudulent issuance, forgery, and unauthorised use of another person's cheque. The reform targeted one scenario — insufficient funds — rather than removing criminal exposure from the cheque system.
The credit consequences barely moved at all. A dishonoured cheque is still reported to the bureau, still sits on the file for up to five years, and banks still decline premium products on that entry for two to three years afterwards, including after the underlying amount is settled.
For a mortgage application, a recent bounced cheque is among the most damaging single entries a file can carry.
The errors people actually find
Pulling your report is only useful if you know what you're looking for. These recur:
- A closed card still showing as open, often with a stale limit attached
- The same loan reported twice, doubling your apparent liabilities
- An employer or address that hasn't been updated in years
- A bounced-cheque entry recorded against the wrong year
- A facility belonging to somebody with a similar Emirates ID fragment
- A settled loan still showing an outstanding balance
The last two are the ones worth checking most carefully, because they inflate your debt burden ratio directly and neither is obvious unless you read the facilities section line by line.
Correcting an error takes two stages
Almost every guide says "dispute it with the bureau." That's stage two, and you can't begin there.
Stage one: a Data Correction Request
Because the bureau can't edit data it didn't create, you first ask it to route your correction to the provider who supplied it.
Log in at etihadbureau.ae or through the app using UAE PASS, select "Correct my Data", complete the form, and attach your Emirates ID plus supporting evidence. Bank statements, settlement letters, closure confirmations and court orders are all accepted.
There's no fee, and Central Bank rules require the data provider to respond within 10 working days.
Stage two: a Data Correction Dispute
Available only if the provider rejects your correction request. You cannot register a dispute without having been refused first.
If that happens, call the bureau's contact centre on 800-BUREAU (800-287328) with the details to hand.
Timing
You have a 30-day window after buying a report to review it and raise inaccuracies.
The practical point is longer than that. Stage one alone allows ten working days, and a rejection followed by escalation stretches further. That timetable is comfortable six months ahead of a mortgage application. It is not comfortable once you've signed Form F with a completion deadline running, which is the argument for pulling your report early rather than when it becomes urgent.
What's changing
The bureau has been developing Credit Score 3.0, a model designed to incorporate alternative data including rent, utility and telecom payments. The intent is largely to produce scores for residents with no loan or card on file — the empty-file problem above. Announced timelines have moved, so check current status rather than assuming it's live.
Separately, a Tenant Screening product launched in April 2026, letting landlords view your existing score with your consent. It doesn't feed rent data back into the score.
Before you leave the UAE
Your file doesn't close itself. Anyone leaving permanently should settle outstanding facilities, obtain a no-liability letter from each lender, and then confirm the report reflects it.
An unsettled account left behind is considerably harder to resolve from another country, and it doesn't quietly disappear.
Frequently asked questions
What is AECB?
The Al Etihad Credit Bureau, the UAE's federal credit bureau. It collects credit data from banks, finance companies, telecom providers, utilities and courts, and produces the reports and scores lenders use.
What does an AECB report show?
Your personal information, every credit facility held or closed, up to 36 months of payment history, bounced cheques, court judgments, outstanding balances and a record of who has pulled your file.
How much does an AECB report cost?
AED 84 including VAT for an individual credit report, which already contains your score. The score alone is AED 10.50. Company reports are AED 157.50.
What is a good AECB score?
The scale runs 300 to 900, with 746 and above treated as excellent and 651 to 710 as good. Above 700 is generally considered strong; below 400, most banks won't proceed.
How long does a bounced cheque stay on my AECB report?
Up to five years according to the bureau, and banks commonly decline premium products for two to three years afterwards even once the amount is settled.
Does settling a default remove it from my report?
No. The status changes from "default" to "settled" and the entry remains. Lenders read the two very differently, so it's still worth doing.
How do I correct an error on my AECB report?
Submit a free Data Correction Request through the app or website with supporting documents. The provider must respond within 10 working days. If they reject it, you can then register a Data Correction Dispute by calling 800-BUREAU.
Does checking my own report lower my score?
No. Checking your own file is a soft enquiry with no effect. Only lender checks during an application are hard enquiries.
Why don't I have a credit score in the UAE?
A score won't generate without reportable activity in the past twelve months, and credit history from other countries doesn't transfer. New arrivals commonly have no file at all.
Before a lender reads it
The habit worth building is pulling your own report before an application rather than after a decline. AED 84 buys you the same document an underwriter will see, at a point where you can still do something about what's on it.
We work across 15+ UAE lenders and will tell you plainly how your file reads, which banks it suits, and what needs addressing first. Get pre-approved, or speak to a consultant if something on your report is worrying you.
For the wider picture, our guide to UAE home loan eligibility covers all seven criteria lenders assess, and how the debt burden ratio works explains why those credit card limits on your report matter so much to what you can borrow.
