United Arab Emirates document photos online

In 2015 the Emirati passport sat in 42nd place; by mid-2025 it had vaulted to 8th in the world on the Henley Passport Index, opening visa-free or visa-on-arrival doors to 183 destinations. No travel document in the index's history has climbed faster: the UAE has added access to 149 destinations since 2006, the single largest gain ever recorded. For a federation that only completed its seven-emirate union in 1972, turning the green Emirati booklet into the strongest passport in the Arab world in barely two decades is a quietly staggering feat of statecraft, diplomacy, and document power.

• Passport power The UAE passport ranked 8th globally on the mid-2025 Henley Passport Index with visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 183 destinations, the strongest passport in the entire Arab world.
• Record climb Since 2006 the Emirati passport has gained access to 149 extra destinations, the largest single jump by any country in the Henley Index's history, rising from 42nd place in 2015 to 8th in 2025.
• Citizenship For the first time ever, a 2021 amendment let select foreign investors, scientists, doctors and other talents be naturalized as Emirati citizens, and unusually they may keep their original nationality.
• Golden visa In 2019 the UAE launched the Golden Visa, a 5- or 10-year renewable residency that frees holders from needing a local sponsor, redefining long-term residence in the Gulf.
• Currency origin The dirham, introduced on 19 May 1973, traces its name to the ancient Greek silver drachma, and is subdivided into 100 fils.
• Currency peg The dirham has been pegged to the US dollar at a fixed rate of 3.6725 AED since 1997, giving it remarkable stability through decades of regional turbulence.
• New symbol On 27 March 2025 the Central Bank unveiled a brand-new dirham symbol inspired by the letter 'D' with two stability lines, set to enter Unicode 18.0 as U+20C3.
• Demographics Around 88.5% of residents are expatriates, with Indians the single largest community at roughly 4.36 million people, the largest Indian diaspora on Earth (2025).
• Space first On 9 February 2021 the UAE's Hope Probe entered Mars orbit, making the country the first Arab nation and only the second ever to reach Mars on its very first attempt.