The UAE has moved to second place in the Henley Crypto Adoption Index 2026, up from fifth a year earlier, after scoring a perfect 10 out of 10 for tax friendliness, according to Henley & Partners.
Singapore still leads the index for a fourth consecutive year. The UAE’s climb is the clearest Gulf signal in a report that also puts Hong Kong third, the United States fourth and Switzerland fifth among 36 countries offering residence or citizenship pathways to internationally mobile digital-asset investors.
Why the UAE crypto hub scored a perfect 10 for tax
Henley’s press release says the UAE took second place “with 10 out of 10 for Tax-Friendliness and no tax on crypto trading, staking, or mining.” That tax pillar is the headline reason the ranking moved, not a claim that every crypto business in the country operates tax-free forever.
Emirates 24|7, citing the same index, reports the UAE scored 46.4 out of 60 overall and topped the tax-attractiveness criterion. The newspaper also puts the country second globally for innovation and technology at 8.9 out of 10, and third for public adoption at 7.6.
The index draws on more than 900 data points across six pillars: public adoption, infrastructure readiness, innovation and technology, regulatory environment, economic factors, and tax attractiveness.
Regulation that travels with the coins
Henley notes that Dubai established the world’s first standalone virtual-asset regulator in 2022. Emirates 24|7 places that Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority alongside DIFC and other free-zone frameworks, plus initiatives such as the Digital Dirham, as part of the same supportive stack.
The report’s private-client framing is blunt: crypto may move across borders easily, but the people who own it still choose where to live, pay tax and raise families. Dominic Volek, group head of private clients at Henley & Partners, said the asset may no longer need the jurisdiction, but the owner still does.
That is the same mobility logic behind the firm’s broader wealth-migration work. In a separate Global Wealth Mobility Framework cited in the same release, the UAE scored 85.3 out of 100 for wealth-mobility competitiveness, ahead of Singapore on that particular measure.
Same report, a $2.6tn market backdrop
Released in London on 8 September 2026, the Crypto Wealth Report 2026 puts the global crypto market at USD 2.6 trillion as of 31 August 2026, of which about USD 1.6 trillion is Bitcoin. Henley counts 135,694 crypto millionaires worldwide and 92,272 Bitcoin millionaires, with ownership still widening to some 742 million people holding digital assets in some amount even as Bitcoin trades well below its October 2025 peak.
Those figures describe the global market, not a UAE-resident wealth total. They simply explain why residence and tax design suddenly matter to a younger, more mobile crypto-wealthy cohort.
What it means on the ground in the UAE
A No.2 ranking will not, by itself, open a wallet. It does package what residents already see in daily rails: VARA-licensed venues, free-zone tokenisation experiments, and consumer checkout that settles in dirhams.
tbreak has tracked that stack elsewhere, from Emirates’ Crypto.com Pay and Dubai Duty Free crypto payments to Coinbase’s Abu Dhabi tokenisation hub. The Henley scorecard is the investment-migration version of the same pitch: clear rules, light personal tax on digital assets, and a seat near the front of the global queue — just not the very front. Singapore kept that.
Where does the UAE rank in the Henley Crypto Adoption Index 2026?
Second globally, up from fifth in the previous edition, according to Henley & Partners’ Crypto Wealth Report 2026 press release of 8 September 2026. Singapore remains first.
What tax score did the UAE receive?
A perfect 10 out of 10 for Tax-Friendliness. Henley says the UAE has no tax on crypto trading, staking or mining. Emirates 24|7 reports the same perfect score under the tax-attractiveness criterion.
Is the $2.6 trillion figure UAE crypto wealth?
No. Henley says the global crypto market was worth USD 2.6 trillion as of 31 August 2026, with about USD 1.6 trillion in Bitcoin. It is a worldwide market figure from the same report, not a count of UAE-resident crypto holdings.
Who else is in the top five?
Singapore first, UAE second, Hong Kong third, the United States fourth and Switzerland fifth, per Henley’s 8 September 2026 release. The index covers 36 countries with residence or citizenship pathways.
What is VARA’s role in the ranking story?
Henley notes that Dubai established the world’s first standalone virtual-asset regulator in 2022. Emirates 24|7 links that Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, alongside other UAE frameworks, to the country’s innovation and regulatory scores in the index.
