🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates (الإمارات)
Visiting: Take careLGBT visiting: Dangerous
Visiting the United Arab Emirates is safe, though not without caveats. Same-sex relationships are criminalised and can carry the death penalty, which places it 169th for LGBT rights, so LGBT travellers should weigh this carefully. Even so, violent crime is close to non-existent, the 11th-lowest homicide rate, and road deaths are low, at 36th. There is significant exposure to conflict, ranking 129th, and freedom is tightly restricted, at 138th.
Homicide
Intentional homicides per 100,000 people — lower is better.
United Arab Emirates: 0.5
Ranked 11th in the world for the lowest homicide rate.
Why this rank?
Half a killing per 100,000 people a year is well under the one-per-100,000 mark where the safest countries sit.
Is it safe to visit?
Safe for a visitor. In the last breakdown, no case involved a stranger.
Road Fatalities
Road-traffic deaths per 100,000 people per year — lower is better.
United Arab Emirates: 5.9
Ranked 36th in the world for the safest roads.
Why this rank?
Under six deaths per 100,000 people a year is above the EU average of four and a half but well under half the world average of fifteen.
Is it safe to visit?
Safe by world standards. Well below the world average.
Conflict
Conflict deaths inside the country in the last twelve months, as recorded by the Uppsala conflict database, civilians killed on purpose, and any UN sanctions or court order over a war. The worst of those sets the colour. Lower is better.
United Arab Emirates: 2.51
Ranked 52nd most conflict-affected country in the world.
Why this rank?
12 people died in fighting inside the United Arab Emirates in the year to July 2026, none of them civilians killed on purpose.
Is it safe to visit?
Take care while the war next door lasts. Iranian missiles and drones killed 12 people in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Fujairah in the year to July 2026, the last in April.
Freedom
Six freedoms rated 0–4 by Freedom House — protest, speech, press, religion, movement and due process. The weakest rating sets the colour, and the total places the country inside it — higher is better.
United Arab Emirates: 4.22
Ranked 43rd least free country in the world.
Why this rank?
In the United Arab Emirates press is rated 0, meaning absent. Due process and movement are 1 and 1, so a visitor who keeps the rules is left alone. Total 6 of 24.
Is it safe to visit?
Political parties are banned and press is rated absent, with all authority resting with hereditary rulers. Civil liberties of citizens and noncitizens alike are significantly restricted. A visitor who keeps quiet is left alone.
LGBT Rights
LGBT equality in law and daily life — higher is better.
United Arab Emirates: Death
Ranked 12th least equal in the world for LGBT people.
Why this rank?
Federal law criminalises same-sex acts with prison terms, and sharia readings allow the death penalty on paper. Red by law.
Is it safe to visit?
Not safe to be open. Dubai's cosmopolitan surface coexists with real legal jeopardy. Arrests are quiet, deportations quieter.
Women's Safety
Women's safety — feeling safe out at night, political violence against women, a fair hearing in court, and how normal violence at home is, with the night figure setting a floor on the colour — higher is better.
United Arab Emirates: 8.00
Ranked 51st safest country in the world for women.
Why this rank?
Ninety-one percent of women feel safe walking alone at night. The courts, rated poor for women, account for the whole loss.
Is it safe to visit?
A woman travelling alone is safe in the United Arab Emirates.