Saudi Arabia has reaffirmed that all real estate transactions across the kingdom are subject to a statutory 5 per cent real estate transaction tax, while certain property purchases by foreign buyers in designated areas will attract an additional 2 per cent fee under existing regulations, as the kingdom continues to refine its real estate investment framework.

Read more-Foreigners owning property in Saudi: The rules you need to know

The clarification was issued by the General Real Estate Authority (REGA), with spokesperson Taisir Al-Mufarrij confirming that the 5 per cent transaction tax applies equally to Saudi and non-Saudi buyers. He added that property transfers involving non-Saudis within designated geographic zones in Riyadh, Jeddah, Makkah and Madinah are also subject to an additional 2 per cent fee in line with the relevant law and its executive regulations, a Saudi Gazette report said.

Market development and investment objectives

REGA said the rules governing non-Saudi property ownership have been tailored to reflect the distinct characteristics and development priorities of each city while supporting the kingdom’s broader real estate strategy.

The authority noted that Makkah and Madinah remain subject to special provisions that safeguard their religious and historical significance, with property ownership in designated areas restricted to Muslims and governed by approved legal procedures.

Meanwhile, REGA said Riyadh and Jeddah, as Saudi Arabia’s leading economic and urban centres, are subject to targeted regulations aimed at supporting urban development, improving quality of life, directing real estate investment and strengthening the long-term sustainability of the property market.

The clarification comes as Saudi Arabia continues to advance reforms across its real estate and investment sectors, alongside broader government initiatives to streamline services and improve the business environment.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) is encouraging residents to carry out essential pre-travel checks before heading off on their summer holidays to reduce electricity and water waste and identify potential issues early.

As part of its ‘Enjoy Sustainable Vibes This Summer’ awareness campaign, DEWA said customers can remotely monitor their electricity and water consumption through its digital services, allowing them to spot unusual changes while they are away and take prompt action if needed.

DEWA highlighted its Away Mode feature, available on its website and smart app, as a convenient tool for customers travelling during the summer, a WAM report said.

Read more-DEWA develops smart solution to speed up electricity network design

“The feature enables them to track electricity and water consumption from anywhere in the world through daily or weekly reports and graphs sent to their emails, helping them to detect any consumption irregularities and respond promptly.”

Steps to improve efficiency and safety

To improve efficiency and enhance safety before leaving home, DEWA advised residents to switch off the main water supply, inspect internal water connections and arrange regular maintenance of electricity and water systems through specialised technicians.

The authority also pointed customers to the DEWA Store, available through its smart app, which offers access to a list of trusted service providers for maintenance support.

Residents are further encouraged to unplug electrical appliances instead of leaving them on standby, clean air-conditioning filters regularly and keep doors and windows tightly closed to improve cooling efficiency. Where practical, households are also advised to use solar-powered water heaters.

To minimise water waste and avoid potential property damage, DEWA stressed the importance of inspecting water tanks, taps, heaters and internal connections regularly, while repairing any leaks as soon as they are detected.

In addition, DEWA noted that its High-Water Usage Alert, powered by smart meter technology, sends instant notifications when unusual water consumption is detected downstream of the meter, enabling customers to respond quickly to possible leaks.

The authority also encouraged customers to explore its Smart Living initiative, which provides detailed insights into electricity and water bills, tariff slabs and daily, weekly and monthly consumption patterns to support more informed and sustainable usage decisions.

Dubai’s ascent as a global financial centre reached new heights in 2025. The Dubai International Financial Centre welcomed 182 new regulated entities, pushing the total past 1,000 for the first time, while the city broke into the top ten of the Global Financial Centres Index, rising to seventh.

Behind this momentum sits the Dubai Financial Services Authority, the independent regulator of financial services conducted in and from the DIFC, whose remit now includes a formal mandate to support the sector’s growth alongside its core duties of market integrity, consumer protection and financial crime prevention.

In this interview, Mark Steward, who joined the DFSA last year as chief executive, reflects on a landmark year: record banking assets of $251bn, DIFC’s emergence as a top-five global hedge fund hub, $30.6bn in new debt listings, and the regulatory philosophy underpinning it all. From new crypto token rules to early intervention on AI oversight gaps, he makes the case that Dubai’s rise rests not on light-touch regulation, but on clear, consistently applied rules shaped by a regulator that knows its market, and intends to keep it that way as Dubai targets a place among the world’s top four financial centres by 2033.

You joined DFSA last year, at a moment of strong momentum for DIFC. What struck you most when you arrived?

What struck me immediately was the force of the DFSA‘s unique circumstances: overseeing the world’s fastest growing international financial centre, with a deep commitment to innovation and expertise, underpinned by high, international regulatory standards. The velocity of DIFC’s growth is extraordinary. In 2025, DIFC welcomed 182 new regulated entities, taking the total past 1,000 for the first time, a 16 percent increase in a single year and the third consecutive year of double digit growth. DIFC is now home to the vast majority of the world’s global systemically important banks, alongside an extensive network of asset managers, insurers and professional firms.

In March, Dubai entered the global top ten of the Global Financial Centres Index for the first time, rising from eleventh to seventh. What is persuading international firms to come here, and to stay?

People often ask me that question. Dubai‘s position at the centre of the world’s day, connecting the trading hours of Asia, Europe and the Americas, is a genuine part of the answer. But the more durable reason is a regulator that understands, and actively engages with, the markets it oversees, that is proportionate and risk-based, and that is built to help high-quality firms grow. It is worth noting that the same index identified Dubai as the centre most poised for significant growth over the next two to three years.

How does the DFSA’s work fit into Dubai’s wider ambitions under the D33 agenda and the DIFC 2030 strategy?

Our work is guided by the Dubai Economic Agenda, D33, and the DIFC 2030 strategy, which aim to make Dubai one of the world’s top four financial centres by 2033. That ambition calls for better regulation, not lighter regulation. In my experience, good regulation depends as much on knowing our firms well, and understanding how they are growing, as it does on setting high standards.

The 2025 numbers show growth across the board. Can you take us through the performance of DIFC’s four focus sectors?

DIFC’s strength is its breadth: high-quality growth across all four focus areas, banking, wealth and asset management, capital markets, and insurance. In banking, the combined assets of DIFC banks reached $251bn, up 19 per cent in a single year and 195 percent over the decade. The centre now hosts 27 of the 29 globally systemically important banks and the five leading Chinese banks, reflecting Dubai’s growing role connecting East and West. In wealth and asset management, assets under advisory reached $220bn and the number of firms grew by 22 per cent.

DIFC is now also a top-five global hub for hedge funds with two of the world’s largest operating from the Centre. Activity deepened as well as widened: trading in DIFC’s over-the-counter market grew strongly through the year, reaching $13tn in the final quarter of 2025, most of it in derivatives. Capital markets attracted $30.6bn in new debt listings, up 21 percent year on year, reinforcing DIFC’s position as a leading venue for sukuk and sustainable finance. And in insurance, gross written premiums hit record highs while the number of insurance-related entities grew by 15 per cent.

Rapid growth can bring rising risk. How confident are you in the quality of this expansion?

That is exactly the right question, because growth alone is not hard to attract. Growth without rising bad debts or thinning capital is harder, and a better sign that it will last. This growth came with discipline: the non-performing loan ratio in banking fell to a record low of 1.76 percent, and capital and liquidity buffers stayed well above what we require.

In October, the DFSA was given a secondary objective to support the growth of the financial services sector. Does that change how you regulate?

It formalised an approach we have long taken, that regulation is a catalyst for sustainable, high-quality growth, not a constraint. The objective is explicitly secondary and cannot override our primary duties to maintain market confidence, protect consumers and prevent financial crime. However, it lets us weigh the impact of our decisions on market development and competitiveness, while keeping our regulation risk-based and proportionate. In practice, that means giving firms greater regulatory certainty, reducing friction, and engaging more closely with the firms we supervise.

In 2025, we created a dedicated market engagement function, ran a supervisory outreach for more than 500 market participants, and launched DFSA Connect, a platform that made authorisation more streamlined and efficient.

How do you balance that closeness to the market with keeping standards high?

Our proximity to the markets we serve is precisely how we keep standards high. Over the year we carried out 79 risk assessments of authorised firms, published eight thematic reviews covering areas such as whistleblowing, fund management self-custody and high-growth firms, and shared 94 reports of suspicious trading with regulators in other jurisdictions.

We can give firms room to grow because we understand how they operate and can act early when there are challenges.

Technology is moving quickly, from crypto to AI. How is the DFSA keeping pace?

The rapid development of technology is a sharp test of regulation, and throughout 2025 we continued to refresh our regulatory approach with proportionate reforms across our regimes. Our updated crypto token rules, effective in January, are one example, where we shifted suitability assessments to firms within a framework we set and supervise.

On AI, our annual survey found that AI use among DIFC firms rose to 52 percent in a year, with generative AI use up 166 percent, yet one in five firms using AI in critical functions lacked proper oversight of it. A regulator should catch that kind of gap early. We did, and published our findings on cyber and AI as a systemic risk. It is with this same logic that DIFC’s Zabeel District will house the world’s first purpose-built AI campus within a financial centre. Firms will keep innovating at that pace only if the rules are strong enough to manage the risks and clear enough to build on.

What role do you see the DFSA playing in DIFC’s next phase of growth?

This is the role we intend to keep playing: a global super-connector, providing the regulatory rails and best practices that let capital, ideas and talent move freely while protecting the system they rely on. International firms choose DIFC, and stay, not because the rules are light, but because they are clear, consistently applied, and shaped by a regulator that engages with the market and helps good firms grow. That is what builds a financial centre that will continue to grow and sustain.

All figures drawn from the DFSA Annual Report 2025: Shaping the Financial Markets of the Future.

The UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and Skyports Infrastructure said on Tuesday that the country’s aviation regulator had certified what they described as the world’s first purpose-built commercial vertiport for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, marking a milestone for Dubai’s planned air taxi network.

The facility, officially registered as VDX under the GCAA’s certification process, is expected to serve as the primary hub of Dubai‘s future commercial air taxi network. Three additional vertiports are under development by Skyports in partnership with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).

The certification followed an assessment by the GCAA covering the vertiport’s infrastructure, operational procedures, safety management systems, emergency preparedness and compliance with applicable aviation regulations.

“The certification of the world’s first purpose-built commercial vertiport is a historic achievement for the UAE and a defining moment for the future of aviation,” GCAA DG Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi said in a statement.

He said the certification reflected the country’s regulatory framework and its ability to support innovation while maintaining aviation safety standards.

Aqeel Al Zarouni, assistant DG for Aviation Safety Affairs at the GCAA, said the certification demonstrated the UAE’s ability to establish a regulatory framework for emerging aviation technologies through what he described as proactive regulation and rigorous certification processes.

Skyports Infrastructure chief executive Duncan Walker said the approval showed that the infrastructure, operational standards and regulatory frameworks required for commercial eVTOL services were now in place.

“With VDX now certified and construction of the wider Dubai Air Taxi Network progressing at pace, we are one step closer to launching commercial air taxi operations,” Walker said.

Key features of the VDX vertiport facility

The VDX facility features two dedicated take-off and landing areas, rapid charging infrastructure for electric aircraft and passenger processing facilities. The four-storey vertiport spans around 3,100 square metres and is designed to handle up to 170,000 passengers annually once commercial services begin.

Commercial air taxi operations have not yet commenced, and no launch date was announced as part of the certification.

The GCAA said the approval represents a regulatory milestone as the UAE continues developing its Advanced Air Mobility ecosystem in collaboration with the RTA, Skyports and other industry partners.

The US launched strikes against Iran on Tuesday after attacks on three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said, escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran.

CENTCOM said the strikes were carried out in response to Iranian strikes on commercial shipping and aimed at imposing costs for targeting vessels carrying civilian crews in international waters.

“Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire,” CENTCOM said in a statement.

According to Reuters, Iranian state media reported that strikes hit areas including Qeshm Island, Bandar Abbas and Sirik.

The US had earlier said there would be consequences following the attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a major global shipping route.

US revokes waiver on oil-linked sanctions on Iran

The strikes followed a decision by the US Treasury Department earlier on Tuesday to revoke a waiver that had temporarily eased some oil-related sanctions on Iran.

CENTCOM said it had hit over 80 targets with precision munitions. It said that US forces “struck Iranian air defense systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities, and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in and near the strait.”

The Strait of Hormuz, located between Iran and Oman, is one of the world’s most important energy transit routes, with disruptions there carrying potential implications for global oil markets and maritime trade.

Meanwhile, according to a Reuters report, oil prices rose and bond futures dropped on Wednesday after the US strike on Iran and reinstated trade sanctions following attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

US crude futures CLc1 were up 2.7 per cent to $72.40 a barrel and 10-year Treasury futures TNc1 slid seven ticks as traders priced in the risk that inflation and interest rates rise.