Prices in United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪
What 7 everyday items cost in United Arab Emirates, shown in US dollars, in AED, and as roughly how long someone earning the average local wage works to buy one.
The UAE imports almost all of its food, so groceries track global shipping and wholesale costs more than local production. Fuel is the exception: it was deregulated in 2015 and now moves with world oil prices, which is unusual for a Gulf producer and leaves petrol dearer here than in Saudi Arabia.
What things cost
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | $5.17 | 19 AED | 21 min |
| Coca-Cola (330ml can) | $0.95 | 3.5 AED | 4 min |
| Cappuccino | $5.47 | 20.09 AED | 22 min |
| Milk (1 litre) | $1.77 | 6.5 AED | 7 min |
| Eggs (dozen) | $3.12 | 11.46 AED | 12 min |
| Apples (1 kg) | $2.36 | 8.67 AED | 9 min |
| Gasoline (1 litre) | $0.87 | 3.2 AED | 3 min |
Local-currency figures are converted from US dollars at recent exchange rates, except the Big Mac, which is published in local currency by The Economist and converted the other way. Work time divides the dollar price by an estimated average hourly wage — the roughest number on this page. See methodology.
How United Arab Emirates compares
Relative to the rest of the game, United Arab Emirates is most expensive for cappuccino, where it ranks 3rd out of 32 countries at $5.47 — against a global median of $3.67.
It is relatively cheapest for gasoline at $0.87, which is 28th of 32 — only 4 countries in the game are cheaper.
Measured against local earnings rather than dollars, the item that takes the longest to afford here is cappuccino, at roughly 22 minutes of the average wage. Dollar prices and work-time prices often rank countries very differently — that gap is usually the more interesting number.
Play a puzzle
United Arab Emirates comes up in the daily puzzle roughly once every 33 days, paired with a different item each time. Play today's puzzle or browse the archive of past rounds.