DIFC reports strong 2025 growth despite geopolitics

• Profits increase by almost a third
• Number of companies up 28%
• Strong growth in hedge funds

Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has reported another strong year of growth despite geopolitical uncertainty, the free zone’s governor Essa Kazim said.

The region’s largest financial centre saw profits increase almost one-third to AED1.16 billion ($316 million) in 2025. The number of companies registered at DIFC rose 28 percent to 8,844, despite a year of US tariffs, global conflicts and rising tension in the Middle East.

The centre reported further growth in registrations of 30 percent month-on-month in January, Kazim said.

“We have always been neutral in terms of connecting the east and west regions,” he said at a media event on Thursday.

“Uncertainty has always been in the Middle East, whether that’s geopolitics or other [factors]. But if you look at our results over the past five years, they have been extremely positive regardless of what’s happening in our surroundings. And we have no reason to believe that trend won’t continue in the next year and the years to come.”

DIFC is home to more than 1,052 regulated companies, including 557 wealth and asset management firms and 102 hedge funds – a sector that grew by 37 percent in 2025.

Kazim said 51 percent of registered companies came from the Middle East and Asia and roughly 35 percent from Europe and North America.

“We had a slight uptick in the UK and that was probably a reflection of the growth in hedge funds that have been sourced from the country,” he said.

By contrast, operational entities at neighbouring Abu Dhabi Global Market grew to 3,227 by the end of the third quarter of 2025, a 43 percent year-on-year increase.

During 2025, construction accelerated across 1.7 million square feet of commercial space, with the first 600,000 sq ft scheduled for handover by the end of February 2026.

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In January, DIFC announced a AED100 billion ($27 billion) expansion that will nearly treble its size by 2040.

The DIFC Zabeel District will add a gross floor area of 17.7 million sq ft to the free zone.

Kazim said the project will be financed from three sources: internal cash, future cashflow and a potential return to capital markets.

“If there is any gap then definitely the market is open to us,” he said. “In the past we issued sukuk and that’s one possibility.”