Several Dubai-based companies have told the Financial Times that Saudi Arabia is blocking or delaying bank transfers sent from Saudi entities to UAE accounts, with payments since mid-May failing to arrive, sitting for roughly a week, or being returned to sender without explanation. The Saudi central bank denies directing any restriction at the UAE, and a UAE official said the country’s Ministry of Economy has not received a single private-sector complaint about the delays. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the two largest economies in the Arab world, with annual bilateral trade exceeding $20bn.
The reports land against a deteriorating political backdrop between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia accused the UAE in December of backing a Yemeni separatist faction that attacked Saudi-aligned forces and labelled that support a threat to its own national security. In April the UAE announced it was leaving OPEC, the oil producers’ group Saudi Arabia effectively leads, with the split taking effect on May 1, 2026. Saudi officials had previously insisted that political differences with Abu Dhabi would not affect trade or financial flows. FT reporting from this month now puts a concrete cost on what cross-border operators say they have been living through since the spring.
Payments Between Saudi Arabia and the UAE Are Quietly Going Missing
The disruption first surfaced in mid-May, when three payments from a Saudi client of a Dubai-based healthcare company were blocked and returned by Saudi banks without explanation. The executive at the firm described the funds as usually held for about a week and then sent back, with no questions raised with either sender or recipient. Per the Financial Times, the pattern is consistent across multiple Dubai-based companies for both small sums and large. FT reporting on Saudi-to-UAE bank transfer delays has surfaced cases in which the funds never reach the intended UAE account.
The reach extends beyond corporate invoices. A senior banking executive said a multinational client had difficulties moving funds from Saudi Arabia to a UAE entity, with some of the affected transactions involving relatively modest sums. Personal transfers between the two countries’ own accounts, including routine remittances to relatives and friends, have also been intercepted, according to people familiar with the matter.
For businesses built on Dubai-as-base-to-serve-Saudi-Arabia, the operational hit is no longer abstract. One Dubai executive told reporters Saudi payments now take a very long time, with customers in the kingdom waiting on goods the suppliers cannot ship until funds clear. The pattern looks like a structural drag on the trade lane, with Dubai-based executives telling the Financial Times they no longer expect Saudi payments to clear on any predictable timeline. One senior banking executive called the situation bizarre, especially given that some of the affected transactions involved modest sums. Saudi officials, in their only public response to FT inquiries so far, said the kingdom has no policy of slowing payments to the UAE.
Both Governments Deny Any Country-Specific Restrictions
Saudi Arabia’s central bank pushed back on the characterisation in the Financial Times. The regulator said in a statement to the newspaper that the institutional sector operates under a robust regulatory framework and that banks apply the same risk-based due diligence measures to every transaction, regardless of the corridor. The bank explicitly rejected the suggestion that there are any direct restrictions targeting specific countries.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia maintain deep and longstanding economic and commercial ties.
That line came from a UAE government official responding to the Financial Times’ inquiries about the disrupted transfers. The same official told reporters the country’s Ministry of Economy had not received a complaint from any private-sector company about unusual delays or difficulties with bank transfers between the two countries. Saudi officials, in their own response to the same newspaper, gave the same official silence on whether the underlying problem had been raised through any inter-government channel. Both sides have so far stopped short of putting the question on any official channel between the two capitals.
Companies Are Working Around the Blocked Corridor
With no public timeline for resolution, affected firms have started working around the corridor. One Emirati businessman told the Financial Times his company was forced to reroute payments through Bahrain after transfers from Saudi Arabia were blocked. A separate Dubai-based services provider said a payment from a Saudi client was cancelled entirely, leaving the firm to fall back on PayPal as a more expensive alternative. Some affected parties have begun routing transfers through third-country banking channels in jurisdictions that appear unaffected. The cumulative effect is now visible at the cash-flow level for small and mid-sized operators, not just for headline corporate deals.
- Bahrain routing: an Emirati company rerouted funds through Bahrain after Saudi transfers were blocked (FT)
- PayPal fallback: a Dubai services provider absorbed higher PayPal fees to clear a cancelled Saudi payment (FT)
- Third-country banking: some corporations are routing through unaffected jurisdictions (Bloomberg)
- Personal remittance channels: individuals sending money to relatives and friends say their transfers have been interrupted (FT)
The friction has so far skewed in one direction. Saudi firms that need to send money to UAE accounts are the ones reporting delays, while UAE firms sending funds the other way have not been describing equivalent problems. The Financial Times reporting places the disruption squarely on the Saudi-to-UAE leg of the corridor. Both sides describe compounded costs: goods sitting unshipped, suppliers holding invoices, and customer relationships starting to fray.
None of the executives quoted in the reporting described the disruption as policy in plain terms, but several said the operating environment now requires planning for the friction as if it were policy. That adjustment, across hundreds of small and mid-sized operators, is starting to look structural. For firms built on Dubai-as-base-to-serve-Saudi-Arabia, the assumption that funds clear on a known timeline is gone.
How the Saudi-UAE Rift Reopened This Year
The financial squeeze is the latest surface expression of a political split that hardened over late 2025 and the first half of this year. Riyadh accused Abu Dhabi in December of backing a Yemeni separatist faction that had launched an offensive against Saudi-aligned forces inside Yemen, calling that support a threat to its own national security. Saudi Arabia’s framing of the UAE as a partner-turned-threat was a sharp break from the two countries’ joint role in the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015. Per the Financial Times, the transfer restrictions slot into a pattern of escalating tensions between the two governments across multiple fronts. Behind the public posturing sits an even more inconvenient economic fact: the two countries are now actively pulling apart on oil policy.
The dispute over OPEC is the most concrete recent move. The UAE’s exit from the cartel, taking effect on May 1, 2026, came roughly 60 years after Abu Dhabi joined the group in 1967. The move opened a clearer breach with Saudi Arabia, which had long functioned as OPEC’s de facto leader, and came ahead of the wider Middle East energy disruption triggered by the US-Israeli conflict with Iran.
The OPEC exit was framed by Abu Dhabi as a response to its own economic strategy and changing energy priorities, but analysts read it through the lens of Saudi-UAE friction. Rystad Energy analyst Jorge León said the departure marks a significant shift for OPEC, given that the UAE is among the few members with meaningful spare capacity, alongside Saudi Arabia. The UAE produces about 4.8 million barrels a day, with significant room to lift output, according to Rystad. Capital Economics chief climate and commodities economist David Oxley said the UAE’s exit from the OPEC oil cartel after 60 years of membership will not have any immediate implications for the global energy market.
The wider backdrop has not eased the underlying disagreements. Gulf tensions are running hot, with a recent US tanker tracked over the Gulf testing a US-Iran ceasefire that Iran says it will not hold.
The Trade Numbers Behind the Politics
The Saudi-UAE commercial corridor is too big for any sustained freeze to go unnoticed. Annual bilateral trade between the two largest Arab economies now exceeds $20bn, according to figures cited in the Financial Times. Bloomberg put the flow at $25.7 billion in 2025, up from $21.7 billion in 2024. Many international companies use Dubai as the regional base from which they serve the Saudi market, including the Dubai-based healthcare and services firms now reporting payment problems.
Saudi officials have previously maintained that political differences with the UAE would not affect trade or financial relations. A UAE government official reiterated the same line in response to the Financial Times’ inquiries, pointing to long-established trade and investment ties as evidence the relationship remains intact. Those official framings sit alongside the more concrete escalation steps in the table below.
| Saudi Arabia | United Arab Emirates | |
|---|---|---|
| Public framing of bilateral ties | Officials have previously said political differences will not affect trade or financial relations | Official told reporters the two countries maintain deep and longstanding economic and commercial ties |
| Concrete recent escalation steps | Accused Abu Dhabi in December 2025 of backing Yemeni separatists; called UAE action a threat to national security | On April 28, 2026, announced withdrawal from OPEC, with effect from May 1, 2026 |
The corridor between Saudi Arabia and the UAE is one of the few bilateral relationships that runs through both central banks, sovereign wealth funds and the regional oil alliance, which is why the financial friction has drawn the public commentary it has so far avoided. The asymmetry on the banking side, with the friction showing up only on the Saudi-to-UAE leg, mirrors the asymmetry in public messaging. Riyadh has accused Abu Dhabi; Abu Dhabi has not returned the framing in the same terms. That mismatch is now visible to anyone running a cross-border invoice.
What the Blocked Transfers Reveal
The blocked payments turn a bilateral political dispute into a day-to-day business problem for firms with no hand in either government’s agenda. Since mid-May, FT sources describe routine small-sum transfers being held, returned or simply failing to clear, with even the workarounds now absorbing margin and management time. The disruption is measurable at the cash-flow level for thousands of small and mid-sized operators, not just for headline corporate deals. For the firms in the middle, the question is no longer whether the financial friction is real but how long it lasts.
Analysts tracking the dispute say the operational reading and the political reading now point in the same direction. Capital Economics’ David Oxley has said the surprise UAE exit from OPEC will not have any immediate implications for the global energy market, but suggested global supplies will be higher once the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Rystad’s León said the longer-term implication for OPEC is a structurally weaker cartel, which lines up with what the FT’s payment-side sources describe as a structurally weakened Saudi-UAE financial corridor. Both official lines from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi continue to deny that politics have been converted into financial restrictions, with analysts arguing the wider regional risks of the Saudi-UAE feud now extend well beyond the Gulf. Whether companies can route around the corridor indefinitely is now the open question shaping the next quarter of trade between the two largest economies in the Arab world.
