Workers in the Gulf sent a record $161 billion home in 2025, up 13.6% on the year before, according to a report from the Statistical Centre for the Cooperation Council for the Arab Countries of the Gulf (GCC-Stat).
The increase of about $19 billion made the six GCC states, taken together, the world’s largest source of outward workers’ remittances, . The report puts US outflows at about $107 billion, Switzerland at $43 billion, Germany at $27 billion and France at $21 billion. It was the second year of growth after outflows fell in 2023.
The UAE sends the most
The UAE was the largest sender in the region, with $62.1 billion, up 6.3%, , citing the GCC-Stat figures. Saudi Arabia was close behind and grew fastest. Bahrain was the only GCC country where outflows fell.
| Country | 2025 outflows | Change on 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| UAE | $62.1bn | +6.3% |
| Saudi Arabia | $58.0bn | +26.9% |
| Kuwait | $16.7bn | +18.2% |
| Qatar | $11.9bn | +4.7% |
| Oman | $9.5bn | +2.7% |
| Bahrain | $2.5bn | -4.3% |
Kuwait had the highest ratio of remittances to GDP in the region, at 10.6%.
Remittances equalled about 6.6% of the GCC’s combined GDP in 2025, up from 6.0% in 2024, 5.7% in 2023 and 5.6% in 2022. The report said, “Large infrastructure programmes, construction activity, services, manufacturing and other non-oil industries continue to generate demand for foreign labour across the six GCC economies”. The GCC population reached 63.3 million.
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Payment links are still catching up
Most of that money still moves through exchange houses, bank transfers and remittance apps. The UAE central bank is trying to add direct links between national instant payment systems.
Al Etihad Payments, the central bank subsidiary that runs the UAE’s instant payment platform Aani, chose Montran in February to connecting Aani to foreign payment systems. The first corridor will be India’s Unified Payments Interface.
Al Etihad Payments described the UAE-India route as “one of the world’s highest-volume remittance routes.” No go-live date has been announced.
The UAE has since agreed to explore similar links with the Philippines in April and Morocco on 3 October. None is live.
GCC-Stat’s report does not break the $161 billion down by destination country or by channel. Without that, there is no official figure for how much of the region’s remittance money already moves digitally, or how much the planned payment links could carry.
