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Eligible UAE credit cards are ranked by a deterministic relative market position calculated from public issuer data and disclosed Kredit assumptions. It reports rank and percentile—not an editorial or customer rating. For an absolute editorial assessment of verified, reviewed cards, see the Kredit Rating methodology. See the full ranked list.
| Pillar | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Net value | 16 of 95 (16.8%) | The bottom line — the actual AED a cardholder nets in a year: annual rewards plus recurring perks, minus the annual fee actually due (crediting any waiver the card reaches) and minus the estimated foreign-transaction cost. This is what separates a card whose perks genuinely outweigh its fee from one whose fee eats its rewards, and it's measured at a spend level scaled to the card's own salary tier so a premium card is evaluated at a realistic spend for its holder. The one-time welcome bonus is compared separately. |
| Rewards value | 28 of 95 (29.5%) | The card's effective reward rate — the AED it returns for every AED 100 of everyday spend — at a spend level scaled to this card's own minimum salary requirement (60% of it, floored at AED 5,000/month), concentrated more heavily into whichever categories this specific card pays an above-base bonus rate on (double-weighted, capped at 3x a category's own typical monthly amount so a niche category like cinema isn't assumed to grow without limit). Measuring the rate, not the absolute AED total, means a card is judged on how well it rewards spend — not simply on requiring a high salary, which would otherwise inflate any flat-rate premium card's total. Points and miles are converted via the card's default redemption method and its AED-per-unit conversion rate, not face value. |
| Cost & fees | 13 of 95 (13.7%) | Total annual cost of ownership — the annual fee actually due at that same salary-scaled spend level (crediting any fee waiver the card offers, whether for reaching a disclosed spend threshold or via a standard opt-in) plus the estimated foreign-transaction (FX) cost on AED 8,000 of assumed annual non-AED spend. A missing issuer FX row uses the published 2.5% neutral proxy. Cost is inverted, so the cheapest cards to own and spend with rank highest. |
| Perks & benefits | 13 of 95 (13.7%) | Recurring quantifiable perks (lounge, golf, cinema, travel/dining credits, etc.), valued in AED — usage frequency and spend gates both scale to this card's own assumed spend, so a premium travel card's unlimited lounge access is valued for its genuinely frequent-traveller cardholder, not a mass-market baseline. A perk gated behind a minimum monthly spend counts at 75% once unlocked (its value depends on sustaining that spend, unlike a perk included regardless of usage). The one-time welcome bonus is scored separately under Welcome bonus, not here. |
| Flexibility | 12 of 95 (12.6%) | How many everyday spend categories the card earns a meaningful reward in — the breadth of its coverage, with rate quality measured separately under Rewards value. A category counts if the card earns at least a 1.5% effective rate there, or at least the card's own headline everyday rate when that whole card is a lower flat rate — so an honest "earn on everything" card keeps full breadth, while a specialty card's token base rate outside its real bonus categories (and a bank's deliberately reduced utilities/government/real-estate bucket) doesn't count. Includes a flat rate that applies to everything, monthly-selectable bonus categories (up to the number you can pick), and specific merchant deals rolled up to their category. |
| Accessibility | 8 of 95 (8.4%) | Minimum salary requirement, inverted — the most accessible cards rank highest. |
| Welcome bonus | 5 of 95 (5.3%) | The one-time sign-up bonus, valued in AED — a real but non-recurring incentive, scored on its own so it neither hides inside the perks pillar nor is ignored. It carries the lightest weight of the pillars: only a minority of cards offer one, and it pays out once rather than every year. |
| Pillar | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Net value | 16 of 95 (16.8%) | The bottom line — the actual AED a cardholder nets in a year: annual rewards plus recurring perks, minus the annual fee actually due (crediting any waiver the card reaches) and minus the estimated foreign-transaction cost. This is what separates a card whose perks genuinely outweigh its fee from one whose fee eats its rewards, and it's measured at a spend level scaled to the card's own salary tier so a premium card is evaluated at a realistic spend for its holder. The one-time welcome bonus is compared separately. |
| Rewards value | 28 of 95 (29.5%) | The card's effective reward rate — the AED it returns for every AED 100 of everyday spend — at a spend level scaled to this card's own minimum salary requirement (60% of it, floored at AED 5,000/month), concentrated more heavily into whichever categories this specific card pays an above-base bonus rate on (double-weighted, capped at 3x a category's own typical monthly amount so a niche category like cinema isn't assumed to grow without limit). Measuring the rate, not the absolute AED total, means a card is judged on how well it rewards spend — not simply on requiring a high salary, which would otherwise inflate any flat-rate premium card's total. Points and miles are converted via the card's default redemption method and its AED-per-unit conversion rate, not face value. |
| Cost & fees | 13 of 95 (13.7%) | Total annual cost of ownership — the annual fee actually due at that same salary-scaled spend level (crediting any fee waiver the card offers, whether for reaching a disclosed spend threshold or via a standard opt-in) plus the estimated foreign-transaction (FX) cost on AED 8,000 of assumed annual non-AED spend. A missing issuer FX row uses the published 2.5% neutral proxy. Cost is inverted, so the cheapest cards to own and spend with rank highest. |
| Perks & benefits | 13 of 95 (13.7%) | Recurring quantifiable perks (lounge, golf, cinema, travel/dining credits, etc.), valued in AED — usage frequency and spend gates both scale to this card's own assumed spend, so a premium travel card's unlimited lounge access is valued for its genuinely frequent-traveller cardholder, not a mass-market baseline. A perk gated behind a minimum monthly spend counts at 75% once unlocked (its value depends on sustaining that spend, unlike a perk included regardless of usage). The one-time welcome bonus is scored separately under Welcome bonus, not here. |
| Flexibility | 12 of 95 (12.6%) | How many everyday spend categories the card earns a meaningful reward in — the breadth of its coverage, with rate quality measured separately under Rewards value. A category counts if the card earns at least a 1.5% effective rate there, or at least the card's own headline everyday rate when that whole card is a lower flat rate — so an honest "earn on everything" card keeps full breadth, while a specialty card's token base rate outside its real bonus categories (and a bank's deliberately reduced utilities/government/real-estate bucket) doesn't count. Includes a flat rate that applies to everything, monthly-selectable bonus categories (up to the number you can pick), and specific merchant deals rolled up to their category. |
| Accessibility | 8 of 95 (8.4%) | Minimum salary requirement, inverted — the most accessible cards rank highest. |
| Welcome bonus | 5 of 95 (5.3%) | The one-time sign-up bonus, valued in AED — a real but non-recurring incentive, scored on its own so it neither hides inside the perks pillar nor is ignored. It carries the lightest weight of the pillars: only a minority of cards offer one, and it pays out once rather than every year. |
Each raw metric is converted to a mid-rank percentile among 147 eligible credit cards and rounded to one decimal, with cost and salary inverted so higher always means a stronger relative position. Weights are relative and total 95. The weighted blend determines market rank; no result is converted to stars or presented as an absolute rating.
Assume a fictional card has the sample inputs below and that the current catalogue comparison converts them into the pillar percentiles below using the same mid-rank calculation as real cards. This card is not a real product and is not included in the published ranking or dataset.
| Pillar | Sample input | Sample percentile | Weighted contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net value | AED 2,631/year: AED 2,016 rewards + AED 1,200 recurring perks − AED 315 annual fee − AED 270 estimated FX cost | 59th percentile | 59.1 × 16 ÷ 95 = 10.0 points |
| Rewards value | 2.8% effective reward rate (AED 2,016/year at AED 6,000/month spend) | 77th percentile | 76.7 × 28 ÷ 95 = 22.6 points |
| Cost & fees | AED 585/year: AED 315 annual fee + AED 270 estimated FX cost | 48th percentile | 47.6 × 13 ÷ 95 = 6.5 points |
| Perks & benefits | AED 1,200/year in recurring perks at typical use | 61st percentile | 60.5 × 13 ÷ 95 = 8.3 points |
| Flexibility | Meaningful rewards in 9 of 17 everyday spend categories | 62nd percentile | 62.2 × 12 ÷ 95 = 7.9 points |
| Accessibility | AED 10,000 minimum monthly salary | 47th percentile | 47.3 × 8 ÷ 95 = 4.0 points |
| Welcome bonus | AED 500 one-time welcome bonus | 83rd percentile | 83.1 × 5 ÷ 95 = 4.4 points |
| Pillar | Sample input | Sample percentile | Weighted contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net value | AED 2,631/year: AED 2,016 rewards + AED 1,200 recurring perks − AED 315 annual fee − AED 270 estimated FX cost | 59th percentile | 59.1 × 16 ÷ 95 = 10.0 points |
| Rewards value | 2.8% effective reward rate (AED 2,016/year at AED 6,000/month spend) | 77th percentile | 76.7 × 28 ÷ 95 = 22.6 points |
| Cost & fees | AED 585/year: AED 315 annual fee + AED 270 estimated FX cost | 48th percentile | 47.6 × 13 ÷ 95 = 6.5 points |
| Perks & benefits | AED 1,200/year in recurring perks at typical use | 61st percentile | 60.5 × 13 ÷ 95 = 8.3 points |
| Flexibility | Meaningful rewards in 9 of 17 everyday spend categories | 62nd percentile | 62.2 × 12 ÷ 95 = 7.9 points |
| Accessibility | AED 10,000 minimum monthly salary | 47th percentile | 47.3 × 8 ÷ 95 = 4.0 points |
| Welcome bonus | AED 500 one-time welcome bonus | 83rd percentile | 83.1 × 5 ÷ 95 = 4.4 points |
The weighted contributions total 63.6. This is the fictional card's relative index under the current catalogue distributions, not a 63.6/100 quality score, editorial rating, or recommendation.
Nearby shows a scored card rail, and merchant QR and widget recommendations use the same score to pick a card. The score blends three weighted factors.
56%
The effective percentage back at the place. Higher is better.
26%
The card's annual fee in AED. Lower is better.
18%
The most the card pays out each month in the place's category. No cap is best.
Each factor is scaled from 0 to 100 against the cards Kredit compares that earn at the place. The score is the weighted average of the three, from 0 to 100.
Rate here. The card's earn rate for the place's category, plus any location bonus and any counted percentage offer, against the highest rate among the cards compared.
Rate ÷ highest rate × 100
Annual fee. The cheapest card scores highest. A card with no annual fee scores 100.
100 × (1 − fee ÷ highest fee)
Reward cap. The share of a month's rewards the cap allows, judged against a month of spend in the place's category. A card with no cap scores 100.
min(1, monthly cap ÷ rewards at a month of spend) × 100
Market Position compares cards across the catalogue using percentiles; here the size of the difference at this place matters. The rate and fee weights are the Market Position weights for rewards value and cost. Market Position has no pillar for a reward cap, so its weight is set by Kredit.
When a card has a percentage offer at the place, the offer's percentage comes off the bill and the card earns its rate on the rest. The rate is the offer percentage plus the card rate on what remains. Each card counts one offer, the one with the highest percentage. Offers are never stacked.
Counted
Listed but not ranked
Fees are scored, not deducted: the annual fee moves a card's score through its fee score and is also shown on each card. If you hold cards, your best-scoring card is always shown, first when it is outside the top three. When two cards tie on score, the one Kredit can help you apply for ranks above the other.
Among 121 cards that earn there, at AED 5,000 a month (the cap is judged against AED 5,000 of spend in the category), the top three are ENBD U By Emaar Infinite Credit Card (Emirates NBD) at 94.8, ENBD U By Emaar Signature Credit Card (Emirates NBD) at 89.8, ADCB 365 Cashback Credit Card (Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB)) at 87.5. The first card's score, factor by factor:
Rate here
7.5% back
Factor score: 7.5% ÷ 7.5% × 100 = 100
Weighted points: 100 × 28 ÷ 50 = 56.0
Annual fee
AED 1,575 a year
Factor score: 100 × (1 − AED 1,575 ÷ AED 7,875) = 80
Weighted points: 80 × 13 ÷ 50 = 20.8
Reward cap
AED 8,333 a month
Factor score: 8333 ÷ 375 of a month's rewards, at most 100 = 100
Weighted points: 100 × 9 ÷ 50 = 18.0
ENBD U By Emaar Infinite Credit Card scores 94.8 out of 100, the sum of the weighted points.
The Kredit Market Position is calculated the same way for every card — a bank's relationship with Kredit has no effect on the pillar math or the final number. Non-credit products (12), cards without reward-calculation rules (9), cards with undisclosed/invitation-only pricing (0), cards with an invitation-only salary requirement (1), and "Infinite Privilege"-tier products (1) are excluded rather than partially ranked. Cite as "Kredit Market Position" with the stable ranking or dataset URL and the last-updated date (2026-10-30).
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