Dubai has been ranked the world’s third most startup-friendly behind San Francisco and Zurich and forward of established hubs together with New York, London and Paris.
The Startup Pleasant Cities Index 2026, printed by Multipolitan assessed startup ecosystem depth throughout 60 international locations earlier than rating 28 cities based mostly on 5 standards: startup exercise, digital connectivity, younger expertise, high quality of life and enterprise agility.
Dubai topped the worldwide rankings for enterprise agility, reflecting quick firm incorporation processes, regulatory effectivity and aggressive tax situations.
In accordance with the report, founders in Dubai can typically full firm setup in a couple of week, placing town forward of main world centres equivalent to New York, London, São Paulo and Mexico Metropolis in total setup velocity.
The index measures enterprise agility by combining incorporation timelines with efficient company tax burdens at nationwide, emirate and metropolis ranges.
Dubai additionally scored strongly on expertise attraction and high quality of life. On Multipolitan’s mixed metric protecting greater schooling high quality, depth of expertise, value of residing, security, healthcare, air pollution and buying energy, Dubai recorded a rating of 178.5. This positioned it forward of cities together with San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris, London and New York.
Whereas Dubai’s variety of unicorns and total startup scale stays under extra mature ecosystems equivalent to San Francisco, London and Paris, the index famous that the hole is narrowing.
Cities compete to draw founders
Multipolitan mentioned cities with excessive regulatory effectivity and robust expertise inflows have gotten more and more engaging to founders, even when they’ve fewer massive exits at present.
“The geography of entrepreneurship is shifting, and a metropolis’s competitiveness now relies on how effectively it permits founders to construct, with frictionless enterprise setup and entry to world expertise, Dubai has engineered a founder expertise that’s more and more onerous to match,” mentioned Nirbhay Handa, chief government and co-founder of Multipolitan.
In Asia, Singapore ranked fourth globally and Seoul seventh, highlighting what the report described as an eastward shift in innovation energy.
Legacy European hubs equivalent to London, ranked eighth, and Paris, ranked tenth, proceed to draw capital and expertise however face challenges linked to forms and better prices.
Multipolitan mentioned the UAE’s digital governance framework, residency programmes and monetary free zones equivalent to DIFC and ADGM have strengthened Dubai’s place as a base for globally cell founders.
“Founders observe effectivity, traders observe founders, and the cities that make it best to construct will outline the subsequent chapter of world innovation. The subsequent Silicon Valley is probably not in California,” mentioned Nicholas Michael, group head of market improvement at Multipolitan.
High 10 Startup Pleasant Cities 2026
- San Francisco
- Zurich
- Dubai
- Singapore
- New York Metropolis
- Los Angeles
- Seoul
- London
- Hong Kong
- Paris
