How to read your AECB credit report

Your Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB) credit report is the bureau’s record of your loans, cards, bills and returned cheques over the last 36 months, and it includes your credit score. Read it section by section: the score and its factors, each facility’s 24-month colour grid, your Income Utilisation Ratio, enquiries and court records. Asking for a correction is free for 30 days after you buy the report.

Key takeaways

• The report covers 36 months of payment history on every active or closed facility and service, plus returned cheques.
• Each facility has a 24-month grid: green is paid on time, yellow up to 90 days late, red more than 90 days late.
• The Income Utilisation Ratio compares your monthly payments, including 5% of every active card limit, with your last reported income.
• Joint facilities show on both borrowers' reports, and guarantor details appear against each facility.
• Correcting wrong data is free for a report bought in the last 30 days; the bureau passes your request to the provider.

This guide uses the bureau’s own labels and sticks to what the bureau states; your copy may show more detail. For the wider topic, browse our Credit score guides.

What the report is, and what it is not

The report is a copy of what lenders and other providers have told the bureau about you, not a decision on whether you can borrow. The bureau collects the data directly from information providers under Federal Law No. 6 of 2010 on Credit Information, as amended by Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2020, so you do not need to submit anything yourself. The providers are banks, finance companies, telecom and utility providers, courts and government entities.

Payment history on the report

36 months

The personal credit report covers the last 36 months of payment history on each active or closed credit facility and service, plus any returned cheques.

The bureau plays no role in reviewing or approving applications for credit: each lender decides under its own policy. The report costs AED 84 including VAT and includes your score; see how to get your AECB report. Companies have a separate file, covered in the AECB company credit report.

The sections at a glance

The table groups the report into eight parts, using the labels from both the bureau’s score-or-report comparison and its Credit Report page.

Personal information

This part holds your details as providers have reported them. The report also shows your last reported salary. When a provider sends a new address or employer, the old record stays under a historical heading. The bureau gives that answer in the business section of its FAQ, though it refers to personal details.

Check the salary line closely. The Income Utilisation Ratio is calculated against your last reported income, so if your income has risen since it was last reported, the ratio is higher than it would be on your current income. The bureau says its data correction service covers outdated information as well as errors.

Your score, score factors and recommendations

The report shows your score and its type. Under the bureau’s current model, Credit Score 3i, people with an established history get a Mature Score from 300 to 850, and people with limited history, including those new to the UAE, may get a New-to-Credit Score from 300 to 650. See what your score number means.

The report also lists the key factors affecting your score and the bureau’s recommendations to improve it. The score-only product leaves both out.

Read the factors as a description, not a single cause. The bureau says a score draws on your whole credit profile, so a change should not automatically be put down to one facility or event. For what to do about each factor, see how to improve your AECB score.

Credit accounts and contracts

This is the core of the report: every loan, card and service that providers have reported, active or closed. The bureau says it shows your total credit and service exposure, card limits and usage, loan and facility balances, monthly payment patterns, and any defaults, overdue amounts or returned cheques.

Loans and credit cards

Each loan or card appears as its own facility. Check it against your statements:

• every facility is yours;
• a loan you settled or a card you cancelled shows as closed;
• limits and balances match, allowing for the date the data was sent.

A card you no longer use but have not closed still counts, because the Income Utilisation Ratio includes 5% of every active card limit. Before cancelling, read closing a credit card properly.

Phone, internet and utility accounts

Your bills are on the report too: payment history with telecom operators and with water and electricity providers. Providers outside the banking sector send data to the bureau monthly rather than daily, so a recent bill payment may not show until their next update.

Joint facilities and guarantees

A joint facility appears on the individual reports of both people who hold it, so check a shared loan or card as carefully as your own. Guarantor information appears against each credit facility, as Central Bank regulations require; if one of your facilities has a guarantor, check the details.

Buy now, pay later contracts

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) plans can appear on the report too, with the number of contracts, active and closed, the outstanding balance, the contract status and the remaining instalments.

Buy now, pay later and your score

Not in score

Under the current credit score model, buy now, pay later (BNPL) reporting does not affect the credit score, but BNPL contracts appear on the credit report and may be considered by lenders who review it.

A BNPL plan sits on the report without moving the number, but a lender can still see it. More on how buy now, pay later shows on your report.

The 24-month payment grid

The payment history grid is the quickest way to read your record: one coloured box per month for each credit facility, covering 24 months.

The payment grid

Red = over 90 days late

Each facility on the report shows a 24-month colour grid: green for paid on or before the due date, yellow for paid up to 90 days late, red for paid more than 90 days late.

These three colours are the only payment codes the bureau’s FAQ defines, so treat longer lists of codes from other sources with care. The bureau describes the grid for credit facilities; its BNPL answers do not mention one.

A late month does not turn green when you catch up, because the colour records when that month’s payment was made. Settling a default does not remove it either.

How long negative records stay

Up to 5 years

Defaults, missed payments and bounced cheques stay on the credit report for up to 5 years, even after the amount is settled.

What you can correct is a colour that is wrong, such as a month reported late that you paid on time.

Income Utilisation Ratio

The Income Utilisation Ratio (IUR) shows how much of your last reported income goes to monthly payments. It sits in the report PDF under the score widget and costs nothing extra. The bureau says a lower IUR means more room to borrow, save or invest, and that some components are shared with the score, so factors that affect the IUR can also affect your score.

What the IUR counts

5% of card limits

The bureau's Income Utilisation Ratio counts 5% of the credit limit of every active credit card as a monthly payment, alongside loan instalments and last month's telecom and utility dues, against your last reported income.

Worked example

Reported income AED 18,000, one loan, two cards and monthly bills

All amounts are illustrations.

1. Personal loan instalment: AED 3,000.
2. Two active cards with limits of AED 20,000 and AED 10,000, counted at 5% each: AED 1,000 + AED 500 = AED 1,500.
3. Last month’s phone and utility bills: AED 600.
4. Total monthly payments: AED 3,000 + AED 1,500 + AED 600 = AED 5,100.
5. IUR: AED 5,100 ÷ AED 18,000 = 0.283, or 28.3%.
6. If the report still carries an older income of AED 15,000: AED 5,100 ÷ AED 15,000 = 0.34, or 34%.

The same payments give an IUR of 28.3% or 34%, depending only on which income figure the report holds.

That gap is why the reported salary and income are worth checking first. The card part counts even if you pay both cards in full, because it uses the limit, not the balance.

The IUR is not the Central Bank’s debt burden ratio (DBR). The DBR measures monthly deductions for all loans and facilities from banks and finance companies against gross salary and regular income, and the Central Bank caps it. The IUR is the bureau’s own measure and also counts telecom and utility bills.

Maximum debt burden ratio

50%

Monthly deductions for all loans and facilities from banks and finance companies together, including car loans, home loans, overdrafts and credit cards, must not exceed 50% of the borrower's gross salary and any regular income from a defined and specific source, at any time.

Credit enquiries

The full report has a credit inquiries section and the score-only product does not, according to the bureau’s comparison of the two. The bureau’s FAQ and product pages do not say what the section lists, or whether your own purchase of the report appears in it.

What the Credit Score page does say is that your recent activity in applying for new credit is one of six factors it lists as influencing your score. Read the section next to your own list of recent card and loan applications, and note anything you cannot match.

Court obligations, returned cheques and Left Country status

Court obligations. The Credit Report page describes court obligations as a summary of court-ordered financial obligations, and the comparison table lists legal records among the parts of the full report. The report may also include information from courts and government entities.

Returned cheques. The 36 months of history include returned cheques, and your record of honoured and returned cheques is a score factor. Like a default, a bounced cheque can stay on the report for up to 5 years, even after you settle it. For the legal side, see bounced cheques and the law.

Left Country status. A provider reports this status, not the bureau.

Left Country status

'Left Country' flag

A lender or other information provider can report a 'Left Country' status if it believes the person has left the UAE, whether or not anything is overdue.

Because the flag can appear with nothing overdue, it does not on its own mean a missed payment. If it is wrong, ask for a correction. The glossary explains Left Country status; if you plan to go with loans or cards still open, read leaving the UAE with debt.

Found a mistake? How to get it corrected

Use the bureau’s data correction service. The bureau does not change data itself: it sends your request to the provider that reported it.

Correcting your report

Free

Data correction is free for any credit report bought in the last 30 days; the bureau passes the request to the information provider, and the report should be updated within 10 working days.

1. In your report, select “Correct my data”.
2. Fill in the form, attach a copy of your Emirates ID and any supporting documents.
3. Send a separate request for each provider whose data is wrong.
4. If nothing has changed after 10 working days, reply to the email you received when you made the request.
5. If the provider rejects it, call 800-BUREAU (800-287328) to register a dispute; the bureau accepts one only after a rejection.

You can also ask the lender directly, and it has its own deadline.

Lender's deadline after your request

7 business days

When a consumer asks a licensed institution to update or correct data it reported to a credit information agency, the institution must acknowledge the request and check whether it is accurate; if a correction is needed, it must report it to the agency within 7 complete business days of being notified by the consumer.

The two periods are separate: 10 working days is the bureau’s guide for your report to be updated, and 7 business days is the lender’s deadline to report a correction once you have asked it.

Check the timing first. Information providers send updates daily, but those outside the banking sector send them monthly, so a payment you have just made may not show yet; that is not an error. A correction also cannot remove a late payment that was reported accurately.