The number of brokerage firms operating out of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) rose to 72 at the end of March, up from 49 in 2022, while their combined net profit reached a record $301 million last year, according to the Dubai Financial Services Authority.

The pace of new arrivals has been fading, though, and Finance Magnates Intelligence expects the count to settle near 76 by the end of 2026.

The full profit series, the slowing firm growth and the FM Intelligence projections sit in the newest analysis you can find here.

Dubai has kept pulling in brokers, a trend FinanceMagnates.com tracked when the DIFC's OTC derivatives market doubled to $13 trillion on the back of FX and rates activity.

Growth Cools as Profit Peaks

The regulator counted nine new firms in 2023, six in 2024 and four in 2025, with another four in the first quarter of 2026. The arrivals kept coming as the DFSA moved to cut licensing times by roughly a third, yet the annual pace has clearly cooled.

Profit followed a bumpier line. Net income was $160 million in 2022, dropped to $80 million in 2023, then recovered to $218 million in 2024 and $301 million in 2025, according to the DFSA, with $132 million booked in the first quarter of this year.

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One figure is worth a second look. The DFSA describes the firm count as rising 68% since 2022, but the numbers it discloses, 49 firms growing to 72, work out to a 47% increase, and FM Intelligence uses the calculated figure.

Individual authorizations, meanwhile, still take time, as Pepperstone found before securing its DFSA license following a multi-year application.

Where FM Intelligence Sees the Count Landing

Applying the 2022-to-2025 compound annual growth rate of 11.6% to the 2025 total of 68 firms, Finance Magnates Intelligence puts the base case at about 76 firms by year-end, with a bear case near 73 to 74 and a bull case of 78 to 80. It assigns the highest probability to the base case and says the estimate will be revised as more 2026 data lands.

The same DFSA review also flagged control gaps, with 18% of surveyed firms holding no documented staff-dealing policy and 32% keeping no register, ground Finance Magnates covered when it reported that Dubai brokers grew faster than their staff-trading rules.

The base, bull and bear scenarios, the full headcount and profit series and the methodology behind the projections are laid out in the FM Intelligence analysis.