Research, October 2026
Restaurant websites in the UAE, October 2026
We checked 11,029 independent restaurant listings across all seven emirates and every website they name. More than half are online only through a social media page, mostly Facebook, and half of the websites that are listed no longer work.
Short answerOnly 13 % of independent restaurants in the UAE have a website that loads, is up to date and works on a phone.
Where independent restaurants are online
- 54 % (5,982 of 11,029) list only a social media page as their web presence, in 98 % of these cases a Facebook page.
- 5 % list no web address at all.
- Of the 4,527 websites listed, 49 % (2,220) could not be reached: expired domains, server errors or pages that no longer exist.
- 32 % of the listed websites passed every check, 10 % looked outdated and 1 % did not work properly on a phone.
A listed website that does not open is worse than none: guests tap it from Google Maps or a directory, see an error and order somewhere else.
| Emirate | Listings | Working website | Website unreachable | Social media only | No web address |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dubai | 6,105 | 17 % | 22 % | 47 % | 4 % |
| Abu Dhabi | 2,604 | 10 % | 19 % | 59 % | 6 % |
| Sharjah | 1,110 | 7 % | 17 % | 65 % | 7 % |
| Ajman | 600 | 6 % | 17 % | 68 % | 4 % |
| Ras Al Khaimah | 336 | 4 % | 16 % | 71 % | 4 % |
| Fujairah | 202 | 5 % | 10 % | 70 % | 7 % |
| Umm Al Quwain | 72 | 10 % | 11 % | 71 % | 3 % |
The websites that do work
Of the 4,527 listed websites, 1,438 passed every check. 438 looked outdated, 58 were not set up for phones and 373 blocked automated visits, so we could not judge them. Only 71 of the reachable sites still ran without HTTPS. The median reachable homepage took 1.7 seconds to load.
What this means for a restaurant owner
- Open your own listing. Tap the website link on Google Maps and in the directories you appear in. If it fails, fix or remove it today.
- A Facebook or Instagram page is not a menu. Guests who search for a dish, a price or your opening hours need text they can read and search engines can index, not a photo of a printed menu.
- Make the next step one tap. A WhatsApp button, a phone number that dials and a map link convert visitors who are deciding where to eat right now.
- Keep it current. A website with last year’s prices or hours costs trust. Whoever runs the restaurant should be able to change them from a phone.
Method
Listings
We started from 18,067 restaurant and café listings across the UAE in our business directory dataset, as of 5 October 2026. We set aside 7,038 listings that belong to chains, share a brand website with a group, share a phone number with other listings or use a service number. That leaves 11,029 independent restaurants.
Web presence
Each listing was sorted by the web address it names: none, a social media page only (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and similar), or a website of its own.
Website check
Every listed website was opened automatically on 5 October 2026: the homepage and up to three internal pages. A website counts as unreachable only when it failed and a second check of the domain name confirmed the failure. Pages that blocked automated visits count as not judged, never as broken.
- Works on a phone: the page declares a mobile layout (a viewport set to the device width).
- Outdated: one strong sign, such as no HTTPS, an invalid certificate, Flash, frames or very old scripts, or a copyright year four or more years old; or two weaker signs together, such as a load time above four seconds, more than 2 MB of HTML, broken internal links or a copyright year three years old.
- Working website: reachable, not outdated and works on a phone.
Limits
Directory listings can be out of date: some restaurants may have a website that is not listed, and some listed websites belong to restaurants that have closed. An automated check says whether a site works, not whether it is good. All figures describe one day in October 2026.
How to cite
MM² (2026). Restaurant websites in the UAE, October 2026. https://mm2.ae/research/restaurant-websites-uae
Journalists and researchers can ask us for the figures by emirate and category. We do not share individual business data.
Questions
How many restaurants in the UAE have a working website?
In our October 2026 check, 1,438 of 11,029 independent restaurant listings (13 %) had a website that loaded, was up to date and worked on a phone.
Do most restaurants in the UAE use social media instead of a website?
Yes. 54 % of independent restaurant listings name only a social media page as their web presence; 98 % of these point to a Facebook page and 5 % to Instagram. Another 5 % list no web address at all.
How many restaurant websites in the UAE are broken?
Of 4,527 websites listed by independent restaurants, 2,220 (49 %) could not be reached when we checked them: the domain had expired, the server answered with an error or the page no longer existed.
What share of restaurants in Dubai have a working website?
17 % of independent restaurant listings in Dubai (1,039 of 6,105) had a working, up-to-date, mobile-friendly website in October 2026.
Who did this research?
MM², a web studio in Dubai that builds websites for restaurants, hotels, clinics and salons. We checked the listings to understand the market we work in; the method and its limits are described on this page.