After showing strong growth in the period leading up to 2026, Qatar’s capital markets have since demonstrated both resilience and flexibility in the face of the recent Iran conflict. Investment in manufacturing, digital transformation, logistics and tourism, along with a doubling in liquefied natural gas (LNG) production, continue to be medium- and long-term growth drivers for the country. In the shorter term, investors are also looking forward to post-conflict reconstruction and rebuilding in places like Syria and Iraq. Meanwhile, on the regulatory side, a new draft investment law announced at the start of 2026 is widely expected to end many remaining barriers to 100% foreign ownership, further expanding the reach and depth of the country’s capital markets.
Structure & Oversight
The law governing the country’s capital markets is the Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) Law No. 8 of 2012. A series of regulations accompany this, governing the QFMA’s operation along with the QFMA Rulebook for listings, issued in 2021, and subsequent regulations governing compliance requirements for listed companies. Those listings take place on the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE), which also operates according to the QSE Rulebook and was last issued in June 2023. The QSE itself dates back to 2009, when it succeeded the Doha Securities Market (DSM) established back in 1995.
Another source of legislation for the market is the Commercial Companies Law No. 11 of 2015, which governs the requirements pertaining to companies incorporated in Qatar. At the same time, Qatar Law No. 1 of 2019 regulates the investment of non-Qatari capital in the government’s economic activity. The framework was recently revised, with amendments approved in a draft law in January 2026. Currently, most sectors of the economy allow 100% foreign ownership, with certain specified exclusions. While details of the new amendments have yet to be made public at the time of writing, the revisions may push back the boundaries on some of these restrictions, as well as simplify and streamline procedures for further foreign investment.
The country’s top regulators are the QFMA and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, with the QSE administrating the main and secondary markets of the exchange for listed companies, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), bonds and sukuk (Islamic bonds). Based in Doha’s West Bay, the QFMA is run by its board of directors and CEO – a post held by Tami Ahmed Ali Al Boutamy Al Binali as of June 2026. The chairman of the board is Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saoud Al Thani, who was appointed in March 2025.
The QSE is a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the country’s sovereign wealth fund and seeks to diversify the economy. In 2021, the QSE and the Qatar Development Bank (QDB) – the government-backed development finance institution – launched a secondary market, the Qatar Exchange Venture Market (QEVM). The QEVM aims to boost the local capital market by providing a welcoming space for small- and medium-cap companies with shorter track records, supporting their overall growth prior to their potential listing on the QSE main market. The country’s central securities depository (CSD) is known as Edaa and is licensed by the QFMA as the only authority in Qatar that can provide safekeeping, clearing and settlement of the securities and other financial instruments listed on the QSE and QEVM.
Foreign Ownership
Doha is also home to the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), an onshore entity allowing 100% foreign ownership and operating according to its own regulatory regime based on English common law. The QFC is regulated by the QFC Regulatory Authority (QFCRA) and provides a home to many financial entities, including international and local brokerages such as Morgan Stanley, AlRayan Bank and Alpen Capital. The QFC offers a competitive 10% corporate tax rate on locally sourced profit, along with a range of other benefits for foreign investors. As a result, the QFC plays a key role in attracting foreign investment and supporting the development of the country’s capital markets.
Qatar-listed companies are also present in a number of regional entities, such as the Gulf Capital Market Association, while the QSE works with the Arab Federation of Capital Markets, which held its annual conference in Doha in 2024. The QSE is also part of the UN Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative, the UN Trade and Development International Standards of Accounting and Reporting, and Qatar’s Global Green Growth Institute, among other international, regional and local leadership entities.
Market Structure
The QSE comprises two equities markets – the main market and the QEVM – as well as listings for fixed-income instruments and ETFs. In terms of equities, there are four main indices: the Qatar Exchange (QE) Index, the QE Total Return Index, the QE All-Share Index and the QE Al Rayan Islamic Index. The QE All-Share also breaks down into seven sector indices. Those are: banks and financial services, consumer goods and services, industrials, insurance, real estate, telecoms and transport.
The QE Index consists of the 20 largest and most liquid stocks in the market, with the QE Total Return Index then taking the income received in dividend payments by those 20 stocks. The QE All-Share Index covers all listed stocks with a velocity greater than 1%. The QE Al Rayan Islamic Index – initially created to prepare the issuance of the Al Rayan Qatar ETF – consists of stocks considered sharia compliant. As of December 1, 2025 the index had 21 companies listed, with banking and financial services companies making up the largest cohort at 34.5%, followed by industrials with 30.5%, telecoms with 12.5%, real estate with 10.5%, consumer goods and services with 6.5%, transport with 5%, and insurance with 0.5%.
On the QSE, in terms of numbers of companies listed, consumer goods and services were the most populous segment, with 15 entities listed as of February 2026, followed by the banking and financial services board, with 13 entities; industrials with 10; insurance with seven; real estate with four; transport with three; and telecommunications with two.
Banking accounts for the largest share of the QSE’s market capitalisation. As of December 2025 the banking and financial services industry board accounted for more than half of the total free-float market capitalisation on the QE All-Share Index, with 54.5%. Qatar National Bank (QNB) alone accounted for 22.5% of the total, followed by Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) with 12.7%. Industrials stood as the second-largest industry, holding 18.4% of the total, followed by transport with 7.7%, telecommunications with 6.7%, consumer goods and services with 6.6% and insurance with 3.1%. This concentration underscores the QSE’s drive to broaden its market – a direction supported by the country’s financial sector authorities and the wider government, which has included this aim in its long-term development plans.
Market Ownership
In terms of market ownership, as of April 2026, around 85.3% of portfolios were owned by Qatari citizens and 14.7% by foreigners. This was only moderately changed from the 84.9% and 15.1% figures from February 6, 2026 – before the start of the regional conflict, demonstrating a high degree of confidence in the market overseas. As a transitional market, the number of companies listed on the QEVM varies considerably, with four listed in June 2024, while just one company was listed in February 2026, Techno Q.
The fixed-income market, meanwhile, is dominated by government bonds, sukuk and Treasury bills (T-bills). As of late February 2026, there were 34 government bonds, 33 government sukuk and nine T-bills listed. There were additionally two corporate sukuk – from Qatar International Islamic Bank and AlRayan Bank – and three corporate bonds from QNB, Ahli Bank and Doha Bank. At the same time, the ETF board had two funds listed – the Qatar ETF and the Al Rayan Qatar ETF, offering diversified exposure.
Another index is the MSCI Qatar Investable Market Index (IMI). This works as a benchmark for tracking the performance of the Qatari equity market and covers around 99% of the QSE’s free float-adjusted market capitalisation. As of May 2026 financials were heavily represented on the index with around 63% of the index’s weight, with the QNB accounting for nearly 30% of the total. This was followed by the industrials sector with an 11.4% share, energy with 8.6%, communications with 6%, and five other industrial classes, with IT the smallest at around 0.2%.
The MSCI Qatar IMI also provides the basis for the MSCI QSE 20 environmental, social and governance (ESG) Index. This collaboration between the QSE and MSCI brings together the top-20 securities within the MSCI Qatar IMI that have demonstrated the highest ESG profiles. As of 2021, financial services had the highest weight on this index with just over 68%.
Plan & Projects
Qatar’s long-term development plan, Qatar National Vision (QNV) 2030 is now in its final stage, the Third National Development Strategy 2024-30 (NDS-3). A central tenet is sustainable economic growth, with diversification seen as key to this. The NDS-3 therefore sets out a number of diversification clusters – particular sectors of focus in the years through to 2030. Financial services are designated as an enabling cluster, given the sector’s role in enabling economic growth by boosting liquidity. To do so, the government aims to strengthen asset management and deepen capital markets. Boosting the liquidity depth of the equity market in particular is a key objective, through new listings and the attraction of more international investors.
To realise these development goals, the QFMA launched the Third Financial Sector Strategic Plan (FSSP-3) in 2023, covering the period 2024-30. The plan sees capital markets as one of the sector’s four strategic pillars (along with banking, insurance and the digital financial ecosystem), with five themes outlined that cut across all four essential pillars: governance and oversight, Islamic finance, digital innovation and advanced technologies, ESG and sustainability, and talent and capabilities.
With each of these themes outlined in the FSSP-3, the development plan breaks them down into specific steps and goals to meet over the implementation period. First, the framework highlights the promotion and encouragement of issuances by the private sector and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), incentivising issuances through reforms in liquidity rules and transaction costs. Islamic finance and ESG are also identified as key to facilitating expanded offerings in these critical areas. In regards to fixed income, the framework aims to strengthen the yield curve, as well as secondary market fixed-income trading. It also highlights advanced sukuk and ESG products to broaden investment opportunities.
The FSSP-3 then moves onto asset management development, with the goal of creating a competitive and comprehensive set of asset management solutions with a focus on the expatriate community. Lastly, the strategy calls for the establishment of a derivatives exchange, along with a commercial strategy to make the QSE the region’s leading exchange, functioning according to a sustainable and efficient operating model. A number of key performance indicators were established to evaluate the plan’s success. The first is that the yearly value of stock traded should be at least 150% of the free-float market capitalisation – a level that would exceed that of most regional exchanges. Second, some QR10bn ($2.7bn) in assets under management should be traded from Qatar – a growth rate of 18% over the strategy’s period, and a level equivalent to that of the historical growth in the Asia-Pacific region. Third, the total value of corporate bonds issued in Qatar should exceed QR8bn ($2.2bn).
To date a number of key moves have already been made in meeting the FSSP-3’s goals. On the regulatory side, the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) has issued a range of sustainable finance initiatives aligned with ESG goals. In December 2025, the QCB issued a new Sustainability Reporting Framework for the sector, which aligns with International Sustainability Standards Board requirements. The framework, which came into effect on January 1, 2026, aims to improve transparency, accountability and trust in sustainability reporting. It also seeks to further support investors to address sustainability challenges and to better incorporate environmental and economic considerations into decision-making.
In terms of boosting liquidity and trades, as of early February 2026 the QSE main market had a market capitalisation of QR680bn ($185bn), with the total value of shares traded standing at QR311m ($84bn). Recent years have seen trading values vary, rising from QR68bn ($18bn) in 2019 to a peak of QR160.4bn ($43bn) in 2022, after which they dropped down to QR125.3bn ($34bn) in 2023 and QR106.6bn ($28.9bn) in 2024 – the first year of the FSSP-3. Initial indicators are that they declined again in 2025, by approximately 1%, to QR105.5bn ($28.6bn).
Boosting these values to an annualised level of around QR1trn ($275bn) in shares traded by 2030, as the FSSP-3 requires, will therefore necessitate significant new listings, underscoring the FSSP-3’s insistence on market development. One way to do so could be through a revival of initial public offerings (IPOs). However, the Iran conflict that affected the Gulf region in the first half of 2026 temporarily disrupted IPO activity, with most planned listings deferred as issuers wait for a more stable and predictable market environment.
Performance
Whilst the conflict will have likely impacted GDP growth, Qatar has otherwise seen a period of steady growth, especially post-Covid-19 and in the aftermath of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In the lead up to the latter event, there was a major wave of investment and economic activity, particularly in the construction, real estate and hospitality sectors. Naturally, when the international tournament was over, there was a cooling in these areas. Just two years after hosting the games, however, the IMF reported real GDP growth in the non-hydrocarbons sector, with 3.4% in 2024. The IMF’s forecast for 2025 then came in at around 4% for that sector, showcasing the country’s economic resiliency and flexibility.
This growth was also reflected in the QSE Index, which saw an improvement from 2025 to early 2026. Recent years had seen the general index fluctuate either side of the 10,600-10,700 level, standing at 10,681 in 2022, then rising 1.4% to 10,830 in 2023, before falling 2.4% to 10,571 by the end of 2024. Then in 2025, the Index shifted upwards again, closing the year at 10,762 – a 1.8% increase from the previous year. The index initially continued upwards going into 2026, standing at 11,502 on February 9, 2026 before falling to 10,693 on April 20, as a result of the regional conflict. Given that, the year-to-date loss at that time of just -0.4% showed the market’s robustness and resiliency.
Particular company standouts in 2025 included Estithmar Holding, which saw a 137% rise in its share price, along with Medicare Group with a 46% increase, just ahead of Doha Bank’s 44% share boost. In terms of sectors, telecommunications led with a 24% rise – an annual record for the sector – followed by financial services with 11% growth, and consumer goods and services with an 8.6% increase over the year. A key development in the telecoms sector was Ooredoo’s partnership with QSE to launch Qatar’s first fully marketed secondary offering, boosting the market’s liquidity. The year 2025 saw the launch of a $200m investment fund backed by the QIA and Canadian asset manager Fiera Capital, further enhancing liquidity and investor participation in Qatar’s market.
In parallel with positive growth on the index, its market capitalisation on the exchange rose steadily in recent years. This stood at QR620.9bn ($170bn) by the end of 2024, then rose QR23.4bn ($6.4bn) to end 2025 at QR644.3bn ($177bn). The QSE Index’s total market capitalisation stood at QR686.5bn ($188.3bn) as of February 9, 2026. Adding to this was a new listing in December 2025, when Mosanada Facility Management Services entered the Main Market under the consumer goods and services board.
Another key move was the number of companies increasing their share of foreign ownership on the Qatari market. Ahli Bank was the most recent company to do this, increasing its foreign-owned share to 100% during the course of 2025. This development reflects growing international investor confidence in the QSE, helping to deepen market liquidity, broaden the investor base and raise Qatar’s profile as a regional investment destination.
As of February 17, 2026, the QE Index offered a price/earnings (p/e) ratio of 13, which was a few points below the MSCI GCC Index of 15.8, but well below the p/e levels in global markets such as the Dow Jones (which stood at 23.1), the S&P 500 (25.4) or the Nikkei (23.6). The outbreak of conflict then saw p/e of the QE Index drift down to 12.1 by April 20.
Bonds & Sukuk
In fixed income, the period up to March 2026 was particularly bullish. December 2025 saw the first corporate sukuk on the QSE, with Qatar International Islamic Bank’s QR500m ($137m) issuance. In January 2026, Doha Bank issued the first sustainable bond on the QSE, with a QR500m ($137m) three-year maturity issuance. Just a month later in February 2026, there was another milestone with the first green sukuk issuance, a QR500m ($137m) offering from AlRayan Bank.
Breaking records for bond issuance was a QR1bn ($274m) instrument from QNB, listed on February 16, 2026. Offered exclusively to international investors, the one-year tenor, 4% annual coupon rate bond was fully subscribed and the largest Qatari riyal denominated bond listing in the QSE’s history.
As the regional conflict continues unresolved into the second quarter of 2026, however, yields in GCC bond and sukuk issuances widened, particularly among lower-rated issuers, amid heightened market uncertainty. Nonetheless, as Fitch reported in April 2026, steady demand for sukuk, in particular from Islamic financial institutions, meant “relatively tighter spreads compared to conventional bonds”.
Outlook
Whilst the bond and sukuk market will have inevitably been impacted by the geopolitical tensions in the first half of 2026, the longer-term fundamentals remain positive, reflecting the country’s economic resiliency. This could also be said of the QSE’s equities market and the country’s economy overall going into the second half of 2026.
With support from the government and financial market authorities, as well as robust economic fundamentals, Qatar is well positioned for the years ahead. These strengths include a rapidly expanding and diversifying non-hydrocarbons sector and a major LNG industry, helping to ensure that the country remains an attractive and reliable investment destination that can endure periods of uncertainty.
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