A practical, step-by-step guide to nominating your business, brand, or leader for the 2026 Arabian Best of Best Awards. Free at submission. ~10 minutes to complete. Centralized form via the Golden Tree Awards platform.
Most nominations fall into one of five clean buckets: your own company or brand, your team or department, a colleague or senior leader, a client or partner business, or another business in your network that you admire. There is no commercial relationship preference in the jury room — peer nominations and self-nominations are scored on identical criteria.
If you are unsure whether to nominate the entity, the individual, or both, consider that many winners take both an organization-level recognition and an individual-level recognition in the same cycle. It is not double-counting; it is recognizing different things.
Category fit is the single most undervalued part of strong nominations. A polished nomination in the wrong category will score lower than a less polished nomination in the right category — every time. The 2026 program covers 200+ categories spanning 20 industries; the full list is available on the categories page and our awards team will help you triangulate the right fit before you submit.
If you are debating between two adjacent categories, contact awards@goldentreeawards.com with a one-paragraph summary of the nominee and we will route the request to the relevant sub-jury chair for a confidential recommendation. There is no fee, no commitment, and no obligation to nominate after the advice.
Before you open the form, write down four to six honest sentences that describe what made the past 12 months distinctive for the nominee. Not what made the brand strong forever — what changed recently. Strong nominations are anchored in recency.
Then identify the three to five most useful supporting documents you can reasonably share. Case studies, customer references, audited financial highlights where appropriate, press coverage, regulatory milestones, and named partnerships are all valuable. Three carefully chosen documents outperform fifteen lightly relevant ones every cycle.
Navigate to /award-nomination. The form loads inside our website with source-tracking parameters automatically passed to the centralized Golden Tree Awards nomination platform. Tracking allows us to attribute each nomination to its source page and improves our ability to report on regional engagement trends.
The form has three sections: nominator details, nominee details, and the supporting narrative. Each section saves automatically as you complete it. You can leave the form and return; your progress is preserved for 14 days.
This is the section that distinguishes strong nominations. We ask for 300–500 words explaining why the nominee deserves recognition in the chosen category. The jury reads thousands of these — write yours so it survives the first quick read.
Specific numbers beat generic claims. "Revenue grew 80% YoY across three quarters" outperforms "we had a strong year." Customer outcomes matter — what actually changed for the people the business serves? Quantify it. Honest acknowledgment of difficulty handled well often scores higher than implausibly perfect narratives.
After you submit, you will receive a confirmation email within 48 hours containing your unique submission number and a checklist of any supporting documents the research team has flagged as useful. Reply to that email with your supporting materials — direct attachments up to 25MB, or a shared link to a folder for larger document sets.
From this point onwards, the awards team manages the submission internally. You will be notified at three subsequent milestones — verification confirmation (within 5 business days), jury scoring completion (within 4–6 weeks), and shortlist or non-shortlist confirmation (approximately 6 weeks before the Dubai Gala).
Across four years of evaluating thousands of submissions, the strongest nominations share consistent characteristics: they are specific (real numbers, named partnerships, dated milestones); they are honest about challenges (acknowledged difficulty handled well scores higher than implausible perfection); they match the category precisely; and they use supporting materials sparingly and well.
Weaker nominations share opposite characteristics: vague claims of leadership without evidence, category mismatches, narrative-led submissions with no quantification, and either no supporting materials or fifteen lightly relevant ones.
Submitting the nomination form is free. There is no commitment until shortlisting. Fees apply only at later stages for shortlisted nominees who choose to advance, and they are clearly communicated in advance. The timeline runs from submission through verification (~5 business days), jury evaluation (~4-6 weeks), and shortlist notification (~6 weeks before the Gala). Final reveal happens live at the Gala on 14 November 2026 at the Westin Marina Hotel, Dubai.
No. Submitting the form is free. Fees apply only at later stages for shortlisted nominees who choose to advance, and are clearly communicated in advance.
Most nominators complete it in 10 to 15 minutes. Supporting materials can be uploaded directly through the form or sent by email after submission.
Confirmation email within 48 hours, verification within 5 business days, sub-jury evaluation in 4 to 6 weeks, shortlist notification approximately 6 weeks before the Gala.
Yes. Peer and third-party nominations are accepted. The nominee will be notified once the nomination passes initial verification.
Email awards@goldentreeawards.com with a brief description of the nominee. Our team routinely helps nominators triangulate the best category fit before submission.
Yes. The nominee may withdraw confidentially at any point before final shortlisting at no cost.
No. Sponsorship has zero influence on jury outcomes. We have refused sponsor-linked nominations more than once and will continue to do so.