AimStudent’ engagement is a predictor of various educational outcomes, and it is a key factor in perceived learning. This study aims to investigate the psychometric properties of University Student Engagement Inventory (USEI) among students of Arab universities.MethodsIn this cross-sectional methodological study 525 Arab university students participated. Data was collected from December 2020 to January 2021. The confirmatory factor analysis used for construct validity, reliability and Invariance analysis for Sex were evaluated.ResultsConfirmatory factor analysis indices confirmed the good model fit to the data (CFIscl=0.977, NFIscl=0.974, TLIscl=0.972, SRMR = 0.036, RMSEAscl=0.111, n = 525). All tested models showed strong invariance of the USEI between male and females. There was also evidence of convergent (AVE > 0.7 for all the scales) and discriminant validity (HTMT > 0.75 for all scales). Reliability evidence for the USEI measures in the sample of Arabic students was high (αordinaland ω above 0.86).ConclusionThe results of this study support the validity and reliability of the USEI with 15 items and 3 factors and demonstrate the importance of students’ engagement in the learning process, academic progress, and self-directed learning.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-023-01318-5.