Acinetobacter baumanniiis a critical pathogen with an efficient SOS (Save Our Ship) system that plays a significant role in antibiotic resistance. This prospective descriptive study aimed to investigate the association between expression levels ofrecAandumuDCgenes, which are critical in SOS pathways, and antibiotic resistance inA. baumannii. We analyzed 78 clinical isolates and 31 ecological isolates using the Vitek-2 system for bacterial identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing and confirmed molecular identification ofA. baumanniiby conventional PCR of blaOXA-51and blaOXA-23. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to determine gene expression levels ofrecAandumuDC. The results showed that in 25 clinical strains, 14/25 strains showed upregulation ofrecA, 7/25 strains exhibited upregulation of bothumuDCandrecA, and 1/25 strains showed upregulation ofumuDC. Of these, 16/25 clinical strains were extensively resistant to antibiotics, except for colistin, and showed upregulation ofrecAand/orumuDCgene expression levels. In 6 ecological strains,recAshowed upregulation in 3/6 strains, while bothrecAandumuDCwere upregulated in 1/6 strain. In conclusion, high expression levels ofrecAand/orumuDCgenes inA. baumanniicomplex andA. baumanniistrains may contribute to increasing resistance to a wide range of antibiotics and may result in the initiation of an extensively drug-resistant (XDR) phenotype.