Accounting & Bookkeeping
Accounting & Bookkeeping in the UAE
Which accounting standard your UAE business must apply, when the cash basis is allowed, how long records must be kept, and why nobody publishes a real price.
accounting & bookkeeping
UAE companies must keep accounting registers that reveal their financial position at any time, and prepare financial statements under IFRS. Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 lets a taxable person with revenue up to AED 50 million apply IFRS for SMEs, and one with revenue up to AED 3 million use the cash basis. Corporate tax records must be kept for seven years.
Basis: UAE Ministry of Finance
- Default accounting standard for corporate tax
- IFRS
- Revenue ceiling to use IFRS for SMEs
- AED 50,000,000
- Revenue ceiling to use the cash basis of accounting
- AED 3,000,000, or FTA approval in exceptional circumstances
- Accounting registers kept at the head office
- At least 5 years from the end of the fiscal year
- Corporate tax records
- 7 years after the end of the tax period
- Records relating to real estate, for VAT
- 15 years after the end of the tax period
- First fiscal year of a new company
- Not more than 18 months and not less than 6 months
- Reporting currency
- UAE dirham, converted at the Central Bank rate
Article 4(1), Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023
Article 4(2), Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023
Article 2, Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023
Article 26(2), Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 (Commercial Companies Law)
Article 56, Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022
Article 71(2), Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017, as amended by Cabinet Decision No. 100 of 2024
Article 28(1), Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021
Article 43, Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022
#What the law actually obliges you to keep
Bookkeeping in the UAE is not a matter of good practice. Three separate instruments impose it, and they impose slightly different things.
Company law. Article 26(1) of Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021, the Commercial Companies Law, requires every company to keep accounting registers showing its transactions "so as to accurately reveal at any time its financial position" and to enable partners or shareholders to satisfy themselves that the accounts are properly kept. Article 26(2) requires those registers to be held at the head office for at least five years from the end of the fiscal year, and Article 26(3) permits an electronic copy of the originals, subject to controls issued by ministerial decision.
Tax procedure. Article 4 of Federal Decree-Law No. 28 of 2022 on Tax Procedures obliges any person conducting a business, or carrying a tax obligation, to keep accounting records and commercial books and to retain tax-related information.
The Executive Regulation. Article 2 of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 spells out what that means in practice, and the list is more specific than most businesses expect.
Note the sequence. The company law duty attaches to the company from incorporation. The tax duty attaches to anyone in business, incorporated or not. A freelancer below every registration threshold still has records to keep.
| Category | Included |
|---|---|
| Books and records of the business | Payments and receipts, purchases and sales, revenues and expenditures |
| Named records | Balance sheet and profit and loss accounts; records of wages and salaries; records of fixed assets; inventory records and statements with quantities and values at the end of each tax period, and stock-count records |
| Supporting documents | Correspondence, invoices, licences and contracts related to the business |
| Decision trail | Documents showing the basis or method of any election, assessment, determination or calculation made in relation to the tax affairs of the business |
| Anything else requested | The FTA may request further information to verify, through a series of auditable documents, the person's tax obligations — including the obligation to register |
#Which accounting standard applies: IFRS, IFRS for SMEs, or something else
This is the question the search results get wrong most often, usually by treating the answer as optional. It is not.
Article 20(1) of the Corporate Tax Law requires taxable income to be determined on the basis of adequate, standalone financial statements prepared for financial reporting purposes in accordance with accounting standards accepted in the State. Article 4(1) of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 then names the standard: a taxable person shall apply International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Article 4(2) creates the only alternative. A taxable person deriving revenue that does not exceed AED 50,000,000 may apply IFRS for SMEs instead. That is a permission, not a requirement, and it is tested on revenue rather than on assets, headcount or company form.
Company law says the same thing in older language. Article 27(3) of the Commercial Companies Law requires a company to apply International Accounting Standards and Practices when preparing its periodical and annual accounts, so as to give a clear and accurate idea of its profits and losses.
| Revenue in the tax period | Standard you must apply | Standard you may apply |
|---|---|---|
| Above AED 50,000,000 | IFRS | No alternative |
| AED 50,000,000 or below | IFRS | IFRS for SMEs |
| AED 3,000,000 or below | IFRS or IFRS for SMEs | Cash basis of accounting |
Is there a UAE GAAP?
No — and this matters, because "UAE GAAP" appears in a great many search results and in some software configuration screens.
There is no separate national generally accepted accounting practice framework for UAE commercial companies. Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 names IFRS and IFRS for SMEs and nothing else, and the Commercial Companies Law points to international standards rather than a domestic set. US GAAP is not among the standards named for corporate tax purposes.
A federal accrual accounting manual does exist for the federal government's own reporting, which is a public-sector framework and not a basis on which a commercial company prepares statutory accounts. If your accountant tells you they prepare to "local GAAP", ask which written standard they mean.
When the accounts and the law disagree
Article 20(7) of the Corporate Tax Law settles the conflict rule directly: where the provisions of the Decree-Law and the applicable accounting standards conflict, the Decree-Law prevails to that extent.
In practice this is why a clean IFRS trial balance is the start of a corporate tax computation, not the end of it. The accounts stay as IFRS requires; the tax adjustment is made on top.
#Cash basis or accrual: the AED 3 million line
Article 20(5)(a) of the Corporate Tax Law lets the Minister set the circumstances in which a person may prepare financial statements using the cash basis. Article 2 of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 sets two:
- where the person derives revenue not exceeding AED 3,000,000; or
- in exceptional circumstances, on an application submitted to the Federal Tax Authority.
The decision defines the cash basis narrowly, as an accounting method under which income and expenditure are recognised when cash payments are received and paid. Nothing in it makes the cash basis a default. A business under AED 3 million that already prepares accruals accounts is free to carry on doing so, and usually should if it invoices on credit terms.
Moving the other way is a formal step. Under Article 20(6), a taxable person may apply to the Authority to change its method of accounting from cash to accrual, effective from the start of the tax period in which the application is made or from a future tax period. That is an application, not a switch you make in your software.
#How the books become a corporate tax return
Article 20(2) of the Corporate Tax Law is the bridge between bookkeeping and tax, and it is worth reading in full at least once. Taxable income for a tax period is the accounting income for that period, adjusted to the extent applicable for exempt income, reliefs, deductions, transactions with related parties and connected persons, tax loss relief, unrealised gains and losses, any incentives for a qualifying business activity, and any further adjustments the Cabinet or the Minister specifies.
Everything in that list depends on the ledger being able to produce the number. If related-party transactions are not separately identifiable in the chart of accounts, the Chapter Ten adjustment cannot be evidenced. If fixed assets are not tracked at the level the depreciation policy assumes, the capital-account tests in Article 20(4) cannot be applied.
The realisation basis election
Article 20(3) allows a taxable person preparing accounts on an accrual basis to elect to take gains and losses on a realisation basis, either for all assets and liabilities subject to fair value or impairment accounting, or for all assets and liabilities held on capital account.
Article 20(4) defines the terms. Assets held on capital account are those the person does not trade, those eligible for depreciation, or those treated under the applicable standards as property, plant and equipment, investment property, intangibles or other non-current assets. An unrealised gain or loss expressly includes an unrealised foreign exchange gain or loss.
The election is made once and it shapes the accounting policy that supports it, so it belongs in the discussion with your accountant before year end rather than after.
Currency and the exchange rate you may use
Article 43 of the Corporate Tax Law requires all amounts to be quantified in UAE dirhams, and any amount in another currency to be converted at the applicable exchange rate set by the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, subject to any conditions the Authority prescribes.
A business that books in US dollars is not prohibited from doing so, but its reporting for tax has to land in dirhams on a Central Bank rate. We are not going to publish a conversion table on this page: rates move daily, and a table copied into a web page is wrong the day after it is written. Take the rate from the Central Bank on the date it applies.
#How long records must be kept — three clocks, not one
This is where advisory pages most often give a single number, and a single number is wrong. Several retention periods run in parallel, and the longest one governs what you can actually delete.
Article 3 of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023, as amended by Cabinet Decision No. 17 of 2026, sets the general tax rule: five years following the tax period for a taxable person, five years from the end of the calendar year in which a document was created for everyone else, and seven years for real estate records — unless the tax law states otherwise.
The corporate tax law does state otherwise. Article 56 of Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 applies "notwithstanding the provisions of the Tax Procedures Law" and requires seven years for records supporting a return, and seven years for an exempt person's records evidencing its status.
The same Article 3 then adds extensions that most retention policies miss.
| Records | Period | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting registers held at the company head office | At least 5 years from the end of the fiscal year | Article 26(2), Commercial Companies Law |
| General tax records of a taxable person | 5 years following the tax period | Article 3(1)(a), Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 |
| Records of persons other than taxable persons | 5 years from the end of the calendar year the document was created | Article 3(1)(b), Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 |
| Real estate records, for tax procedure purposes | 7 years from the end of the calendar year the document was created | Article 3(1)(c), Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 |
| Records supporting a corporate tax return, and exempt-person records | 7 years following the end of the tax period | Article 56, Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 |
| Records relating to real estate, for VAT | 15 years after the end of the tax period | Article 71(2), Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017 as amended |
| Dispute with the FTA | Add 4 years, or until the dispute is finally settled, whichever is later | Article 3(2)(a), Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 |
| Ongoing tax audit, or notice of intention to audit | Add 4 years | Article 3(2)(b) and (c), Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 |
| Voluntary disclosure filed in the fifth year | Add 1 year from the date of submission | Article 3(2)(d), Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 |
| Refund application still undecided | Add 2 years | Article 3(2)(e), Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 |
You may keep them electronically, within limits
Article 4 of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 allows the obligation to be met either by keeping the original supporting documents, or by keeping the information they contain — provided the retained information is identical to the original, is available throughout the retention period, is stored as a photocopy or electronic copy from which an easily readable copy can be reproduced on request within the time the Authority specifies, and is stored in a way that lets the Authority verify the person's tax obligations.
Article 26(3) of the Commercial Companies Law separately permits an electronic copy of the originals kept at the head office, in accordance with controls issued by ministerial decision. A cloud ledger with no exportable audit trail satisfies neither.
Language: Arabic on request
Article 5(1) of the Tax Procedures Law states the default position that returns and supporting records are submitted in Arabic, and Article 5(2) permits another language provided a translated Arabic copy is supplied if the Authority asks for it.
Article 5 of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 puts it the practical way round: the Authority may accept documents in English and may, at its discretion, require translation into Arabic — and any such translation must be certified in accordance with the law regulating translation in the State and delivered within the period the Authority specifies. Article 5(3) of the Decree-Law makes the person who submits the translation responsible for its accuracy and for the cost. Budget for that possibility rather than being surprised by it.
#When bookkeeping turns into an audit obligation
Good books do not by themselves discharge an audit requirement, and two separate rules can create one.
Under Article 27(1) of the Commercial Companies Law, every joint stock company and every limited liability company must have one or more auditors auditing its accounts yearly; other company forms may appoint one. That obligation attaches to the company form, not to size.
For corporate tax, Article 54(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 lets the Minister require categories of taxable persons to prepare and maintain audited or certified financial statements, and Ministerial Decision No. 84 of 2025 sets the categories: a taxable person that is not a tax group with revenue exceeding AED 50,000,000 in the tax period, and every qualifying free zone person regardless of revenue. It applies to tax periods commencing on or after 1 January 2025.
Article 54(1) is the quieter obligation. The Authority may, by notice or decision, simply request the financial statements used to determine taxable income, in the form and within the timeline it prescribes. That request can arrive whether or not an audit was ever required.
Tax groups consolidate, and then un-consolidate
Article 42(11) of the Corporate Tax Law requires a tax group to prepare consolidated financial statements in accordance with accounting standards applied in the State.
Article 3 of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 then explains what that means for these purposes: the reference to consolidated statements under Article 42(11) means preparing standalone financial statements on the basis of aggregating the standalone statements of the parent company and each subsidiary in the group, eliminating transactions between them as Article 42(1) requires.
Aggregation and elimination is a different exercise from full IFRS consolidation, and it depends entirely on intercompany transactions being identifiable in each member's ledger. That is a bookkeeping design decision taken long before year end.
#What accounting and bookkeeping cost in the UAE
There is no published tariff, no regulated scale, and no honest single figure — so we are not going to invent one.
Accounting and bookkeeping fees in the UAE are not set by the Ministry of Economy and Tourism, by the Federal Tax Authority, or by any free zone authority. Every monthly price you find in a search result is one firm's own price list, or a lead-generation page's guess. We have no published fee schedule of our own to quote either, and quoting a competitor's would be repeating a number we cannot stand behind.
What can be said honestly is what moves the number, because those drivers are structural rather than commercial.
The drivers that actually set the fee
Transaction volume, not revenue — a hundred small invoices costs more to process than three large ones. The number of bank accounts and currencies, because every additional account is another reconciliation. Whether inventory exists and has to be valued at each period end under Article 2(1)(a)(4) of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023. Whether payroll is in scope, and the wage records that go with it. Whether the entity is VAT registered, which turns bookkeeping into a quarterly filing cycle. Whether there are related-party transactions requiring an arm's length basis to be documented. Whether an audit is required, since an auditable file costs more to prepare than a management one. And whether there is a backlog: catch-up work on prior periods is normally priced separately and is the single most common reason a quote moves after signature.
"Free accounting services" and what is usually meant
Searches for free accounting services in Dubai generally resolve to one of three things, and none of them is free accounting.
The first is genuinely free official material: the Federal Tax Authority publishes its legislation, guides, e-learning and taxpayer user manuals at no charge, and the Ministry of Finance publishes every decision cited on this page. The second is a free consultation offered as the front end of a paid engagement, which is a sales meeting and is fine as long as you know that is what it is. The third is free bookkeeping bundled into a company formation package, where the cost has been moved into the licence fee rather than removed.
Before paying anyone to obtain a government document for you, check whether the authority publishes it free.
How much to charge, if you are the one quoting
We do not publish rate cards, benchmark hourly rates or a recommended pricing model, for the same reason we do not publish fees: no accessible authority publishes one for the UAE market, and a figure taken from a blog would be a guess wearing a source.
The verifiable inputs to your own pricing are the professional costs you can look up directly — registration with the Ministry of Economy and Tourism's practising auditors register if you audit, registration on the Federal Tax Authority's register if you act as a tax agent, and your professional body's own published subscription. Those are published by the bodies themselves and are the only fee figures on this topic we would put in writing.
#Bookkeeper, accountant, chartered accountant, auditor, tax agent
These five words are used interchangeably in UAE marketing and they are not interchangeable in law.
A bookkeeper records transactions: sales, purchases, receipts, payments, bank reconciliations, and the ledgers behind them. A full-service bookkeeper normally extends that to payroll processing, accounts payable and receivable, VAT return preparation, and a monthly management pack — everything up to, but not including, an opinion on the accounts. The title is not regulated in the UAE and carries no licensing requirement of its own.
An accountant prepares and interprets the financial statements built from those records, and applies the standard — IFRS or IFRS for SMEs — that Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 requires. Chartered accountant is a protected UAE designation, and this is the point most guidance on the subject gets wrong. Article 8(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2023 states that the “Chartered Accountant” designation shall not be used unless the professional licence is obtained from the Ministry. Holding ACCA, ICAEW, a national chartered institute or the US CPA is a membership qualification from the issuing body; it does not by itself entitle anyone to use the title in the UAE. Article 27 makes practising without a licence punishable by not less than three months' imprisonment and/or a fine between AED 100,000 and AED 2,000,000. Verified in the Official Gazette text, 17 August 2026.
An auditor gives an independent opinion, and this role is regulated: the profession sits under Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2023 on regulating the auditing and accounting professions, and practising auditors are registered by the Ministry of Economy and Tourism. Note that Federal Law No. 12 of 2014, still cited widely, has been repealed.
A tax agent is a distinct, registered role. Only persons on the Federal Tax Authority's published register of tax agents may act for a taxable person before the Authority in that capacity.
#Outsourced accounting: what to check before you sign
Outsourcing the finance function is common in the UAE, particularly for free zone entities and for groups running a single small UAE subsidiary. It is a delivery model, not a legal category — nothing in the Commercial Companies Law or the tax legislation recognises "outsourced accounting" as a distinct status, and the obligations stay with the company whoever presses the keys.
That is the whole point of the checks below. Under Article 26 of the Commercial Companies Law the registers are the company's and must sit at its head office. Under Article 56 of the Corporate Tax Law the retention duty is the taxable person's. If the relationship ends badly, the question is whether you can walk away holding your own data.
Establish who owns the ledger
Confirm in writing that the accounting file, the chart of accounts and the full transaction history belong to you and can be exported in a usable format on demand. A provider that will only hand back PDF reports is holding your Article 26 registers hostage.
Fix where the records physically live
Article 26(2) of the Commercial Companies Law requires accounting registers to be kept at the company's head office for at least five years. Agree how that is satisfied where the ledger sits on a provider's cloud tenancy, and make sure a complete copy exists under your own control.
Agree the retention obligation explicitly
Seven years for corporate tax records under Article 56, plus the extensions in Article 3(2) of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 for disputes, audits, late voluntary disclosures and pending refunds. Your engagement letter should say what happens to the data if the contract ends in year two.
Check the standard being applied
Ask whether they prepare under IFRS or IFRS for SMEs, and on what revenue figure they concluded that IFRS for SMEs is available under Article 4(2) of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023. If they cannot answer, they are not making the decision — they are inheriting it from a software template.
Separate bookkeeping from representation
Preparing your accounts and representing you before the Federal Tax Authority are different engagements. Only a registered tax agent on the FTA's published register may act in that capacity, so confirm which of the two you are buying.
Ask what happens when e-invoicing starts
The UAE electronic invoicing system runs to a legislated timetable. Confirm the provider's plan for connecting your ledger to an accredited service provider, and who bears the cost of that integration.
#Fractional CFO and CFO-as-a-service arrangements
Part-time, fractional and outsourced chief financial officer services are heavily marketed in the UAE, and the honest description is that this is a commercial arrangement rather than a regulated appointment.
No UAE federal instrument licenses the title "CFO", sets qualifications for it, or requires a company to appoint one. The Commercial Companies Law prescribes managers, boards and auditors; it does not prescribe a finance chief. That is why the market can sell the role by the day.
What is regulated is what sits underneath. The audit opinion must come from a licensed auditor. Representation before the FTA must come from a registered tax agent. The financial statements must follow IFRS or IFRS for SMEs. A fractional CFO can design the reporting, run the forecast, sit in the bank meeting and prepare the board pack — but cannot substitute for either of the licensed roles.
We are not going to name or rank providers of these services. Several brand names surface repeatedly in searches on this topic, and we have no verified basis for endorsing, comparing or describing any of them, so we do not.
What to ask a fractional CFO for
A scope in writing that distinguishes advisory work from anything requiring a licence. Named deliverables with dates — a monthly pack, a rolling forecast, a covenant schedule — rather than a day rate against an open brief. Clarity on who signs what, since an unlicensed adviser signing nothing is the correct arrangement. And an explicit statement of where their work stops and your auditor's or tax agent's begins.
If the same firm proposes to keep the books, prepare the statements and audit them, that is an independence problem before it is a value question: Article 246 of the Commercial Companies Law bars the statutory auditor from holding any technical, administrative or executive office in the company.
#Choosing a firm — and the searches this page cannot answer
A large share of the searches around accounting in Dubai are not questions about accounting at all. They are attempts to find a specific company, see its premises, read its reviews, or find out whether it is open right now. Being straight about those is more useful than pretending to answer them.
Searches naming a particular firm — an "integrated accounting services" company, a "gateway" accounting company, and others like them — are brand searches for businesses we are not and cannot vouch for. We publish no photographs of any firm's offices, no star ratings, no review counts and no client list. This site publishes no office address, no telephone number and no opening hours, because none has been published, so "open now" and "near me" queries cannot be answered here honestly.
If you are trying to verify that a firm exists and is licensed, the National Economic Register on the UAE Government portal is the free public lookup for a licensed business. For auditors, the Ministry of Economy and Tourism maintains the register of practising auditors. For tax agents, the Federal Tax Authority publishes its own register. Those three sources answer the question a review site only guesses at.
"Big" and "top rated" lists
The firms conventionally meant by the Big Four are Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG, and all four operate in the UAE. Beyond that, "big five", "big ten" and "top rated" are marketing constructs: the composition changes with the publisher, and almost none of these lists discloses a methodology. We are not going to publish another one.
The questions that actually separate firms are duller and better. Who will do the monthly work, as opposed to who attends the pitch. Which standard will they apply and why. What happens to the fee if the opening balances turn out to need reconstruction. Whether they are licensed for the specific thing you need — audit, or tax agency — or only for the general one. And whether they will put the answers in the engagement letter.
Booking online, and what a first meeting should cover
Online appointment booking is a convenience feature offered by individual firms; it is not a regulatory service and there is no central UAE portal for booking an accountant. For dealings with the Federal Tax Authority itself, the relevant channels are the EmaraTax portal, the FTA's published contact details and its Tas'heel service centres, all listed on the Authority's own website.
Whatever the booking method, a first meeting is worth more if you arrive with your trade licence, your financial year end, last year's financial statements if any exist, your revenue figure for the last twelve months, whether you are VAT registered, and whether you are registered for corporate tax. Those six items determine which of the rules on this page apply to you.
#Becoming an accountant in the UAE
There is no single UAE licence called "accountant", and that surprises people arriving from jurisdictions where the title is protected. Anyone may be employed in an accounting role; what is regulated is the work that carries a statutory signature.
To sign an audit opinion you must be a licensed practising auditor: the profession is regulated by Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2023, and the Ministry of Economy and Tourism operates the register of practising auditors and publishes the application service and its fees. To act as a tax agent before the Federal Tax Authority you must be on the FTA's register of tax agents, which the Authority publishes and maintains.
Between those two, the usual route into the profession is a recognised international qualification — ACCA, ICAEW, a national chartered institute, or the US CPA — followed by supervised experience, and then, if the work requires it, UAE registration in one of the two regulated capacities above. Employment terms, work permits and wage payment sit with the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation and the Wages Protection System rather than with any accounting regulator.
This page publishes no salary bands, vacancy counts or agency recommendations. The employer-reported bands that can be sourced sit on our accountant salary page, with the survey named; what nobody publishes, and what this site therefore never states, is a band for a qualification, a figure for a named employer, or a junior or entry-level row.
#What electronic invoicing changes about the ledger
The single biggest change coming to UAE bookkeeping is not a new standard. It is that invoices will stop being documents you produce and start being data you transmit.
Ministerial Decision No. 244 of 2025 sets the implementation timetable for the UAE electronic invoicing system, and Ministerial Decision No. 66 of 2026 amended it. Businesses with revenue of AED 50,000,000 or more must appoint an accredited service provider by 30 October 2026, with phase 1 going live on 1 January 2027. Businesses below that revenue threshold appoint a provider by 31 March 2027 and go live on 1 July 2027; government entities go live on 1 October 2027. Under Ministerial Decision No. 243 of 2025, each invoice must be transmitted within 14 days of the business transaction.
The bookkeeping consequences are practical. Master data — customer tax registration numbers, item codes, units of measure — has to be correct at the point of issue rather than tidied at year end. Credit notes and corrections have to follow the same transmission path. And a ledger that cannot export structured invoice data will need to be connected to something that can.
#Software, and the FTA's own list
No UAE law requires a specific accounting package. Article 4 of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 is deliberately technology-neutral: it prescribes outcomes — identical information, readable reproduction on request, verifiability — rather than a product.
The Federal Tax Authority does publish a list of accredited tax accounting software vendors on its own website. That accreditation relates to tax accounting software requirements; it is not a general endorsement of a product's suitability for your business, and using an unlisted package is not itself a breach.
The features that matter for the rules on this page are unglamorous. Can it produce a fixed asset register and a period-end inventory valuation, both of which Article 2(1)(a) of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 names explicitly? Can it tag related-party counterparties so the Chapter Ten adjustments are evidenced? Can it hold documents against transactions, so the supporting-document requirement is met without a second filing system? Can it export everything, in a readable form, for seven years? And will it connect to an accredited e-invoicing service provider before 2027?
A cheaper package that fails the export test is not cheaper.
One record-keeping rule that catches e-commerce
Article 72(4) of the VAT Executive Regulation requires a taxable person whose electronic commerce supplies exceeded AED 100,000,000 in the calendar year to keep records proving the emirate in which each supply was received, rather than the emirate of its establishment.
It is an easy obligation to miss because it changes what the ledger must capture — delivery destination at line level — rather than what it must report. If you are near that threshold, check it before the software is configured, not afterwards.
#Where the source documents are
Everything cited on this page is published free by the issuing authority and none of it requires an intermediary to obtain.
The Commercial Companies Law, Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021, is published by the Ministry of Economy and Tourism. Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 on accounting standards and methods, the consolidated Corporate Tax Law, the consolidated Executive Regulation of the Tax Procedures Law and the e-invoicing decisions are published by the Ministry of Finance. The Tax Procedures Law, the VAT Executive Regulation, the register of tax agents and the accredited software vendor list are published by the Federal Tax Authority.
Where a summary and a primary instrument disagree, the instrument governs. The retention table on this page exists precisely because summaries of it commonly quote one period where the law sets several. Checked against the primary texts on 17 August 2026.
Sources and legal basis
This page relies on
- Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 on the Accounting Standards and Methods for Corporate Tax Purposes
- Article 2 of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 (cash basis of accounting)
- Article 3 of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 (aggregated tax group statements)
- Article 4 of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 (applicable accounting standards)
- International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
- IFRS for SMEs
- Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 on the Taxation of Corporations and Businesses
- Article 20 of the Corporate Tax Law (General Rules for Determining Taxable Income)
- Article 42 of the Corporate Tax Law (Taxable Income of a Tax Group)
- Article 43 of the Corporate Tax Law (Currency)
- Article 54 of the Corporate Tax Law (Financial Statements)
- Article 56 of the Corporate Tax Law (Record Keeping)
- Article 57 of the Corporate Tax Law (Tax Period)
- Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 (Commercial Companies Law)
- Article 26 of the Commercial Companies Law (accounting registers)
- Article 27 of the Commercial Companies Law (accounts of the company)
- Article 28 of the Commercial Companies Law (fiscal year of the company)
- Article 246 of the Commercial Companies Law (conditions for the auditor)
- Federal Decree-Law No. 28 of 2022 on Tax Procedures
- Article 4 of the Tax Procedures Law (Record Keeping)
- Article 5 of the Tax Procedures Law (Language)
- Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 on the Executive Regulation of the Tax Procedures Law
- Article 2 of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 (keeping records)
- Article 3 of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 (period of record keeping)
- Article 4 of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 (method of keeping records)
- Cabinet Decision No. 17 of 2026 (amending the Tax Procedures Executive Regulation)
- Ministerial Decision No. 84 of 2025 on Audited Financial Statements
- Ministerial Decision No. 73 of 2023 on Small Business Relief
- Ministerial Decision No. 131 of 2026 (Small Business Relief extension to 2029)
- Article 71 of the VAT Executive Regulation (record-keeping requirements)
- Article 72 of the VAT Executive Regulation (record keeping of supplies made)
- Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017 (Executive Regulation of the VAT Law)
- Cabinet Decision No. 100 of 2024 (amendment to the VAT Executive Regulation)
- Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2023 on Concerning the Regulation of the Accounting and Auditing Profession
- Ministerial Decision No. 244 of 2025 on the Implementation of the Electronic Invoicing System
- Ministerial Decision No. 243 of 2025 on the Electronic Invoicing System
- Ministerial Decision No. 66 of 2026 (amending the e-invoicing timeline)
- Accredited Service Provider (e-invoicing)
- Federal Tax Authority (FTA)
- UAE Ministry of Finance
- UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism
- Central Bank of the UAE
- EmaraTax
- National Economic Register
- Qualifying Free Zone Person
- Tax Group
- Registered tax agent
- Practising auditors register
- Accredited tax accounting software vendors
- AED 3,000,000 cash basis threshold
- AED 50,000,000 IFRS for SMEs threshold
- Big Four accounting firms
- Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 on the Accounting Standards and Methods for Corporate Tax PurposesUAE Ministry of Finance
- Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 and its amendments (consolidated)UAE Ministry of Finance
- Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 on Commercial CompaniesUAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism
- Federal Decree-Law No. 28 of 2022 on Tax ProceduresFederal Tax Authority
- Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 on the Executive Regulation of the Tax Procedures Law, and its amendments (consolidated to 1 April 2026)UAE Ministry of Finance
- Ministerial Decision No. 84 of 2025 on Audited Financial StatementsUAE Ministry of Finance
- Executive Regulation of the VAT Law: Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017 and its amendmentsFederal Tax Authority
- Ministerial Decision No. 131 of 2026 extending Small Business Relief to 2029UAE Ministry of Finance
- Ministerial Decision No. 244 of 2025 on the Implementation of the Electronic Invoicing SystemUAE Ministry of Finance
- Ministerial Decision No. 66 of 2026 amending the e-invoicing timelineUAE Ministry of Finance
- Tax accounting software vendors accredited by the FTAFederal Tax Authority
- Registered tax agentsFederal Tax Authority
- Request to register natural persons in the practising auditors registerUAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism
- Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2023 on Concerning the Regulation of the Accounting and Auditing ProfessionUAE Legislation portal
- National Economic RegisterUAE Government Portal (u.ae)
Rates, thresholds and deadlines change. Every figure above is linked to the authority that publishes it — if the two ever disagree, the authority is right and this page is out of date. Tell us and we will fix it.
Frequently asked questions
What is a full service bookkeeper?
A full service bookkeeper handles the complete transaction cycle rather than data entry alone: sales and purchase ledgers, bank reconciliations, accounts payable and receivable, payroll processing, VAT return preparation and a monthly management pack. The work stops short of an audit opinion, which only a licensed auditor may give. The title is not regulated in the UAE, so scope is set by contract rather than by law.
Are bookkeepers cheaper than accountants?
Generally yes for the same volume of work, because bookkeeping records transactions while accounting interprets them and attaches a standard to them. The saving disappears if the records then need reworking before financial statements can be prepared, or if nobody in the chain can make the Article 20 adjustments that turn accounting income into taxable income. Compare the annual cost of the finished statements, not the hourly rate.
How much do accounting services cost in Dubai?
There is no published or regulated fee. Accounting and bookkeeping prices are set commercially and no UAE authority publishes a scale, so any single figure you find is one firm's price list. Cost is driven by transaction volume rather than revenue, the number of bank accounts and currencies, payroll, inventory valuation, VAT registration, related-party documentation, whether an audit is required, and whether prior periods need catching up.
What accounting standards apply in the UAE?
International Financial Reporting Standards. Article 4 of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 requires a taxable person to apply IFRS, and permits IFRS for SMEs where revenue does not exceed AED 50,000,000. Article 27 of the Commercial Companies Law separately requires companies to apply International Accounting Standards and Practices to their periodical and annual accounts. There is no separate UAE national GAAP for commercial companies.
Can a small UAE business use cash basis accounting?
Yes, within limits. Article 2 of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 permits financial statements on the cash basis where revenue does not exceed AED 3,000,000, or in exceptional circumstances on application to the Federal Tax Authority. Moving from cash to accrual requires an application to the Authority under Article 20 of the Corporate Tax Law, effective from the current or a future tax period.
How long must accounting records be kept in the UAE?
Several periods run at once. Accounting registers stay at the head office for at least five years under Article 26 of the Commercial Companies Law. Corporate tax records are kept seven years after the tax period under Article 56 of the Corporate Tax Law. Real estate records for VAT run fifteen years. Disputes, audits, late voluntary disclosures and pending refunds extend these further.
What is outsourced accounting in the UAE?
Outsourced accounting means engaging an external firm to run the bookkeeping, financial reporting and often the VAT filing cycle instead of employing a finance team. It is a delivery model, not a legal category, and the statutory obligations remain the company's. Before signing, confirm ledger ownership and export rights, where the records are held, the retention period, and which accounting standard is being applied.
How do I become an accountant in the UAE?
There is no single UAE licence called accountant, so anyone may hold an accounting role. Regulated work is different: signing an audit opinion requires registration as a practising auditor with the Ministry of Economy and Tourism under Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2023, and representing a taxpayer before the Federal Tax Authority requires registration on its tax agent register. Most people qualify through an international professional body first.