IFRS in the UAE: Which Standards Apply, Who Has to Use Them, and Where Tax Law Overrides Them

Nothing in UAE law says "IFRS" only once. Two separate instruments impose it, they were written twenty years apart, and they do not use the same language — which is why the answer to is IFRS applicable in the UAE looks different depending on which page you land on.

Company law says it generically. Article 27(3) of Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 on Commercial Companies 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. Article 239 repeats the same wording for public joint stock companies. Neither article names a standard-setter, a standard number or a version.

Tax law names it exactly. Article 4(1) of Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 provides that, for the purposes of Article 20(1) of the Corporate Tax Law, a taxable person shall apply the International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS"). Article 4(2) is the only alternative: a taxable person deriving revenue that does not exceed AED 50,000,000 may apply IFRS for SMEs instead. That is the whole of the article — the decision runs to five articles and names no other framework.

The practical effect is that a UAE company has two independent reasons to be on IFRS, one owed to the Ministry of Economy and Tourism and the licensing authority, one owed to the Federal Tax Authority. The corporate tax route is the one with a precise standard and a revenue test attached, so it is the one that decides arguments.

A large share of the demand on this topic is a bare standard number: IFRS 15 UAE, IFRS 16 UAE, IFRS 9 UAE. The honest scope of what a UAE advisory page can tell you about those is narrower than most sites pretend.

The standards are the copyright of the IFRS Foundation and they are not published by any UAE authority. Access runs through the IFRS Accounting Standards Navigator, which offers free access — "a basic level of access to all registered users of IFRS.org" — and premium access through the IFRS Digital Subscription, described on the Foundation's own page as offering "enhanced content and exclusive features". Because the text sits behind registration and subscription, this page does not paraphrase what any individual standard requires. Summarising a recognition or measurement rule from memory is how wrong technical advice gets published, and a wrong lease or revenue conclusion feeds straight into a corporate tax return.

What can be stated, because it is published free on the Foundation's own page for each standard, is the exact title and the effective date. Those two facts answer the question the search is usually really asking: does this apply to me yet in the UAE?

This is the single most useful thing on this page, and it is the point most IFRS explainers aimed at the UAE miss entirely: a number that is right under IFRS is not automatically the tax number.

Article 20(7) of Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 settles the conflict rule in one line — where the provisions of the Decree-Law and the applicable accounting standards conflict, the Decree-Law prevails to that extent. The accounts stay as the standard requires. The adjustment is made on top of them, in the computation.

For two years that was an abstract rule with no headline example. It now has one. Ministerial Decision No. 173 of 2025 on Depreciation Adjustments for Investment Properties held at Fair Value was issued on 23 June 2025 and applies to tax periods starting on or after 1 January 2025. It exists because a business that holds investment property at fair value takes no depreciation charge in its accounts, while a business that holds identical property at cost does — so the tax law hands the fair-value holder an elective deduction that has no counterpart anywhere in its financial statements.

The mechanics, read in the decision itself: a taxable person that prepares statements on an accrual basis and has elected the realisation basis under Article 20(3) of the Corporate Tax Law may make an irrevocable election producing a depreciation deduction of the lower of 4% of the original cost for each 12-month tax period (prorated for a shorter or longer period, or where the property is held for part of it) and the tax written down value at the start of the period. Original cost takes its meaning from International Accounting Standard No. 40, subject to the arm's length principle in Article 34; land is excluded, as are IAS 40's own exclusions.

Searches for IFRS compliance UAE usually assume there is a regulator checking IFRS the way the Federal Tax Authority checks a VAT return. There is not, and knowing that changes where a business should spend its effort.

The UAE has no national standard-setter. The IFRS Foundation's jurisdiction profile records that the national professional body for accountants and auditors does not set accounting standards and can only recommend them to the legislative authorities. No UAE authority issues interpretations of IFRS, and there is no domestic body to apply to for a ruling on how a standard should be read.

So compliance is tested in three other places instead.

Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 offers two relaxations, and both are tested on revenue alone — not on assets, headcount, company form or free zone status.

IFRS for SMEs, at revenue up to AED 50,000,000 (Article 4(2)). It is a permission, not a requirement, and it is a different standard rather than a lighter presentation of the same one: recognition and measurement change with it, so the comparatives and the accounting policy note change too. Moving between the two is a decision taken before the year end, not a formatting choice made at signing. The IFRS Foundation's UAE profile confirms the shape of the option — all entities meeting the SME definition are permitted to use it, and those that do not use it must use full IFRS, because there is no third framework to fall back on.

The cash basis, at revenue up to AED 3,000,000 (Article 2), or in exceptional circumstances on an application submitted to the Federal Tax Authority. This one is not an accounting standard at all. The decision defines it as an accounting method under which income and expenditure are recognised when cash payments are received and paid, and nothing makes it a default — a business under the threshold that already runs accruals may carry on, and usually should if it invoices on credit terms. Moving from cash to accrual is a formal application under Article 20(6) of the Corporate Tax Law, effective from the start of the tax period in which it is made or from a later one.

IFRS is the general rule; several populations sit on top of it or beside it, and this is where the honest answer to which standards are used in the UAE stops being one word.

Listed companies answer to their market's listing rules as well as to company law. The IFRS Foundation's UAE jurisdiction profile records that the listing rules of NASDAQ Dubai require IFRS, that the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange requires IFRS, that the Dubai Financial Market rules do not specify a framework though IFRS is permitted and used by most listed companies, and that the Dubai Financial Services Authority requires IFRS "or other standards acceptable to the DFSA".

Islamic financial institutions. The same profile records that some financial institutions use the Financial Accounting Standards issued by the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), and that in December 2012 the DFSA prohibited Islamic financial institutions in its jurisdiction from using AAOIFI, giving firms that had applied those standards two years to move to IFRS.

Government entities. Some apply International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). This is the same distinction as the Ministry of Finance's federal accrual accounting manual: public-sector reporting is a separate system, and neither it nor IPSAS is a framework a commercial company may prepare statutory accounts under.

Banks and insurers carry a second regulator. The profile notes that in rare cases where the central bank imposes additional loan-loss provisioning, the reference to IFRS in the auditor's opinion is modified accordingly.

Roughly a fifth of the searches this page owns are about qualifications: IFRS certification UAE, IFRS diploma in UAE, IFRS jobs in UAE. The single most useful fact is a negative one.

No UAE authority awards, accredits or requires an IFRS certification. There is no federal IFRS certificate, no register of IFRS-certified practitioners, and no instrument that conditions any UAE licence or registration on holding an IFRS-specific qualification. Anyone selling a course as "government-approved" or "FTA-accredited" is describing something that does not exist — the Federal Tax Authority committed in Article 3(1) of FTA Decision No. 15 of 2023 to publish a list of accredited courses and providers, and has not published one.

What the State does regulate is the profession, not the standard:

• The professional licence. Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2023 governs the accounting and auditing profession, and Article 8(2) makes Chartered Accountant a protected designation that may not be used without a licence from the Ministry.
• The fellowship route. Ministerial Resolution No. (111-2) of 2022 sets the UAE fellowship programme — three exams of 70 questions each at a 60% pass mark, six sessions a year, all three to be passed within two years of the first. Holders of fellowships from six named bodies are exempt from the first and second exams only, never from the third, which covers UAE tax and regulation. Note that Ministerial Resolution No. 805 of 2018, still cited across the web as the governing instrument, was repealed by Article 2 of that resolution.

The best-known IFRS-specific qualification is ACCA's Diploma in International Financial Reporting (DipIFR), described on ACCA's own site as a qualification for finance professionals who are not already knowledgeable about the detail of IFRS. It is awarded by a UK professional body. It is not a UAE credential, it is not required by any UAE instrument, and holding it confers no status under UAE law.

The query assumes a UAE-published document containing the standards. There is no such document.

What the UAE publishes is the applicability rule, not the standards: Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 is a short PDF on the Ministry of Finance site, and it is worth downloading — five articles, two thresholds, and the sentence that names IFRS. The corporate tax law it implements is published the same way.

The standards themselves come from the IFRS Foundation. The IFRS Accounting Standards Navigator houses all the standards and related material, with free access described as "a basic level of access to all registered users of IFRS.org" and enhanced content sold through the IFRS Digital Subscription. Registration is required even for the free tier. On licensing, the Foundation's own wording is that its standards "can be used free of charge for non-commercial purposes, such as preparing corporate disclosures", and that any other use, including integration into products and services, requires a licence from the Foundation.

In Arabic, the Foundation's UAE profile records that it coordinates the publication of an annual bound volume of IFRS standards in Arabic, following its official translation process. That matters more in the UAE than it looks: records and documents may have to be produced to the Authority in Arabic on request, and the penalty for failing to do so is published.

We do not host, mirror or reproduce standard text on this site, and a page that offers you an "IFRS UAE PDF" as a free download is either giving you somebody's summary or infringing the Foundation's licence.