FTA and UAE e-Invoicing: How the Federal Tax Authority Runs the System

People search for "FTA UAE e-invoicing" expecting a Federal Tax Authority portal where invoices are uploaded. There isn't one, and understanding why saves a lot of wasted effort.

The Ministry of Finance owns the policy and the legal instruments. It issued Ministerial Decision No. 243 of 2025 establishing the Electronic Invoicing System, Ministerial Decision No. 244 of 2025 setting the implementation timeline, Ministerial Decision No. 64 of 2025 on service provider accreditation, and the amending decisions No. 56 and No. 66 of 2026. It publishes the accredited provider list and the Electronic Invoicing Guidelines.

The Federal Tax Authority is the tax administration. In the five-corner model it is Corner 5: the destination for reported tax data. It also hosts EmaraTax, the portal through which a business initiates onboarding to its chosen provider, and it administers the penalty regime under Cabinet Decision No. 106 of 2025 as part of its powers under Federal Decree-Law No. 28 of 2022 on Tax Procedures.

The FTA is explicit on its own e-invoicing page that the only official source of information related to the introduction of e-invoicing in the UAE is the Ministry of Finance portal. If you are looking for guidance, start at mof.gov.ae, not tax.gov.ae.

The practical rule follows from Article 6(7) of MD No. 243 of 2025: issuers and recipients discharge their obligations through an Accredited Service Provider. There is no FTA e-invoicing API you integrate with, and no FTA e-invoicing app you install. Your software talks to your provider; your provider talks to the network and to the FTA.

Two separate tests decide your position. The first is whether you are subject to the system at all; the second is when.

Subject to the system. Article 3 of MD No. 243 of 2025 applies the system to any person conducting business in the UAE, in respect of every business transaction, unless the person or the transaction is excluded under Article 4. The Ministry's Guidelines confirm that scope does not depend on VAT registration status. Business-to-business and business-to-government transactions are in; business-to-consumer transactions are out under Article 5(2) of MD No. 244 of 2025, until the Minister decides otherwise.

When. Article 5(1) of MD No. 244 of 2025 splits everyone else by Revenue, defined as gross income in the most recent accounting period per your financial statements. AED 50,000,000 is the dividing line.

A large share of UAE e-invoicing searches are brand names — SAP, Tally, ClearTax, Comarch, Cygnet, EDICOM, BDO, EY, Deloitte, ERPNext. The question underneath all of them is the same: can this product make me compliant? There is a single authoritative way to answer it.

Ministerial Decision No. 64 of 2025, as amended by Ministerial Decision No. 56 of 2026, sets the eligibility criteria and accreditation procedure for service providers. Article 5(2) of MD No. 243 of 2025 makes publishing the list the Ministry's responsibility. So the test is not what a vendor claims on its website; it is whether the entity appears on the Ministry of Finance list.

When that page was read on 21 August 2026 it carried two tables: 42 accredited providers, each with an Accreditation Number, and a second table of 10 pre-approved providers under final accreditation assessment, which carry no number. Pre-approval and final accreditation are distinct states, and Article 16 of Ministerial Decision No. 64 of 2025 governs the move from one to the other. The register moves — on 12 August 2026 the same page was headed Pre-Approved eInvoicing Service Providers and ran a single list of 42 — so treat any count, including this one, as a reading on a date and check the Ministry's page before you act on it.

Several of the most-searched names did appear on that list at that date, registered as UAE entities — for example Defmacro Software DMCC (ClearTax), Comarch Middle East FZ LLC, Cygnet Digital IT Solutions L.L.C, EDICOM Middle East Services, SAP Middle East & North Africa LLC, Tally Software Solutions FZCO, BDO Digital Solutions FZ-LLC, Deloitte & Touche - M E, EY Consulting LLC and Pagero Gulf FZ-LLC. That is an observation about the register on one date, not a recommendation, a ranking, or a statement that any of them suits your business. Some are software vendors, some are advisory firms, and they are not interchangeable.

ERPNext did not appear on the list when checked. An open-source ERP is not disqualified from being part of your stack, but it cannot itself be the accredited provider unless the entity behind your deployment is on the register — so the connection would have to be made through a listed provider.

The UAE has adopted the OpenPeppol framework and a national specification the Ministry calls PINT AE — the UAE customisation of the Peppol International model for electronic invoices and credit notes. Documents travel as XML.

Your integration is with your accredited provider, not with the government. In the Ministry's model, you send invoice data to your provider in a format you and the provider agree — it does not have to be XML at your end. The provider validates it, converts it to the UAE standard XML if needed, transmits it to the buyer's provider over the Peppol network, and reports the tax data to the FTA in parallel. Confirmations return along the same path.

Each participant carries a Peppol Electronic Address Scheme identifier. For the UAE that is 0235 followed by the 10-digit Tax Identification Number, which is the first ten digits of the 15-digit TRN. Your provider obtains this identifier for you during onboarding.

Timing is fixed by Article 6(5) of MD No. 243 of 2025: the electronic invoice or credit note must be issued and transmitted within 14 days of the date of the business transaction — the earlier of the transaction occurring and payment being received. Article 6(4) applies the shorter VAT Law timeline instead where the issuer is VAT registered. Article 12 requires notification of any system failure to the FTA within 2 business days, by both issuer and recipient.

One detail from the Guidelines that catches people out: the specification supports Arabic alongside English, so systems must be able to carry both where Arabic reporting is required.

Cabinet Decision No. 106 of 2025, issued 9 October 2025 and effective 15 October 2025, sets the administrative penalties. It applies only to persons legally required to use the system — Article 2(2) exempts anyone participating voluntarily, which is one of the strongest arguments for onboarding early.

Is this an Abu Dhabi system or a Dubai system? Neither. It is federal. Ministerial Decisions No. 243 and No. 244 of 2025 apply across all seven emirates on identical terms, and there is no separate Abu Dhabi e-invoicing mandate or Dubai e-invoicing mandate. An Abu Dhabi business and a Dubai business with the same revenue have the same dates.

Free zones. Establishment in a free zone is not an exclusion. Free zone entities fall into the same revenue-based phases. The Guidelines add a data requirement: where a transaction involves a free zone party, the electronic invoice needs the beneficiary details in addition to the customer — the party that actually uses, consumes or owns what is supplied, which is often but not always the same legal entity as the customer.

B2C. Business-to-consumer transactions are outside the system under Article 5(2) of MD No. 244 of 2025, and a person engaged exclusively in B2C is not subject to it, until such time determined by a decision issued by the Minister. That wording is a deferral, not a permanent exemption.

VAT groups. Intra-group transactions are in scope — the Guidelines are explicit that they are not excluded merely for being intra-group — but a temporary grace period applies to transactions between members of the same VAT group for 24 months from 1 January 2027. It affects timing only.

Non-residents. Where a person without a place of residence in the UAE is obliged to issue UAE tax invoices under the VAT Decree-Law, those tax invoices must be issued as electronic invoices.

Holding companies. A company whose revenue is purely passive and which has no business transactions is out of scope — but the moment it recharges management or operational costs to third or related parties, those recharges are business transactions and it is back in.

There is no single downloadable "UAE e-invoicing PDF" containing the whole regime, which is why so many secondary summaries disagree with each other. The framework is five legal instruments plus one guidance document, and each is published separately.

The Ministry of Finance financial legislation index is the canonical place to check whether anything has been issued since. Given that the phasing has already been amended once, and that the Ministry's own guidance lagged that amendment by weeks, a habit of checking the index directly is worth more than any summary — including this page.

On training: neither the Ministry nor the FTA publishes an official e-invoicing certification course. Courses advertised online are commercial offerings from firms and training providers. The Guidelines themselves, read alongside the decisions, are the primary study material, and they include worked XML examples and a readiness checklist.