UAE Tax, Audit and Accounting Services

This is a reference site for UAE tax, audit and accounting. Every rate, threshold, deadline and penalty on it carries a link to the authority or the instrument that publishes it, and where a figure cannot be sourced we say so on the page rather than estimate it.

What it is not is evidence of anyone's authorisation to act for you. As at 17 August 2026 this site publishes no trade licence number, no Federal Tax Authority tax agent registration, no audit licence, no named reviewer with a stated credential, no office address and no telephone number — because none of those has been verified for publication. When they exist, they will appear here with the number attached, so that you can check them against the register rather than take our word for it. Until then, read the tax content and ignore any impression of standing.

That has three practical consequences, and they run through everything below. Nobody here is described as an FTA registered tax agent: only a person listed in the Register of Tax Agents may be dealt with by the Authority on another person's behalf, and Article 12(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 28 of 2022 requires that person to hold a licence from the competent local authority as well. None of our own fees, fee ranges, turnaround promises, client names, case studies or testimonials appears anywhere on this site — the only amounts published are the ones an authority publishes itself, attributed to it. And every page carries a review status of draft until a person with a UAE tax credential has read it and signed it off.

Most UAE advisory sites use “FTA approved” as a decoration. There is no such status for a consultancy. What exists is four narrow registers, each authorising one thing, each kept by a different body, and each searchable by you in a couple of minutes.

Being listed is not free and does not last. A natural person tax agent pays AED 3,000 for every three years and a juridical person AED 10,000 for each year under Cabinet Decision No. 65 of 2020 as amended; a listing runs three years for a natural person and one year for a juridical person under Article 13(8) of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023. Natural person agents must complete 20 hours of structured professional development a year, or 30 where they are listed for both corporate tax and indirect taxes, under Article 2 of FTA Decision No. 15 of 2023. FTA Decision No. 1 of 2024 runs a black points system, and 200 points deregisters a natural person. So a firm that was “FTA registered” in 2023 may simply have lapsed.

The fourth register catches people out in a different way. The FTA does accredit tax accounting software, and its list showed 42 entries when we read it on 17 August 2026 — but each entry carries its own expiry date, several of which fall inside 2026, while the FTA landing page pointing at that list was itself last updated in November 2021. Search the list for your own product rather than trusting a vendor's badge.

Corporate tax applies to tax periods commencing on or after 1 June 2023 under Article 69 of Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022, at 0% on taxable income up to AED 375,000 and 9% above it. Registration has no revenue threshold at all: the threshold decides what you pay, not whether you appear on the register.

The engagement names that firms sell around this — impact assessment, health check, compliance outsourcing, advisory retainer — are not statutory products, so ask what is actually being done. An impact assessment should end with a computation: your accounting profit adjusted for the exemptions and disallowances that apply to your facts, and a number you can provision for. A health check should re-perform a filed return against the FTA's own guides and tell you which positions would not survive an audit. Compliance outsourcing should name the deadlines it owns and who signs. Anything that ends in a slide deck of general principles has answered a question you did not have.

Two mechanical points that get missed. Corporate tax is settled in a fixed order under Article 44, replaced by Federal Decree-Law No. 28 of 2025: withholding tax credit first, then foreign tax credit, then any credits or incentives specified by Cabinet decision, then cash under Article 48. And the new Article 49 bis lets a taxable person claim unused amounts of those credits in the cases and periods the Cabinet prescribes. Both are recent enough that most published guidance predates them.

A free zone company is not exempt. Under Article 18 of the Corporate Tax Law it can be a Qualifying Free Zone Person, which means 0% on Qualifying Income and 9% on everything else — so the whole exercise is an income-by-income split, not a status you hold. Qualifying Income is determined by Cabinet Decision No. 100 of 2023, and the list of Qualifying Activities and Excluded Activities now sits in Ministerial Decision No. 229 of 2025.

That last point is where most free zone advice is out of date. Ministerial Decision No. 265 of 2023 was the activities decision for two years and is repealed, with the replacement taking effect retroactively to 1 June 2023. If a memo about your zone is dated 2023 and cites 265, it is reading dead law, and the conclusion may be right for the wrong reason or simply wrong.

The second thing to know before an assessment starts: a Qualifying Free Zone Person needs audited financial statements at any level of revenue under Article 2(1)(b) of Ministerial Decision No. 84 of 2025, for tax periods commencing on or after 1 January 2025. A zero-revenue holding entity in a free zone that intends to claim 0% still needs an audit. Anyone selling a qualifying-income assessment without asking who audits you has not finished the question.

What we will not do is read your trade licence and pronounce on your status. The activity descriptions on a licence are drafted for licensing, not for Article 18, and the substance test looks at where the work is actually performed.

Four reliefs sit close together in the Corporate Tax Law and get confused constantly. Tax loss relief is Article 37, transfer of losses between group companies is Article 38, the carry-forward limitation is Article 39, and the tax group itself is Article 40, with formation and cessation in Article 41 and the group's taxable income in Article 42. Summaries routinely misnumber these; if a proposal cites the wrong article for the relief it is selling, that tells you something.

Transfer pricing is not a large-group-only exercise. The arm's length standard in Article 34 applies to every related party transaction with no minimum size, and related party status turns on 50% ownership or control under Article 35. What is threshold-driven is the documentation: a master file and local file are required under Ministerial Decision No. 97 of 2023 where the taxable person has revenue of AED 200,000,000 or more in the tax period, or belongs to a multinational group with consolidated revenue of AED 3,150,000,000 or more. Disclosure in the return itself starts lower — aggregate related party transactions above AED 40 million and connected person amounts above AED 500,000, per the FTA's Tax Returns guide.

On withholding tax, the answer is shorter than the service name suggests. Article 45, replaced by Federal Decree-Law No. 40 of 2024, taxes a non-resident's State Sourced Income at 0% by way of withholding tax unless the Cabinet decides otherwise. There is no withholding tax registration and no withholding tax return to file at 0%. What is worth advice is whether income is attributable to a permanent establishment under Article 14 instead, because that answer is not 0%.

VAT registration is mandatory once taxable supplies and imports exceed AED 375,000, voluntary from AED 187,500, and the application is due within 30 days of becoming liable under Article 7 of Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017. The standard tax period is three calendar months under Article 62(1), and the VAT 201 return and the payment are both due on the 28th day after the period ends under Article 64(1).

The penalty schedule changed and most published guidance has not caught up. Cabinet Decision No. 129 of 2025 rewrote the VAT and excise penalties with effect from 14 April 2026: late payment is now 14% per annum applied monthly on the unsettled payable tax, not the old 2% plus 4% monthly capped at 300%. Late filing is AED 1,000, rising to AED 2,000 for a repeat within 24 months, and an incorrect return is AED 500 unless corrected before the filing deadline. The FTA can audit five years back from the end of the tax period.

The VAT services worth buying are the ones nobody sells by name: reconciling the return to the general ledger before it is filed, testing which input tax is actually recoverable, and getting the apportionment method right in a partly exempt business, because that method drives every subsequent period. A VAT group registration is worth modelling before it is applied for — it removes VAT on intra-group supplies but makes every member jointly liable.

Excise tax has been in force since 1 October 2017, and the goods and rates were rewritten by Cabinet Decision No. 197 of 2025 with effect from 1 January 2026. Five categories are in scope: tobacco and tobacco products, liquids used in electronic smoking devices, electronic smoking devices and tools, energy drinks, and sweetened drinks. Carbonated drinks came out. The first four are taxed at 100% of the excise price under Article 10(1); sweetened drinks moved to a volumetric model of AED 0.79 or AED 1.09 per litre by sugar content, or nil below 5g per 100ml, and a product with no laboratory report is taxed at the highest category until one is produced. Alcohol is expressly outside excise tax under Article 8.

There is no registration threshold. Under Articles 2 and 5 of Federal Decree-Law No. 7 of 2017 the obligation attaches to the activity — producing, importing, releasing from a designated zone, or stockpiling — and it attaches before the activity starts. Returns are monthly, due with the payment by the 15th of the following month.

One search we cannot honestly answer: there is a recurring query about an FTA raid on excise goods in clothing. The FTA does publish enforcement results in its media centre, including joint seizures with police of non-compliant excise goods, but we could not verify any campaign matching that description as at 17 August 2026, and clothing is not an excise good under Cabinet Decision No. 197 of 2025. If you are importing garments, excise registration is not your obligation; customs duty, HS classification and valuation are.

The UAE e-invoicing system is legislated by the Ministry of Finance and administered and penalised by the Federal Tax Authority. It runs on a five-corner model: you send invoice data to your Accredited Service Provider, which converts it to PINT AE in XML, transmits it over the OpenPeppol network to the buyer's provider, and reports the tax data to the FTA. You never connect to the FTA yourself.

That answers three of the questions people search for. There is no taxpayer-facing FTA e-invoicing API to build against: what the Ministry publishes is the Electronic Invoicing Guidelines version 1.1 of 1 June 2026, a mandatory-fields document dated 23 February 2026, and a note on considerations for selecting a provider. Field-level semantics come from the PINT AE specification, and the integration documentation you actually code against belongs to your provider — ask for it before you sign. And an ERP is not a service provider: whether you run Business Central, Zoho Books, Tally, Xero or Odoo, the question is which accredited provider it connects through.

On who is approved, be precise, because the Ministry's own page is not. When we read it on 17 August 2026 it carried three tables: an unlabelled list of 42 companies with no accreditation numbers, the list published under Article 16 of Ministerial Decision No. 64 of 2025 naming 39 providers with accreditation numbers, and a third list of 11 providers pre-approved and undergoing final assessment, which included Zoho Software Trading LLC. Three companies appear in the first table but not in the numbered accredited list, and one entity appears as an FZCO in one table and a DMCC in the other. Rely on the numbered list, ask for the accreditation number, and check it on the day you sign.

Four engagements get sold under the word audit and only one of them produces an audit opinion. A statutory audit gives an opinion on financial statements. A review engagement gives limited assurance in negative form and is a materially cheaper, materially weaker product. Agreed-upon procedures produce findings on specified procedures with no opinion at all. A forensic investigation is an evidence exercise aimed at a dispute or a suspected fraud, and its output is written to be used by lawyers. If a proposal does not say which of the four you are buying, that is the first question.

The obligations are separate from the tax rules. Article 27(1) of Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 requires every limited liability company and joint stock company to have its accounts audited yearly, and Article 245(2) caps an auditor of a public joint stock company at six consecutive financial years. Free zones impose their own filing requirement on their licensees. Separately, Ministerial Decision No. 84 of 2025 makes audited financial statements a corporate tax requirement above AED 50,000,000 of revenue and for every Qualifying Free Zone Person at any revenue.

We cannot sign an audit report and do not hold an audit licence. Auditing is a licensed activity regulated federally — Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2023 replaced Federal Law No. 12 of 2014, which is repealed and still widely cited — and individual auditors are entered in the Ministry of Economy and Tourism's practising auditors register. If a firm offers you an audit, the name that will appear on the report should be findable in that register before you engage it. The same discipline applies to ICV: the certificate is issued by a certifying body appointed under the programme, so establish whether the firm in front of you is that body or is preparing your file for one.

There is no UAE GAAP. Ministerial Decision No. 114 of 2023 names IFRS as the standard for corporate tax purposes, allows IFRS for SMEs where revenue does not exceed AED 50,000,000 under Article 4, and permits the cash basis only where revenue does not exceed AED 3,000,000, or exceptionally with FTA approval, under Article 2. That single decision settles most of what IFRS advisory in the UAE actually consists of: choosing the right framework for your revenue band, and converting cleanly when you cross a line.

Record retention is three clocks, not one, and quoting seven years by reflex is how businesses destroy documents they still need. Article 26(2) of the Commercial Companies Law requires accounting registers to be kept at the head office for at least five years from the end of the financial year. Article 56 of the Corporate Tax Law requires records for seven years after the end of the tax period. Article 3 of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 sets five years as a base with seven for real estate records, extended by four years where a dispute or audit is live, by one for a voluntary disclosure in the fifth year, and by two where a refund application is pending, a clause added by Cabinet Decision No. 17 of 2026. The VAT Executive Regulation sets 15 years for real estate records.

Two practical notes. Reporting is in UAE dirhams, converted at the Central Bank rate under Article 43 of the Corporate Tax Law. And a new company's first financial year must be not less than six and not more than 18 months under Article 28(1) of the Commercial Companies Law, which is the choice that fixes your first tax period and every deadline after it. Backlog or catch-up bookkeeping is therefore always the first engagement, not an optional tidy-up: nothing downstream can be filed correctly from records that do not close.

No income tax is deducted from a UAE salary, for any nationality, so UAE payroll compliance is about the labour law and the Wage Protection System rather than withholding. End-of-service gratuity accrues at 21 days' basic wage for each of the first five years of service and 30 days for each year beyond five, under Article 51(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, with one year of continuous service as the minimum qualification. Article 43(1) sets notice at not less than 30 and not more than 90 days, and Article 53 requires final entitlements to be paid within 14 days of the end of the contract.

Two points deserve care. The two-year ceiling in Article 51(6) is expressed as “wage”, which Article 1 defines as basic pay plus allowances, while the accrual in Article 51(2) is on basic wage — we have found no MoHRE clarification resolving that, so a calculation should state which reading it uses rather than quietly pick one. And the frequently repeated rule reducing gratuity to one third or two thirds on resignation is dead law: it came from Federal Law No. 8 of 1980, abrogated by Article 73 of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021. It is still the dominant claim in search results.

On the Wage Protection System, the instrument to work from is Ministerial Resolution No. 340 of 2026, which supersedes the resolutions from 2022 that most third-party pages still quote. As summarised by the UAE Government Portal, an establishment is expected to transfer at least 85% of total wages due, on time, through the system. Separately, the alternative end-of-service savings scheme runs on employer contributions of 5.83% of monthly basic salary under five years' service and 8.33% above, per Cabinet Resolution No. 96 of 2023 and Ministerial Resolution No. 668 of 2023.

Beneficial ownership filings are governed by Cabinet Decision No. 109 of 2023; Cabinet Decision No. 58 of 2020 is abrogated by its Article 22. The threshold is 25% of capital or 25% of voting rights, and a change must reach the register within 15 days of the company becoming aware of it. Penalties moved to Cabinet Decision No. 132 of 2023. This is a registrar obligation, not a tax one, and it is administered through the licensing authority rather than the FTA.

The anti-money laundering framework was replaced wholesale. Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025 repealed Federal Decree-Law No. 20 of 2018 by its Article 41(1), and Cabinet Decision No. 134 of 2025 repealed Cabinet Decision No. 10 of 2019. Subordinate instruments survive until superseded, under Article 41(3). Administrative fines run from AED 10,000 to AED 5,000,000 per violation under Article 17(1)(b). For a designated non-financial business or profession — real estate brokers, dealers in precious metals and stones, corporate service providers, auditors and accountants — the practical work is goAML registration, a written AML programme, customer due diligence, sanctions screening and a named compliance officer who can actually be reached.

And one thing that is not live. Economic Substance Regulations reporting was cancelled for financial years ending after 31 December 2022 by Cabinet Decision No. 98 of 2024. Obligations for earlier years, and penalties already imposed, still stand. Both the Ministry of Finance and the FTA still describe ESR in the present tense on pages updated in 2026, and a great many advisory firms still sell an annual ESR filing. If you are being invoiced for an ESR notification for a 2024 or 2025 financial year, ask which instrument requires it.

Every rung has a 40-business-day clock and almost every rung has a precondition that makes it impossible to skip. Reading the ladder before an assessment arrives is worth more than any representation bought afterwards, because most disputes are lost on a deadline rather than on the merits. Where the amount at stake is a penalty rather than tax, there is a parallel route: Article 50 of Federal Decree-Law No. 28 of 2022 empowers an FTA committee to allow payment by instalments or to waive or refund administrative penalties, on the controls in Cabinet Decision No. 105 of 2021. The FTA's service card for instalment, waiver and refund requests states no fee and a decision within 110 business days.

Two numbers change the arithmetic of whether to fight. No administrative penalty may exceed two times the tax the penalty assessment relates to, under Article 24(4). And correcting an error yourself before the FTA finds it is materially cheaper: a voluntary disclosure before an audit is notified carries 1% of the tax difference per month, against 15% plus 1% per month where the Authority finds the error first.

Formation choices are made under the Commercial Companies Law, and Article 9 of Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 lists exactly five company forms; anything outside them is void. Note that a sole establishment and a civil company are not among the five — they exist under other regimes, which is why generic “company types in the UAE” lists tend to be wrong. Free zone formation follows the zone's own rules: Dubai Design District, d3, is part of the TECOM group of zones, and the only fee source we will point you to is that zone's own current schedule of charges. Mainland formation runs through the emirate's economic department, and a free zone entity serving the mainland from Dubai needs the branch licence or temporary permit priced in Article 12 of Executive Council Resolution No. 11 of 2025.

An establishment card is an immigration matter, not a tax one: it is the company's file with the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security, and it is what allows the entity to sponsor employees. Fees are published by that authority and by GDRFA, and are the only figures worth relying on.

Here is what we will not publish, and none of these absences is an oversight. No setup package prices or fee ranges of any kind. No claimed licence fee for any emirate: the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism prices per activity through its own calculator, and the widely repeated “AED 200 a month” late fine traces to item 6 of Schedule 2 to Executive Council Resolution No. 13 of 2011, which is legislative history rather than a current DET charge. No promise about a corporate bank account, because no adviser controls a bank's compliance decision. And no Golden Visa promise: the categories published by the UAE Government Portal are investors, entrepreneurs, specialised talents, outstanding students and graduates, humanitarian pioneers and frontline heroes, and none of them names an accountancy qualification. An ACCA member may qualify on other facts, such as an executive subcategory, but the decision belongs to the immigration authority and anyone selling certainty is selling something they do not have.

The primary training material is free. The FTA publishes corporate tax, VAT and excise guides, public clarifications and e-learning modules, and the Ministry of Finance publishes the legislation itself. Any paid course is a convenience layered on top of those, and it should be judged on how current it is rather than on a certificate at the end. We do not sell one.

Currency is the whole issue for anyone searching for basic-to-advanced VAT training. Three things moved under the feet of every 2025 course deck: the VAT Law was amended with effect from 1 January 2026 by Federal Decree-Law No. 16 of 2025; the VAT and excise penalty schedule was rewritten by Cabinet Decision No. 129 of 2025 with effect from 14 April 2026, replacing the old 2% plus 4% monthly late payment penalty with 14% per annum; and e-invoicing obligations arrived with a phased timeline running from 2026 into 2027. A syllabus that still teaches the old penalty arithmetic is teaching a wrong number, not an out-of-date one.

For anyone preparing for tax agent registration, note a live contradiction rather than a syllabus. Article 12(1)(e) of Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2023 requires communication skills in Arabic or English; the FTA's own “how to become a tax agent” page requires both, and lists a medical fitness certificate that appears nowhere in that article. Prepare against the regulation, and expect the page to be applied.