Outsourced accounting,
tax and audit support in the UAE
A tax regime younger than most of the companies inside it. We have been filing under it since it started.
Working in United Arab Emirates
UAE Corporate Tax arrived in 2023 and changed what a UAE entity's books have to be able to prove. Businesses that ran perfectly adequate management accounts for a decade suddenly needed IFRS-compliant financial statements, transfer-pricing documentation and a defensible position on qualifying income.
Most of the difficulty we see is not the 9% rate. It is free-zone entities assuming they are outside the regime, related-party transactions that were never documented because they never had to be, and books that were never kept to a standard the FTA will accept as evidence.
We prepare to that standard, quantify where the existing position is exposed, and file. The founder is a Chartered Accountant and CPA who has worked under IFRS throughout, not someone who learned the regime from a webinar.
Free zones are the common misunderstanding
A free-zone entity is not automatically outside Corporate Tax. It may qualify for a 0% rate on qualifying income, but only if it meets the qualifying free zone person conditions - adequate substance, qualifying activities, transfer-pricing compliance and the de minimis test on non-qualifying revenue.
Entities that assume the exemption and do not document the conditions are the exposure we most often find. We test the position, write it down, and where it does not hold, quantify what filing correctly actually costs.
What we run in UAE
Each of these is a full service line, not a UAE adaptation of something built for another market.
UAE Corporate Tax
Registration, computation and filing under Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022, including free-zone qualifying-income analysis.
Read moreVAT Compliance
VAT registration, periodic returns, refund claims, designated-zone treatment and FTA correspondence.
Read moreIFRS Bookkeeping
Monthly bookkeeping under International Financial Reporting Standards, to the evidential standard the FTA expects.
Read moreAudit Support
IFRS financial statements and audit-ready files for mainland and free-zone entities.
Read moreWPS Payroll
Wage Protection System files, end-of-service gratuity calculation and leave accrual under UAE labor law.
Read moreVirtual CFO
Reporting with Corporate Tax built into the forecast rather than applied to it after the year closes.
Read morePayables & Receivables
VAT-compliant tax invoices, supplier TRN checks, payment runs and collections for mainland and free-zone entities.
Read moreIFRS Financial Statements
Year-end IFRS statements prepared to the standard needed for Corporate Tax filing and free-zone audits.
Read moreThe UAE year, in deadlines
The recurring statutory dates we run engagements against. We publish these because the single most useful thing an outsourced team does is make sure none of them arrive as a surprise.
| When | What is due |
|---|---|
| Within 28 days of period end | VAT return and payment for the assigned tax period |
| Within 9 months of tax period end | Corporate Tax return and payment |
| Monthly | Wage Protection System salary file submission |
| On incorporation or threshold | Corporate Tax registration; VAT registration at AED 375,000 taxable supplies |
| Ongoing | Transfer-pricing documentation for related-party transactions above the disclosure thresholds |
Dates shown are the standard recurring deadlines and assume a calendar or standard financial year. They shift for weekends and public holidays, for non-standard year ends, and where an extension or a different filing frequency applies. Confirm your own dates with us before relying on them.
UAE-specific
questions.
The ones UAE firms and businesses ask before the first engagement.
We were told free-zone companies do not pay Corporate Tax. Is that wrong?
It is incomplete. A qualifying free zone person can access a 0% rate on qualifying income, but the conditions are substantive - adequate substance in the zone, qualifying activities, transfer-pricing compliance and a de minimis limit on non-qualifying revenue. Registration and filing are still required either way. We test the position and document it rather than assume it.
Do we need audited financial statements?
It depends on revenue thresholds and your licensing authority's requirements, and for some entities on electing certain tax treatments. We will tell you where you actually stand rather than defaulting you into an audit you may not need.
Can you handle FTA notices and queries?
Yes. Correspondence is handled in writing with a documented technical position. Where the original position was weak, we say so and set out the options, including voluntary disclosure, before responding.
How current is your knowledge of the regime?
The Corporate Tax regime is roughly three years old and still generating guidance. We track FTA public clarifications and cabinet decisions as part of standard practice, and where an area is genuinely unsettled we tell you that rather than presenting an opinion as a certainty.
We also work in
Fourteen free hours on a live UAE file.
Pick one client, one week. We do the work, you judge it, and you keep it whether or not you continue.