Audit Services in Dubai and the UAE

There is no single audit rule for every UAE business. The requirement comes from your legal form, your licensing authority, your corporate tax position, or a combination of them. The table sets out the main triggers.

Ministerial Decision 84/2025 applies to tax periods starting on or after 1 January 2025; periods that began earlier still follow Ministerial Decision 82/2023. For a Qualifying Free Zone Person, the audited figures also support the de minimis test: non-qualifying revenue must not exceed 5% of total revenue or AED 5 million, whichever is lower (Cabinet Decision 100/2023). Our guide to corporate tax exemptions covers the wider free zone rules.

VAT registration on its own does not create an audit requirement. A VAT-registered company needs an audit only if one of the triggers above applies. Lenders, investors and parent companies can also make an audit a condition of a contract, whatever the law requires.

DMCC audit requirements

Under Article 73.6 of the DMCCA Company Regulations (10 October 2024), a DMCC company’s accounts must be approved by the directors, audited by an auditor approved by DMCCA and laid before a General Meeting within six months of the financial year end. Article 73.7 then requires a copy of the accounts and the auditor’s report to be filed with the Registrar within five business days of that meeting. DMCC’s filing guideline asks for the audited statements and an auditor-signed summary sheet to be uploaded on the Member Portal. Branches that already have a group auditor are exempt from the approved-auditor rule.

IFZA audit for licence renewal

From 30 September 2025, every IFZA licensee, whether an FZCO or a branch, must submit financial statements at each licence renewal. Companies that renewed before that date submit at their next renewal. The statements cover the most recently completed financial year. A company may file simplified statements on IFZA’s own template only if its turnover was AED 3 million or less and it had no more than nine employees at any point in the year; every other company files full audited statements. IFZA does not keep an approved-auditor list, so any registered UAE auditor can carry out the audit, and statements already audited for the Federal Tax Authority are accepted. A manager, director or shareholder e-signs the submission.

An external audit is an independent examination of your financial statements. The auditor tests the transactions and balances behind the figures, reviews how they have been measured and presented, and gives an opinion on whether the statements present a true and fair view under the applicable framework. It is not the same as a tax audit by the Federal Tax Authority, where the authority reviews your filings (see how to prepare for a VAT audit), or internal audit services, which test controls for management.

The opinion takes one of four forms: unmodified (a clean opinion), qualified, adverse, or a disclaimer where the auditor could not obtain enough evidence. A qualified opinion can result from missing records, unreconciled balances or stock that was never counted, which is why we raise these issues at planning rather than at the end. Alongside the statements you receive a management letter listing the control weaknesses and accounting issues we found, with practical fixes.

For corporate tax purposes, IFRS is the default framework. A business with revenue of AED 50 million or less may use IFRS for SMEs, and one with revenue of AED 3 million or less may use the cash basis (Ministerial Decision 114/2023). Mainland companies must also apply international accounting standards in their annual accounts under the Commercial Companies Law. We confirm the framework before fieldwork begins, because changing it later means restating the comparative figures.

Having these ready before fieldwork starts is what keeps an audit on schedule. We send a tailored list at planning; this is the usual core.

• Trade licence, memorandum and articles of association, and the share register, with any changes during the year
• Trial balance, general ledger and chart of accounts for the year
• Bank statements for every account, with year-end bank reconciliations
• Aged receivables and payables listings at the year end
• Fixed asset register, with invoices for additions and records of disposals
• Stock count sheets and valuation workings, if you hold inventory
• Sales and purchase invoices, and major contracts, leases and loan agreements
• Payroll records, the employee list and end-of-service benefit calculations
• Balances and transactions with shareholders, directors and group companies
• Prior-year audited financial statements, if the company has been audited before
• VAT returns, corporate tax registration details and any corporate tax returns filed

Keep the audited statements and the records behind them together. Corporate tax law requires records to be kept for seven years after the end of the tax period they relate to (Article 56, Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022), and failing to keep them is penalised separately.

Where Ministerial Decision 84/2025 applies, the audit should be finished before you file your corporate tax return, because the return starts from the accounting profit in the financial statements. For a company with a 31 December year end, the 2026 accounts therefore need to be audited well before the return falls due at the end of September 2027.

A late corporate tax return costs AED 500 a month for the first 12 months and AED 1,000 a month after that, and unpaid tax attracts a late-payment penalty of 14% a year, charged monthly. Failing to keep the required records costs AED 10,000, or AED 20,000 for a repeat within 24 months (Cabinet Decision 75/2023). On the free zone side, IFZA asks for the financial statements as part of each renewal, so a missing audit holds up the renewal, and a lapsed licence quickly affects visas, banking and contracts. Our article on missing your audit deadline sets out how to recover.

Rankings and lists of top firms say little about whether a firm suits your company. These checks tell you more:

• Licence to practise. Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2023 regulates the accounting and auditing profession, and the Ministry of Economy and Tourism grants the professional licence to practise. Ask any firm, including us, for the licence details of the auditor who will sign your report.
• Zone approval. If you are in DMCC or another zone with an approved-auditor list, check that the signing auditor is on it before you engage any firm, including us.
• Independence. If the firm also keeps your books or advises on your tax, ask how it keeps the audit objective.
• Fee. A fixed fee in writing that states what is included and what would change it.
• Timetable. Dates for fieldwork, draft and final statements, set against your real deadline.
• Sector knowledge. Trading with stock, real estate, contracting and holding structures each raise different audit questions.
• Sample output. An anonymised report and management letter, so you know what you will receive.

Buying a business or bringing in an investor calls for a different engagement. Financial due diligence examines the risks in a specific deal, while an audit reports on a year that has closed. For background, read what due diligence gives investors and the difference between internal and external audit.

We quote a fixed fee for each audit after reviewing your legal form, revenue, number of bank accounts, transaction volume, stock, group structure and the state of your records. The fee covers the audited financial statements, the management letter and submission support. It changes only if the scope changes, and we agree any change with you in writing first.

A company with reconciled books and a simple structure needs less audit work than one with a backlog or complex intercompany balances. Bringing the ledgers up to date before fieldwork keeps the audit fee to the audit itself. Send us your trade licence and latest trial balance through our contact page and we will come back with a fixed quote.