Corporate Tax Services in Dubai

We prepare, review and file UAE corporate tax returns for businesses in Dubai, and we handle everything that sits behind the return: the tax computation, the Small Business Relief election, free-zone status, corrections and follow-up with the Federal Tax Authority.

The short answer: your corporate tax return must be filed, and the tax paid, no later than 9 months after the end of your tax period (Article 53, Federal Decree-Law 47 of 2022). For a financial year ending 31 December 2025, that date is 30 September 2026. On 2 September 2026 the FTA repeated the nine-month rule and confirmed there are no extensions outside exceptional cases, including for businesses claiming Small Business Relief. If your deadline has already passed, the late-filing penalty accrues monthly, so the cost of waiting is measurable — see the penalty table further down this page.

To get a return prepared now, call +971 56 500 6694 or email info@dirhamwise.com. We quote a fixed fee before any work begins.

There is no single national filing date. Your deadline is your own financial year-end plus nine months, and the payment deadline is the same date — filing without paying still leaves the late-payment charge running against you.

A first tax period is often longer or shorter than twelve months, and the nine months still run from the end of that period rather than from a calendar anniversary. If you are unsure which period your first return covers, send us your trade licence date and your accounting year-end and we will confirm the date in writing.

The nine months are counted from the end of the tax period, not from the date your financial statements are finalised or audited. If an audit is needed for your return, it has to be planned backwards from the filing date rather than squeezed in after it.

Registration deadlines are a separate set of rules with separate dates and a separate penalty. Those are covered on our corporate tax registration page.

Get your CT return filed. Call +971 56 500 6694, email info@dirhamwise.com, or use the contact form. Monday to Saturday, 9:00am to 6:00pm.

Tax computation: accounting profit to taxable income

The return does not ask for your accounting profit. It asks for taxable income, which is accounting profit adjusted under the Corporate Tax Law. That means identifying non-deductible items, adding back accounting entries the law does not recognise, applying exempt income treatment where it is available, and applying tax losses carried forward from earlier periods.

The computation has to start from financial statements prepared on the right basis. Ministerial Decision 114 of 2023 sets the accounting standards for corporate tax purposes: IFRS is the default, a business with revenue of AED 50m or less may use IFRS for SMEs, and a business with revenue of AED 3m or less may use the cash basis. If your books are on a basis you are not entitled to use, the computation built on them will not hold up, so we check this before anything else.

Preparing and filing the CT return on EmaraTax

We draft the return, send you the computation and the figures we intend to submit, and file only once you have approved them. Returns are filed through EmaraTax, the FTA’s online portal, and the tax is paid through the same portal. We give you the payment reference and a reminder in advance of the due date, because the payment deadline is the filing deadline — there is no separate grace period for paying.

Small Business Relief: whether to elect, and what you give up

Small Business Relief is not automatic and it is not always the better answer. We test eligibility against the revenue rule, and we look at what the election costs you. Under Articles 4 and 5 of Ministerial Decision 73 of 2023, tax losses and net interest expenditure arising in a period where you claimed the relief cannot be carried forward. For a business that expects losses now and profits later, that is a real trade-off, and it is worth modelling before you tick the box.

Free-zone (QFZP) review: qualifying income and the de minimis test

Free-zone companies do not get 0% by being in a free zone. We review the revenue streams against the qualifying activity rules, run the de minimis calculation and tell you where the risk sits — and, where a company is close to the limit, what would tip it over.

Corrections, voluntary disclosures and FTA reconsideration requests

If a return has already gone in with the wrong numbers, we work out whether it should be corrected in the next return or disclosed to the FTA, prepare the disclosure, and handle correspondence and reconsideration requests where the FTA has raised an assessment or a penalty.

Registration and deregistration

We also handle the registration application for businesses that are not yet registered — the timelines, the documents and the late-registration penalty are set out in full on our corporate tax registration page — and, when a business is closing or a licence is being cancelled, the related tax filings, including VAT deregistration.

The AED 375,000 threshold is set by Cabinet Decision 116 of 2022 and applies from the first financial year starting on or after 1 June 2023. The free-zone rates sit in Article 3(2) of the Corporate Tax Law. The band applies to taxable income after the adjustments described above, not to revenue and not to accounting profit. For the exemptions and reliefs that sit behind those rates, see our guide to corporate tax rates and exemptions.

One distinction causes more confusion than any other: AED 375,000 is a taxable income band, AED 3m is a revenue test. A company can have revenue well above AED 3m, be ineligible for Small Business Relief, and still pay 0% on its first AED 375,000 of profit. The two numbers are not alternatives.

Small Business Relief is elected each period in the tax return itself. It is available to a resident person whose revenue is AED 3,000,000 or less in the current tax period and in every previous tax period — if revenue exceeded AED 3m in any earlier period, the business cannot elect the relief again (Article 2(3), Ministerial Decision 73 of 2023). Ministerial Decision 131 of 2026, announced by the Ministry of Finance on 7 August 2026, extended the relief from tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2026 to tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2029; the AED 3m threshold was not changed.

It is not available to a Qualifying Free Zone Person, or to a constituent company of a multinational group with consolidated revenue above AED 3.15bn as defined in Cabinet Decision 44 of 2020. Being part of a group does not by itself disqualify you — the exclusion is about that threshold. The FTA can also deny the relief where a business has been artificially separated to stay under AED 3m (Article 6).

Electing the relief does not remove the filing obligation. Registration is still required and a simplified return is still due by the same nine-month deadline, and the FTA has said so explicitly. For the full eligibility rules, see our Small Business Relief rules.

To pay 0% as a Qualifying Free Zone Person, a free-zone company has to satisfy several conditions at once. Fail any one of them and the company is not a Qualifying Free Zone Person for that period, so its taxable income falls under the standard rates in the table above instead of the 0% qualifying-income rate.

Note how the de minimis test works in practice. For a company with total revenue of AED 40m, 5% is AED 2m, and AED 2m is the lower of the two figures — so the cap is AED 2m, not AED 5m. At total revenue of AED 200m, 5% is AED 10m, so the AED 5m figure becomes the lower one and the cap is AED 5m. The AED 5m number therefore only bites for very large free-zone companies; for most, the binding limit is 5% of revenue. We run this calculation on your actual revenue split rather than on an assumption, and we prepare the accounts and supporting schedules the audited financial statements have to be built on, so the audit can be completed before your filing date rather than after it.

Ministerial Decision 84 of 2025 was issued on 25 March 2025 and applies to tax periods starting on or after 1 January 2025. It sets three triggers.

Two details are worth being precise about. The threshold is revenue exceeding AED 50,000,000, not reaching it. And for a non-resident, only revenue attributable to a UAE permanent establishment or nexus counts. Tax periods that started before 1 January 2025 are still governed by Ministerial Decision 82 of 2023.

The requirement that every tax group prepares audited special-purpose financial statements is the newest element, and it catches groups that previously prepared nothing at group level. If you are in a tax group, plan the audit around your filing date rather than after it: the nine-month deadline does not move because an audit is still running. We prepare the underlying accounts, consolidation schedules and working papers so that the audit has something clean to work from.

These amounts come from Cabinet Decision 75 of 2023. Cabinet Decision 129 of 2025, which took effect on 14 April 2026, amended the penalties for VAT, excise and Tax Procedures — it did not change the corporate tax penalties below. Several pages online treat the two as one change; they are not.

Already late, or think you may have filed something wrong? Call +971 56 500 6694 or email info@dirhamwise.com and we will tell you what the exposure is before you commit to anything.

A missed deadline is not a reason to wait for the next one. Two of the charges above compound: the late-filing penalty steps up after twelve months, and the late-payment charge runs monthly for as long as the tax is outstanding. Work in this order.

1. File first, even if you cannot pay in full yet. The AED 500 monthly penalty runs on the unfiled return and steps up to AED 1,000 a month after twelve months. Filing stops that clock; it does not stop the payment charge.
2. Settle the tax. Unpaid corporate tax attracts 14% per annum, charged monthly on the outstanding amount, and it keeps running until the balance is cleared.
3. Deal with any error in the same exercise. If an earlier return was wrong, a voluntary disclosure made before the FTA raises an audit notice carries 1% per month on the tax difference. Leave it, and the charge if the FTA gets there first is a fixed 15% plus 1% per month.

If you were also registered late, the timing of the first return matters for a separate reason. Under an FTA initiative in effect since April 2025, the AED 10,000 late corporate tax registration penalty is cancelled, or refunded where it has already been paid, if the first tax return or annual declaration is filed within seven months of the end of the first tax period. It applies to the first tax period only, and the FTA has published no end date for the initiative. The registration rules and that penalty are set out in full on our corporate tax registration page.

There are two routes. A voluntary disclosure is a formal submission to the FTA that an earlier return was wrong. A correction in your next return is the lighter route, available for smaller differences. Choosing the wrong one either creates unnecessary penalties or leaves an error unreported.

Two changes to the Tax Procedures rules matter here.

Federal Decree-Law 17 of 2025, in force from 1 January 2026. Excess refundable tax or a credit balance must be claimed or used within five years of the end of the relevant tax period. There is a transitional rule: where that five-year period had already expired before 1 January 2026, or expires within one year after it, the refund request can still be made within one year of 1 January 2026 — in practice, by 31 December 2026. If you are sitting on an old credit balance from around 2018 to 2020, that is a hard date. The same law also allows the FTA to issue binding directives.

Cabinet Decision 17 of 2026, reported to apply from 1 April 2026. Reported amendments to the Tax Procedures Executive Regulation would require a voluntary disclosure within 20 business days where a tax difference exceeds AED 10,000, and allow a difference of AED 10,000 or less to be corrected in the next return; records linked to an unresolved refund or credit-balance claim would be kept for two additional years. We confirm the position in the published decision before advising on a specific disclosure, rather than acting on the reported summary alone.

For corporate tax, records must be kept for 7 years after the end of the tax period they relate to (Article 56, Federal Decree-Law 47 of 2022). That is longer than the general five-year Tax Procedures period, and it is the figure to plan storage around.

The records have to support the computation, not just the bank balance: the general ledger and trial balance the accounting profit comes from, sales and purchase invoices and contracts, the fixed-asset register and depreciation schedules, related-party and connected-person documentation, the revenue history behind any Small Business Relief election, the revenue split by activity behind a free-zone position, and the working papers for every tax adjustment. Kept as you go, that set is simply a by-product of the bookkeeping; reconstructed years later, it is a project.

The practical fix for most businesses is to stop treating the return as an annual scramble. IFRS-compliant bookkeeping maintained through the year means the computation starts from a clean trial balance instead of a reconstruction, and the seven-year record set is complete when you need it.

Most businesses that need a corporate tax consultant in Dubai also have VAT running alongside it, on a completely different clock. VAT returns and payment are due within 28 days of the end of each tax period, quarterly for most registrants and monthly for businesses with annual turnover of AED 150m or more. Corporate tax is annual and due nine months after year-end.

Keeping the two with one firm removes the reconciliation problem: the revenue in your VAT returns and the revenue in your corporate tax computation should agree, and when they do not, that difference is exactly what an FTA reviewer looks at. We run both from the same set of books, and reconcile the annual VAT revenue to the revenue in the corporate tax computation before the return is filed. See our VAT consultants in Dubai page for VAT return filing, and VAT registration if you are not yet registered.

1. Review your books. We check the trial balance, the accounting basis and the closing entries before any tax work starts.
2. Build the computation. Accounting profit to taxable income, with every adjustment documented.
3. Test the reliefs. Small Business Relief, free-zone status, loss relief and exempt income, tested rather than assumed.
4. Draft the return. You receive the computation and the figures we intend to file.
5. You approve. Nothing is submitted before you have signed off the numbers.
6. File and pay. We submit on EmaraTax and give you the payment details and the deadline.

To start, we need the following.

If some of that does not exist yet — no fixed-asset register, or books that stop halfway through the year — say so when you contact us. Rebuilding the accounts is ordinary work and it is better done before the computation than discovered in the middle of it.

Corporate tax return work is quoted as a fixed fee per return, agreed in writing before we start. The fee depends on the size of the business, whether the books need work before the computation can begin, and whether free-zone or group positions have to be reviewed. Send us your trial balance and year-end and we will give you the fee and the filing date together, so you can decide with both in front of you.

When are UAE corporate tax returns due?

No later than nine months after the end of your tax period, under Article 53 of Federal Decree-Law 47 of 2022. The tax itself is payable by the same date. Your deadline depends on your own financial year-end, not on a national filing date — the table near the top of this page gives the date for each common year-end.

What is the due date for a corporate tax return for a 31 December year-end?

For a tax period ending 31 December 2025, the return and the payment are due by 30 September 2026. For a period ending 31 December 2026, the date is 30 September 2027. The same nine-month rule produces both dates.

How do I pay UAE corporate tax online?

Corporate tax is paid through EmaraTax, the FTA’s online portal, where the return is also filed. Use the payment reference generated for your corporate tax liability, and allow time for the payment to settle before the deadline, because the payment deadline is the same date as the filing deadline. If you would like us to handle the submission and give you the payment details, contact us.

Is there an extension to the 30 September 2026 corporate tax deadline?

No. On 2 September 2026 the FTA urged taxable persons to file and settle within nine months of the end of the tax period and confirmed there are no extensions outside exceptional cases. Plan on the nine-month date, and if it has passed, file as soon as possible — the late-filing penalty is charged per month, so each further month adds to it.

Do I have to file a corporate tax return if I claim Small Business Relief?

Yes. Small Business Relief is elected in the return, so the return is how you claim it. A simplified corporate tax return is still due by the same nine-month deadline, and the FTA has confirmed this for Small Business Relief claimants specifically. Registration is also still required.

What is the penalty for filing a corporate tax return late?

Under Cabinet Decision 75 of 2023, AED 500 per month for the first twelve months, then AED 1,000 per month. Separately, unpaid corporate tax attracts 14% per annum, charged monthly on the outstanding amount. These corporate tax penalties were not changed by Cabinet Decision 129 of 2025, which amended the VAT, excise and Tax Procedures penalties.

Do I need audited financial statements to file my corporate tax return?

You do if you fall within Ministerial Decision 84 of 2025, which applies to tax periods starting on or after 1 January 2025: a taxable person that is not a tax group with revenue exceeding AED 50,000,000 in the period, every Qualifying Free Zone Person whatever its revenue, and every tax group, which prepares audited special-purpose financial statements. Periods that started before 1 January 2025 fall under Ministerial Decision 82 of 2023.

Send us your year-end and your latest trial balance and we will confirm your filing deadline and quote a fixed fee before any work begins. Call +971 56 500 6694, email info@dirhamwise.com, or use our contact form. We are at ParkLane Tower, Park Regis, Business Bay, Dubai, open Monday to Saturday, 9:00am to 6:00pm. If you also need bookkeeping or VAT returns, we can quote for those at the same time.