What an accounting firm in Dubai does for a foreign-owned company

What does our accounting firm keep on top of?

We keep the ongoing numbers in order so you can run the business. Once you’re running, they’re the part that quietly goes wrong — missed registrations, late returns, books that aren’t in a state the authorities, a bank or an investor would accept.

Our in-house accounting and bookkeeping services cover:

Audit and liquidation are separate statutory jobs; we coordinate those with the audit firms we use.

The next dated obligation is e-invoicing. A business inside the e-invoicing system with revenue under AED 50 million has to appoint an Accredited Service Provider by 31 March 2027. It has to run the electronic invoicing system from 1 July 2027. In the Ministry of Finance’s words, that business “shall appoint an Accredited Service Provider” and “shall implement the Electronic Invoicing System”. Business-to-consumer sales sit outside it for now. The rule is in the Ministry of Finance’s decision on the e-invoicing system.

That is an invoicing and bookkeeping change rather than a tax question, so it sits with us. We would rather have you on a provider and tested before the deadline than in the month of it.

The UAE side is ours — bookkeeping, VAT, corporate-tax compliance and payroll, all handled in house. Your own tax position back in the UK, Ireland or Australia is not: that needs advice from someone qualified in that country, and we work with tax partners who give it. We will put you in front of them. Nobody here, Gareth included, advises on UK, Irish or Australian tax. For how that works in practice, see a case study of a UAE company we set up alongside the UK tax advisers a client already had.

What happens once the company is set up?

Once the company is set up, we register it for corporate tax, introduce you to your accountant and keep the books, VAT and year-end return going from there. The accounting is the last part of one job, not a separate service bolted on afterwards.

At Start Business Services we form the company, sort the visas and the Emirates ID and open the bank account, then keep the bookkeeping, VAT, corporate tax and management accounts in-house. Audit and liquidation aren’t done in-house. They go to outside firms, and we tell you which one before the work starts. This is how the first year runs.

Corporate tax registration, straight after the Emirates ID. The registration needs your Emirates ID, so once it’s issued our accountant team registers the company with the Federal Tax Authority and you get the details. That takes the registration deadline, and the penalty for missing it, off your list early.

You meet the accountant. We introduce you to the accountant who will keep your books, and you agree how often they need doing: monthly, or less often if very little goes through the business. That is also when you get a straight answer on what it will cost.

Invoices that say what the licence says. A new UAE business account is watched closely at the start: what comes in, who it’s from, and whether it matches what you told the bank the company does. One client had a large payment held because his invoice just said “retainer”, which meant nothing next to his licence. He reissued it describing the consultancy management work he was actually being paid for, and the money was released.

Money held at the bank is money you can’t use, so the lesson is simple. Every invoice should describe the work in the same terms as the activity on your licence. If you’re not sure how to word one, ask us before you send it.

VAT when the numbers say so. With the books kept current, the registration line doesn’t creep up on you. The turnover is there to see as the year goes, so you register when it’s due rather than finding out months later.

One return at year-end, built from books that are already done. For most of the one-to-five-person businesses we work with, the relief that matters is Small Business Relief, not the free zone 0% rate. A free zone company can elect for it too, as long as it isn’t claiming that 0% rate. If the company qualifies, it’s treated as having no taxable income for the year, so the profit stays in the business to reinvest instead of going on corporate tax. The return still has to go in, and we submit it.

How does VAT work for a UAE company?

VAT has been in place in the UAE since January 2018, at a standard rate of 5%. The Ministry of Finance gives the rate in plain terms: “a standard rate of 5%”. Two numbers decide whether it applies to you, and both are published by the Federal Tax Authority:

• AED 375,000 — once your taxable turnover passes this over the previous twelve months, registration is mandatory. It is also mandatory if you expect to pass it within the next 30 days.
• AED 187,500 — you can register voluntarily from here. That sometimes makes sense if you’re reclaiming VAT on set-up costs.

Once registered, you charge 5% where it applies, and submit a return for each tax period within 28 days of its end. The standard period is three months, and the Federal Tax Authority can set a different one for some businesses. Both rules are in the UAE’s VAT regulations.

Not every company has to register on day one, and not every sale carries VAT. We work out where you actually stand first. Registering early when you don’t have to just gives you returns to submit.

How does corporate tax work for a UAE company?

Unless it is on the special free zone 0% rate, a company pays 0% on the first AED 375,000 of taxable profit and 9% on anything above that, as the UAE’s corporate tax law sets out. The law calls a company on that special rate a Qualifying Free Zone Person. That law applies to financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023. The AED 375,000 figure itself comes from a Cabinet decision on the threshold.

A few things matter for a foreign-owned company:

• Registration is its own deadline. A company set up on or after 1 March 2024 generally has to register for corporate tax within three months of being established, under the Federal Tax Authority’s decision on registration timelines. Late registration carries an AED 10,000 penalty, set by the Cabinet’s decision on corporate tax penalties, as amended.
• Companies set up before 1 March 2024 had a different deadline. Theirs was fixed by the month the licence was issued, whatever the year. Those deadlines ran from 31 May 2024 to 31 December 2024, under the same Federal Tax Authority decision, and they have all passed. If you are not sure the company registered in time, tell us and we will check where it stands.
• One return a year. You submit once, and pay once, within nine months of your financial year-end, with no instalments, as the corporate tax law sets out. A year ending 31 December 2025 is submitted and paid by 30 September 2026.
• Free zone companies still have to deal with it. A free zone is one of the UAE’s designated business zones, with its own company registrar. A free zone company can keep 0% on its qualifying income if it meets the Qualifying Free Zone Person conditions, but income that doesn’t qualify is taxed at 9%. The conditions are real substance in the UAE, qualifying income, transfer-pricing compliance and audited financial statements.
• Qualifying income is, broadly, income from dealings with other free zone companies, and from the activities the rules list as qualifying. Transfer-pricing compliance means charging market rates on anything you invoice between your own companies. A free zone company is not automatically tax-free. The 0% sits in the corporate tax law and a Cabinet decision on qualifying income. A Ministry of Finance decision lists the qualifying and excluded activities.
• Small Business Relief. Under the Ministry of Finance’s Small Business Relief decision, as amended, a resident business with revenue at or below AED 3,000,000 can elect to be treated as having no taxable income. That applies to tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2029. Resident means a company incorporated in the UAE, or managed and controlled from here. The revenue test covers the relevant tax period and every earlier one. Once the AED 3,000,000 threshold is breached in any tax period, the relief is gone for good.
• It isn’t available to Qualifying Free Zone Persons. On timing, the amendment to that decision says the threshold will “continue to apply to subsequent Tax Periods that end on or before 31 December 2029”. That window closes then, so if you are electing now, ask us what applies to the period after it.
• The relief doesn’t remove the filing. If you elect for Small Business Relief you still register for corporate tax, and you still submit the annual return on time.

We register you, keep the books in a state the return can be built from, and submit it. That is the UAE compliance side, and it is handled in house. Advice on your own tax position back home is a different job, and it comes from qualified tax partners we work with.

Which standard do your books need, and what about substance and tax treaties?

Your books have to be kept to a recognised standard. For UAE corporate tax that standard is IFRS, the International Financial Reporting Standards. A company with revenue at or below AED 50,000,000 may use IFRS for SMEs instead. One at or below AED 3,000,000 may use the cash basis. The Ministry of Finance’s decision on accounting standards says a taxable business “shall apply the International Financial Reporting Standards”. We keep the books to whichever one applies, so the return and any audit are built from accounts the authorities accept.

Substance is the other word that gets used loosely. For corporate tax it means real activity in the UAE: people, premises and decisions actually here. It is one of the Qualifying Free Zone Person conditions above. It is not a separate annual filing any more. The old Economic Substance reporting requirement was cancelled for financial years ending after 31 December 2022, by a Cabinet decision. That was announced by the Ministry of Finance in October 2024. If someone is still selling you an ESR return, ask what for.

Double tax treaties are the third question we get. The UAE has a wide treaty network, published by the Ministry of Finance. The UAE side of using one is ordinary compliance work: books that stand up and the return filed on time, in the company’s name. Whether a treaty actually changes your position back in the UK, Ireland or Australia is a question for a tax adviser qualified there. That part is not ours, and we will say so.

What do our accounting services cost?

Our basic accounting and tax for a small business starts from AED 1,000 a month on the prices we set in May 2026, depending on how much goes through the business. When an audit’s needed, we arrange it with one of the audit firms we use, and in our experience it usually comes to around AED 4,000. A company with a handful of invoices a month costs less to keep than one with hundreds, and a business with very few transactions might not need its accounts done every month.

Before anything starts, we put you in front of the accountant who will actually keep your books, so you get a clear read on what you need to do, what it’ll cost, and how often you should be doing your accounts.

When does a company need an audit, and how is it closed down?

Some companies have to have their financial statements audited, for example every DMCC company and any free zone company relying on the 0% Qualifying Free Zone Person rate. DMCC’s own Company Regulations and the Ministry of Finance’s decision on audited financial statements set those out. Audit is a separate statutory job. We don’t sign off our own numbers, so we bring in an outside audit firm.

If a company has reached the end of its life, closing it down properly is its own process. That means deregistering it, settling its obligations, getting the sign-offs from the free zone or from Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism, from immigration and from the Federal Tax Authority, and closing the bank account. The Department of Economy and Tourism (the DED) licenses mainland companies. We run the closure with the same firms.

Why one firm for setup and the numbers

At Start Business Services we keep the accounting in-house here in Dubai, because it means you deal with the same person every year. The person who handled your setup and your bank account stays involved afterwards — so when the first VAT return or corporate-tax return comes round, nothing has to be explained from scratch. Whoever does your books already knows how the company is owned and how it banks. You deal with the same advisor, year after year.

We don’t do forensic accounting, valuations, litigation support or the consolidation a large group needs — that work belongs with a full-service firm. We also don’t take on a backlog of old books, or take the work over part-way through from another accountant. We do a narrow set of things properly, and we would rather tell you that at the start.

“From the very first moment, everything just felt surprisingly easy and straightforward. Every step that I thought might be complicated or stressful turned out to be simple, because Gareth explained things so clearly and always had a solution ready before I even had time to worry.”

— Rimantas Petrauskas · Google review