Practical guide
Corporate tax registration
Registration with the Federal Tax Authority is mandatory for every taxable person — including companies that make no profit and free zone companies expecting the 0% rate. Late registration carries an administrative penalty in its own right, separate from any tax due.
In practice
UAE corporate tax registration
Who must register
Effectively every UAE company. The 9% rate applies above AED 375,000 of taxable profit and 0% below it, but the registration obligation does not depend on profitability. Loss-making companies register. Dormant companies register. Free zone companies that will pay nothing register.
The free zone misunderstanding
A Qualifying Free Zone Person can be taxed at 0% on qualifying income. That is a status tested annually against substance, activity and de minimis conditions — not an exemption conferred by the address, and not a reason to skip registration. Failing any test moves the whole company to the standard rate, and generally bars the 0% position for several subsequent years.
- Rate
- 0% up to AED 375,000 of taxable profit, 9% above
- Effective from
- Financial years beginning on or after 1 June 2023
- Registration
- Mandatory regardless of profit or free zone status
- Late registration
- Administrative penalty, separate from any tax
- Filing
- An annual return after the financial year end
- Free zone 0%
- Available on qualifying income where substance tests are met
The sequence
How it runs.
Determine the first tax period
It follows your financial year, which is set in the incorporation documents.
Register with the FTA
Through the EmaraTax portal, with the licence, MOA and details of the ultimate ownership.
Assess the free zone position
If you intend to claim qualifying free zone status, test it honestly before relying on it.
Keep books that support a return
Bookkeeping stopped being optional the day the regime started.
File the annual return
Within the deadline following your financial year end.
Questions
Yes. Registration is mandatory for every taxable person, including free zone companies expecting to pay 0% on qualifying income. The rate and the registration obligation are separate matters.
0% on taxable profit up to AED 375,000 and 9% above it, for financial years beginning on or after 1 June 2023.
An administrative penalty applies for failing to register within the deadline, and it applies whether or not any tax is owed. Deadlines are tied to licence issue dates, so they differ between companies.
Yes. The obligation follows being a taxable person, not being profitable or active.
One question
Where are you in this?
Then this is the cheap moment to get it right. Structure, jurisdiction and activity codes are the decisions that are expensive to reverse once a bank account and six visas hang off them.
Answer five questionsOr just ask usMost of what goes wrong at this stage is a document mismatch rather than a refusal — the wrong activity on the licence, an unattested certificate, a name that does not match the trade. Usually fixable faster than it looks.
Tell us what is stuckOr just ask usWe quote a single all-in figure with every government fee itemised beside our own, before you commit to anything. No commission from any authority.
How we chargeOr just ask us