Tax & compliance
Record keeping and retention periods
Seven years for corporate tax records, five for VAT, longer for real estate. The obligation survives the company, which matters when you are closing one down.
The rule
What the law actually requires.
UAE tax law requires records to be maintained for prescribed periods after the relevant tax period. Corporate tax records are generally kept for seven years after the end of the tax period to which they relate. VAT records are kept for five years, extended to fifteen years for records relating to real estate. Records include the accounting books themselves, invoices issued and received, contracts, bank statements, customs documentation and any working papers supporting positions taken in a return.
Two aspects are commonly missed. The first is that the obligation attaches to the records rather than to the company's continued existence: closing a company does not discharge it, and a liquidator or the former directors need to have made arrangements for the records to be retained and accessible. The second is that records supporting a position — the working paper explaining why a supply was zero-rated, the basis for a related party price, the evidence for a qualifying free zone claim — matter as much as the invoices. On audit, a correct position with no documentation is often treated the same as an incorrect one.
Thresholds and deadlines
- Corporate tax
- Generally 7 years from the end of the tax period
- VAT
- 5 years
- Real estate records
- 15 years
- Scope
- Books, invoices, contracts, bank statements, customs documents
- Working papers
- Evidence supporting positions taken, not just transactions
- On closure
- The obligation survives the company
The compliance calendar
What to do
The filing, step by step.
- Keep records in a form that survives staff turnoverA folder on a departing bookkeeper's laptop is not retention.
- Document positions at the time they are takenWhy a supply was zero-rated, how a related party price was set, what supports the qualifying claim.
- Retain customs and shipping documentationIt is what supports zero-rating on exports and import VAT treatment.
- Apply the longer period where categories overlapA real estate transaction record is kept for fifteen years even though general VAT records are five.
- Arrange retention before closing the companyThe obligation continues, and nobody thinks about it during a liquidation.
Related
Questions
Generally seven years for corporate tax and five for VAT, extended to fifteen years for records relating to real estate.
Yes. The retention obligation attaches to the records and survives the company's dissolution.
Accounting books, invoices issued and received, contracts, bank statements, customs documentation, and working papers supporting positions taken.
Yes, provided they are complete, legible and retrievable for the whole retention period.
One question
How are the books actually kept?
Then the question is whether the audit is scoped for what it is now carrying. If you rely on a qualifying free zone position, the audited accounts are a condition of the 0% rate rather than a renewal formality — and that is a different engagement.
What the audit has to supportOr just ask usThat was sufficient when there was no tax. Taxable income is now computed from accounting profit under IFRS, so the work has to happen anyway — and reconstructing two years after the fact costs more and produces worse numbers than doing it monthly.
What is actually requiredOr just ask usThen start before the year end rather than at the filing deadline. The return cannot be prepared without accounts, audit capacity here is seasonal, and a late audit delays the licence renewal as well as the tax return.
Getting the year end rightOr just ask us