Annual Corporate Tax Package UAE: AED 249 (SBR) or AED 499 (Full Return) Per Year

What is the annual corporate tax package UAE and what does it cost?

The annual corporate tax package UAE is a fixed-fee subscription from Fastlane that covers one full year of corporate tax compliance for a single UAE company: return preparation, EmaraTax submission, FTA acknowledgement and deadline management. It costs AED 249 + VAT per year for Small Business Relief (SBR) filers and AED 499 + VAT per year for full-return filers. It is the subscription version of our corporate tax filing service, priced lower than a walk-in filing because the work is planned months ahead rather than compressed into the last week before the deadline.

Since Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 took effect for financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023, every UAE company — mainland, free zone, active or dormant — is a taxable person that must register with the Federal Tax Authority and file a corporate tax return within nine months of its financial year end. Most Dubai SMEs now have two or three filing cycles behind them, and the pattern is familiar: the deadline arrives quietly, the accountant is chased for numbers, and the return is submitted at 11pm with AED 500-per-month penalties one day away. The annual package exists to remove that cycle entirely.

The choice between the two tiers comes down to a single question: does your company qualify for and want to elect Small Business Relief? If yes, the lighter AED 249 tier applies. If no — because revenue exceeds AED 3 million, because you have elected Qualifying Free Zone Person status, or because you want to preserve tax losses — the AED 499 full-return tier applies. The sections below walk through both, then compare the package model with ad-hoc filing, show worked AED examples and explain exactly what happens after you subscribe.

Who qualifies for the AED 249 Small Business Relief package?

The AED 249 SBR tier is for UAE resident taxable persons whose revenue is AED 3,000,000 or less in the current tax period and in every previous tax period, that are not Qualifying Free Zone Persons and not members of a multinational group with consolidated revenue above EUR 750 million. Small Business Relief is available for tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2029 [VERIFY] under Ministerial Decision No. 73 of 2023 as amended, and must be elected afresh in each return.

In practice this tier covers the majority of Dubai's small companies: single-shareholder consultancies, freelance-style FZCOs in IFZA or Meydan, trading LLCs still under the AED 3 million mark, holding companies with a single rental property, and dormant entities that registered because registration is mandatory but have never traded. Under SBR the company is treated as having no taxable income for the period, so no corporate tax is payable, no transfer pricing documentation is required, and the return itself is a simplified declaration rather than a full computation. Our Small Business Relief service page covers the eligibility tests in more depth.

Three conditions trip people up. First, the revenue test looks at all revenue, not profit, and it is cumulative: once you exceed AED 3 million in any tax period you lose SBR permanently, even if revenue falls again later. Second, a free zone company that has elected QFZP status cannot also elect SBR — it is one regime or the other. Third, electing SBR means you cannot carry forward that year's tax losses or unused net interest expenditure, so a start-up in a loss-making growth phase may deliberately choose the full-return tier instead. Fastlane checks all three during onboarding before recommending a tier.

When do you need the AED 499 full corporate tax return package?

You need the AED 499 full-return tier if your revenue exceeds AED 3 million, if you have elected Qualifying Free Zone Person status, if you want to carry forward tax losses, or if your affairs include related-party transactions, foreign branches or multiple business lines. In these cases the return must include a complete taxable income computation, and the FTA expects the figures to reconcile to financial statements prepared under IFRS or IFRS for SMEs.

The AED 499 tier covers the full preparation work: adjusting accounting profit to taxable income, reviewing disallowed and partially deductible expenses (entertainment at 50%, fines, non-business costs), applying the 0% rate on the first AED 375,000 and 9% above it, checking exempt income such as qualifying dividends and participation exemptions, completing the related-party and connected-person schedules where thresholds are met, and submitting the return on EmaraTax. Companies with a QFZP election also need the de minimis test (non-qualifying revenue below the lower of AED 5 million or 5% of total revenue) documented in the working papers, and the AED 375,000 nil band does not apply to a QFZP's non-qualifying income.

Two things are not in the AED 499 fee. Financial statement preparation is a separate engagement — if you use Fastlane's accounting and bookkeeping service the financials are already produced monthly, and the CT return simply pulls from them. Statutory audit, which is mandatory for revenue above AED 50 million, for every QFZP, and for several free zones' licence renewals regardless of revenue (see our IFZA audit page as an example), is also quoted separately. Larger groups needing transfer pricing disclosure forms or a master/local file are quoted on the enterprise plan from AED 999.

What exactly is included in each annual CT package?

Both tiers include return preparation, EmaraTax submission, FTA acknowledgement handling, deadline tracking with reminders and email support. The AED 499 tier adds the taxable income calculation, deductions review and tax computation that a full return requires. Registration, bookkeeping, financial statements and audit are separate. The table below is the definitive inclusion list.

The reason the SBR tier is so much cheaper is genuine: an SBR return has no computation schedule, no adjustments and no disclosure forms. The reviewer's time goes into confirming eligibility, evidencing the revenue figure and making the election correctly — the step most DIY filers get wrong, because the election box is easy to miss on EmaraTax and cannot be backdated once the return is submitted.

What are the UAE corporate tax filing deadlines and penalties in 2026?

A corporate tax return must be filed, and any tax paid, within nine months of the end of the tax period. Late filing attracts AED 500 per month for the first twelve months and AED 1,000 per month thereafter, and late payment attracts a separate 14% per annum penalty on the unpaid tax, under Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023 as amended by Cabinet Decision No. 10 of 2024. These penalties accrue automatically on EmaraTax; there is no warning letter first.

Note that these are corporate tax penalties. VAT penalties are governed by a different instrument — Cabinet Decision No. 129 of 2025, effective 14 April 2026 — and should not be confused with the CT schedule above. Multiple unfiled periods accumulate independently: a company that skipped both its 2024 and 2025 returns is running two AED 500-per-month meters at once.

How does the annual corporate tax package compare with pay-per-filing?

The annual package costs less per return than a walk-in filing, guarantees the deadline is tracked by someone other than you, and keeps the same reviewer on your file year after year. Pay-per-filing suits a company that has strong in-house finance and simply wants a one-off submission; for everyone else the fixed-fee model removes the single biggest cause of CT penalties in Dubai, which is not complexity but forgetting.

Continuity matters more than it sounds. The FTA can query a return well after submission, and an EmaraTax notice landing in a founder's inbox two years later is far easier to handle when the same team that prepared the return still holds the working papers. Under the annual package those files stay with us, organised by tax period, for the seven-year record-keeping window.

Worked example: what does a small Dubai company actually pay?

A dormant IFZA company with zero revenue pays AED 249 + VAT for the year and no corporate tax; a trading LLC with AED 2.4 million revenue pays the same AED 249 and no tax if it elects SBR; a company with AED 4.2 million revenue and AED 615,000 taxable income pays AED 499 for the package and AED 21,600 in corporate tax. The three scenarios below show the arithmetic.

How does the Fastlane annual corporate tax package process work?

Subscribing takes one WhatsApp message and a copy of your trade licence; from there the process runs in five steps over roughly two weeks of active work, timed to finish at least 30 days before your deadline. You approve a draft before anything is submitted to the FTA.

1. Onboarding and tier check — You share your trade licence, corporate tax TRN (or we register you for corporate tax at AED 199 first), financial year and prior-year revenue. We confirm SBR eligibility, QFZP status and any loss position, and recommend the AED 249 or AED 499 tier.
2. Deadline mapping — Your tax period and its 9-month deadline are logged on our compliance calendar. You receive reminders at 90, 60 and 30 days, and we begin data collection at the 60-day mark.
3. Financial data collection — SBR filers send a revenue confirmation and bank statements. Full-return filers send financial statements, a trial balance export from Zoho Books, QuickBooks or Xero, or grant us read access to their ledger.
4. Return preparation and review — We prepare the return on EmaraTax: election of SBR, or the full taxable income computation at 0% to AED 375,000 and 9% above, plus any related-party schedules. You receive a draft with a plain-English summary to approve.
5. Submission and acknowledgement — After your sign-off we submit on EmaraTax, guide any tax payment through the FTA's payment channels, and file the acknowledgement in your compliance folder. The clock then resets for next year.

Renewal is automatic unless you tell us otherwise, and the tier is re-assessed each year. If a company grows past AED 3 million we move it to the full-return tier for the next period; if a full-return company shrinks or goes dormant we check whether SBR can now be elected (it can, provided the AED 3 million cap was never breached in a prior period). Companies that close down are moved to corporate tax deregistration at AED 399, which requires a final return within three months of cessation.

Which add-ons do most subscribers combine with the annual CT package?

Most annual CT package subscribers add one of three services: one-time corporate tax registration at AED 199 if they are not yet registered, quarterly VAT return filing at AED 199 per quarter if they hold a VAT TRN, or monthly bookkeeping from AED 499 per month so the numbers the CT return relies on exist before the deadline. The CT package deliberately stays narrow so that companies pay only for what they need.

If you already maintain books with your own accountant, none of these are needed — the AED 499 tier simply works from the trial balance you provide. If you maintain no books at all and are a full-return filer, expect us to insist on at least a year-end financial statement engagement, because a corporate tax return that does not reconcile to financial statements is the first thing the FTA questions on review.

Do dormant and zero-revenue companies still need the annual CT package?

Yes. A registered taxable person must file a corporate tax return for every tax period regardless of activity, and a dormant company that skips the return accrues the same AED 500-per-month penalty as an active one. The AED 249 SBR tier is designed precisely for zero-revenue companies: elect Small Business Relief, report nil, submit, and keep the acknowledgement on file for the seven-year retention period.

This is the single most common misunderstanding we encounter. Founders assume that "no business, no tax" also means "no return". It does not. The obligation to file follows registration, and registration is mandatory for every juridical person incorporated in the UAE. A company that has sat idle since 2023 with no bank movement still owes a return for each tax period since its first, and the penalties for two skipped periods now comfortably exceed AED 10,000 — for returns that would have cost AED 249 each.

There are only two clean exits. Either keep the company alive and file nil SBR returns each year under the annual package, or liquidate the entity and complete CT deregistration with a final return within three months of the cessation date. What you cannot do is leave the licence lapsed and the CT registration open: the FTA's meter keeps running on the tax period whether or not the free zone has cancelled the licence. If you are undecided, the AED 249 nil filing buys you a penalty-free year to decide.

Key terms used in this guide