Annual VAT + Corporate Tax Package UAE: From AED 1,045 Per Year for All 5 Filings

How much does the annual VAT + corporate tax package UAE cost?

The annual VAT + corporate tax package UAE costs AED 1,045 + VAT per year for companies electing Small Business Relief and AED 1,295 + VAT per year for companies filing a full corporate tax return. The price is simply the sum of the two components — four quarterly VAT return filings at AED 199 each (AED 796) and one annual corporate tax return filing at AED 249 or AED 499 — but bundled onto one invoice, one compliance calendar and one team.

A company that is registered for both taxes carries five statutory filings a year, and the two regimes do not share a timeline. VAT runs on the FTA-assigned tax period (usually calendar quarters) with a hard 28-day filing and payment window under the VAT Law and Cabinet Decision No. 129 of 2025. Corporate tax runs on the company's own financial year with a nine-month window under Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 and Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023. Different laws, different penalty schedules, different EmaraTax modules — and, for most SMEs, the same one person expected to remember all of it.

Both tiers are subscriptions billed annually and renewed automatically unless cancelled. The corporate tax tier is re-assessed every year against the AED 3 million Small Business Relief revenue cap, so a company that grows past the threshold moves to the AED 1,295 tier for the following period without any change to the VAT side.

What does the VAT component of the bundle include each quarter?

Every quarter the VAT component covers input/output VAT reconciliation, preparation of the VAT 201 return, submission on EmaraTax before the 28-day deadline, confirmation that any net VAT payable has been settled, and filing of the FTA acknowledgement. The AED 199 fee is per return, so a company on monthly VAT periods (assigned by the FTA to larger taxpayers) is quoted separately at twelve returns a year.

The reconciliation step is where most of the value sits. Output VAT on sales at 5% is matched against recoverable input VAT on purchases, imports under the reverse charge mechanism are picked up in boxes 3 and 6/7, zero-rated exports and out-of-scope supplies are classified correctly, and blocked input VAT (entertainment, personal vehicles, employee benefits without a legal obligation) is excluded. A return where these are wrong does not just risk a penalty — it usually means the company is either over-paying or building up a refund position it never claims. Our VAT refund service picks up the latter when it happens.

The VAT component also includes nil returns. A VAT-registered company with no transactions in a quarter must still submit a VAT 201 showing zeros; the AED 1,000 late-filing penalty applies to a missed nil return exactly as it applies to a missed return with AED 2 million of sales. If your revenue has fallen and you expect to stay below AED 187,500, we will flag VAT deregistration instead of continuing to bill you for nil returns.

What does the corporate tax component include each year?

The corporate tax component covers preparation and EmaraTax submission of the annual CT return, FTA acknowledgement and follow-up, and deadline tracking with reminders at 90, 60 and 30 days. On the AED 249 tier that means confirming Small Business Relief eligibility and making the election; on the AED 499 tier it means a full taxable income computation with deductions review, exempt income checks and related-party schedules where thresholds are met.

The choice of tier is driven by one test. If revenue in the current and every prior tax period is AED 3 million or less, the company is not a Qualifying Free Zone Person and it is not part of a EUR 750 million multinational group, it can elect Small Business Relief and is treated as having nil taxable income for the year. Relief is available for tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2029 [VERIFY] and must be elected in each return. Otherwise the company files a full return and pays 0% on the first AED 375,000 of taxable income and 9% above it. The standalone annual corporate tax package guide walks through the tier decision in detail, including why a loss-making start-up may prefer the full return.

Because the same team files both taxes, the corporate tax reviewer starts with a reconciliation that a standalone CT preparer never has: the four VAT 201 returns already on file. Total taxable and exempt supplies declared for VAT are compared with revenue in the accounts before the CT return is drafted. Differences are legitimate in many cases (VAT is transaction-timed, CT follows IFRS revenue recognition; exports, out-of-scope income and inter-company recharges sit differently), but each one is documented. That single cross-check is the most common source of an FTA query on a corporate tax return, and under the bundle it is answered before the return goes in.

Who needs the VAT + corporate tax bundle?

The bundle is for any UAE company that holds both a VAT TRN and a corporate tax TRN and keeps its own books. That describes most active mainland and free zone companies with taxable supplies above AED 375,000, because corporate tax registration is mandatory for every UAE juridical person regardless of revenue, and VAT registration becomes mandatory the moment the AED 375,000 threshold is crossed.

VAT registration is mandatory when taxable supplies and imports exceed AED 375,000 in the previous 12 months or are expected to exceed it in the next 30 days, and voluntary above AED 187,500 of taxable supplies or expenses. Once registered, quarterly (or monthly) VAT 201 returns are compulsory. If you are approaching the threshold, Fastlane's VAT registration service at AED 199 handles the EmaraTax application and TRN issuance; the late-registration penalty is AED 10,000.

Corporate tax registration is mandatory for every company incorporated in the UAE — mainland LLCs, free zone FZCOs and FZEs, branches, dormant entities — and for resident natural persons whose UAE business turnover exceeds AED 1 million. The late-registration penalty is also AED 10,000. CT registration at AED 199 is the first step if you do not yet hold a CT TRN.

The bundle is not the right fit for two groups. Companies below the VAT threshold and not voluntarily registered only need the standalone annual CT package. Companies with no bookkeeping function at all need the annual accounting package instead, because five accurate filings cannot be produced from a bank statement and a shoebox — see the comparison further down.

What are the VAT and corporate tax deadlines and penalties in 2026?

VAT 201 returns and payments are due 28 days after the end of each tax period; late filing costs AED 1,000 for a first offence and AED 2,000 for a repeat within 24 months, and late payment is charged at 14% per annum, accruing monthly, under Cabinet Decision No. 129 of 2025 (effective 14 April 2026). Corporate tax returns and payments are due nine months after the financial year end; late filing costs AED 500 per month for the first twelve months and AED 1,000 per month thereafter, and late payment is charged at 14% per annum under Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023 as amended.

Note the change in the VAT late-payment rule. Until April 2026 the schedule was 2% immediately, 4% after seven days and 1% per day thereafter; Cabinet Decision 129/2025 replaced it with a flat 14% per annum charged monthly. Older Fastlane posts and most competitor pages still quote the old figures. The two regimes now carry the same late-payment rate, but the late-filing penalties remain very different: VAT is a fixed sum per return, corporate tax is a monthly meter.

Why does the bundle beat filing VAT and corporate tax separately?

The bundle beats separate filing on four counts: one team sees both tax positions and reconciles them, all five deadlines sit on one calendar, the annual cost is fixed at AED 1,045 or AED 1,295, and the same working papers are available if the FTA raises a query on either tax months later. Separate providers, or DIY filing, lose the reconciliation entirely and usually lose at least one deadline a year.

The reconciliation point deserves emphasis. The FTA holds both your VAT and your corporate tax returns and its systems compare them. A company declaring AED 2.1 million of taxable supplies across four VAT returns and AED 1.6 million of revenue on its corporate tax return will be asked to explain the gap. There may be a perfectly good answer — deposits taxed for VAT but deferred for CT, disposals of fixed assets, out-of-scope grants — but if two different firms prepared the two sets of returns, nobody has the answer ready.

Worked example: what does a Dubai SME pay under the bundle?

A trading LLC with AED 2.2 million revenue pays AED 1,045 + VAT for the year and, electing SBR, no corporate tax; a consultancy with AED 4.5 million revenue and AED 700,000 taxable income pays AED 1,295 + VAT for the bundle and AED 29,250 in corporate tax. The two examples below also show the penalty cost of the alternative.

How does a year on the VAT + corporate tax bundle actually run?

A bundle year is five short cycles: one data pull, review and EmaraTax submission for each VAT quarter, and one longer cycle for the corporate tax return that begins 60 days before the nine-month deadline. You approve every draft before submission and receive the FTA acknowledgement for each filing.

1. Onboarding and calendar build — You share both TRNs, your VAT tax period, financial year and last year's revenue. We confirm the SBR tier and load all five deadlines onto our compliance calendar with 14-day (VAT) and 90/60/30-day (CT) reminders.
2. Quarterly VAT data pull — Two weeks before each period closes you export sales and purchase reports from Zoho Books, QuickBooks, Xero or Excel, or grant us read access. We reconcile output and input VAT, apply reverse-charge and zero-rating rules and draft the VAT 201.
3. Quarterly review, submission and payment — You approve the draft; we submit on EmaraTax before day 28 and confirm the payment reference for any net VAT due, so the 14% per annum late-payment charge never starts.
4. Year-end corporate tax preparation — Sixty days before the CT deadline we reconcile the four VAT returns to annual revenue, re-test the AED 3 million SBR cap, and either make the election or compute taxable income at 0% to AED 375,000 and 9% above.
5. CT submission and file close — After your sign-off the return is filed on EmaraTax, any tax is paid, and the five acknowledgements are stored in your compliance folder for the seven-year record-keeping period. The calendar rolls forward.

Should you choose the VAT + CT bundle or the annual accounting package?

Choose the VAT + CT bundle (AED 1,045–1,295) if you already have an accountant or a clean cloud ledger and only need the five filings handled. Choose the annual accounting package (AED 5,488 per year) if you have no bookkeeping function, because it adds monthly bookkeeping and financial statement preparation to the same VAT and CT filings and saves AED 500 against paying monthly.

The honest test is whether your ledger can produce a trial balance today. If it can, the bundle is enough and the accounting package would be paying for work you already do. If it cannot — if "the books" mean a bank statement and a folder of invoices — then the AED 499 full corporate tax return cannot be prepared without a financial statement engagement anyway, and the accounting and bookkeeping service becomes the cheaper route once that is priced in.

Does the bundle work for free zone companies?

Yes. A free zone company with a VAT TRN files the same quarterly VAT 201 returns as a mainland company, and for corporate tax it chooses between the AED 249 Small Business Relief tier and the AED 499 full-return tier exactly as a mainland company does. The only free zone-specific decision is whether to elect Qualifying Free Zone Person status, which rules out Small Business Relief and puts the company on the AED 1,295 bundle.

On the VAT side, free zone status changes almost nothing. Designated zones (JAFZA, DAFZA, KIZAD, Hamriyah and others listed in Cabinet Decision 59/2017) are treated as outside the UAE only for specific goods movements; services and most goods supplied to mainland customers remain standard-rated at 5%. IFZA, Meydan, DMCC and DIFC are not designated zones and follow the mainland VAT rules entirely. Every free zone company above AED 375,000 of taxable supplies files quarterly.

On the corporate tax side, a free zone company is a taxable person like any other. A QFZP pays 0% on qualifying income only if it meets the substance, audited-financial-statement and de minimis conditions under Ministerial Decision 229/2025 — and its non-qualifying income is taxed at 9% from the first dirham, with no AED 375,000 nil band. Because QFZP status requires audited financials every year, most small IFZA and Meydan licence holders serving UAE customers find the AED 249 SBR route both cheaper and simpler. Zones such as IFZA, DMCC and JAFZA may still require an audit for licence renewal; see our free zone audit services if that applies to you.

Key terms used in this guide